286 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



mind against associating the highest ethical ends 

 with forces in their first stage almost physical, is 

 to confess a truth which all must feel. Even 

 Haeckel, in contrasting the tiny rootlet of sex- 

 attraction between two microscopic cells with the 

 mighty after-efflorescence of love in the history of 

 mankind, is staggered at the audacity of the thought, 

 and pauses in the heart of a profound scientific 

 investigation to reflect upon it After a panegyric 

 in which he says, " We glorify love as the source of 

 the most splendid creations of art ; of the noblest 

 productions of poetry, of plastic art and of music ; we 

 reverence in it the most powerful factor in human 

 civilization, the basis of family life, and, conse- 

 quently, of the development of the state"; . . . 

 he adds, " So wonderful is love, and so immeasur- 

 ably important is its influence on mental life, that 

 in this point, more than in any other, 'supernatural' 

 causation seems to mock every natural explana- 

 tion." It is the mystery of Nature, that between 

 the loftiest spiritual heights and the lowliest phys- 

 ical depths, there should seem to run a pathway 

 which the intellect of Man may climb. Haeckel 

 has spoken, and rightly, from the standpoint of 

 humanity ; yet he continues, and with equal right, 

 from the standpoint of the naturalist. " Notwith- 

 standing all this, the comparative history of evclu- 



