46 HAECKEL 



lives, a love that respects the right and realises 

 the import of each thing, and feels the connected- 

 ness and depth of the world. This love is higher 

 than the artificial affection of the individual with 

 selfish aim that ever leads to pettiness and 

 caprice ; it is higher even than the enjoyment and 

 detachment that come of special and romantic 

 affections ; it alone can give us an unchanging 

 and lasting glow. Everything now came before 

 me in new and beautiful and remarkable forms. 

 I began to see and to love, not only the outer 

 form, but the inner content, the nature, and the 

 history of things." The poet compresses his 

 experience into one episode. In real life it comes 

 slowly, step by step. In fine, a third element was 

 born in the young botanist and lover of beauty — 

 Goethe's view of life behind all else : that which 

 Goethe himself called ^'objective." The mystic 

 might call it a return to God : but it was Goethe's 

 God. 



Three other books influenced Haeckel in his 

 school-days, besides the works of Goethe. The 

 first was Humboldt's Aspects of Nature. This is 

 another work that has had an effect on all the 

 sensitive spirits of the nineteenth century. It is 

 most unjustly depreciated by the young, blasS 

 generation of our time, which dislikes the older 

 style. In the first two volumes of the Cosmos we 

 see the play of a great mind wherever we look 

 for it. 



Then came Darwin's Naturalist's Voyage round 

 the World. The ardent youth had as yet on 



