INTKODUCTION 11 



Englishman can understand him without sober 

 study of his life. He has often been called '^ the 

 Darwin of Germany." The phrase is most mis- 

 leading. It suggests a comparison that is bound 

 to end in untruth and injustice. In the same year 

 that Haeckel opened his Darwinian campaign in 

 Germany he won the prize for the long jump — a 

 record jump. It is the note of much in his 

 character. He was no quiet recluse, to shrink 

 from opposition and hard names, but a lusty, 

 healthy, impetuous, intrepid youth, even when his 

 hair had worn to grey. A story is told of how, 

 not many years ago, the Grand Duke of Weimar 

 playfully rallied him, in the midst of a brilliant 

 company, on his belief in evolution. To the horror 

 of the guests, he slapped the powerful noble on the 

 shoulder, and told him to come to Jena and see 

 the proofs of it. In his seventy-first year we find 

 him severely censuring his Emperor — the emperor 

 of many fortresses — in a public lecture at Berlin. 



How his vigour and his resentment arose as 

 barrier after barrier was raised before him : how his 

 scorn of compromise was engendered and fed : how 

 he accumulated mountains of knowledge in obscure, 

 technical works before he formulated his sharp 

 didactic conclusions : all this is told in the following 

 story. For good or ill he has won an influence in 

 this country, and his story should be read. It 

 is, in itself, one of rare and varied interest, and it 

 is told by one of the most brilliant penmen of 

 modern Germany, his former pupil, now a dis- 

 tinguished biologist, Professor Wilhelm Bolsche. 



