54 HAECKEL 



once he is '* in the saddle," pour out verses in his 

 leisure hours. Poetry can never be a mistress : 

 it demands marriage or nothing. Otherwise — 

 well, we have instances enough. 



Haeckel himself afterwards said that he only 

 acceded to his father's wish, that he should study 

 medicine, with a botanical mental reservation. 

 He thought of going through the discipline 

 conscientiously until he became a physician, and 

 then secure a place as ship's doctor, and travel 

 over the world and see the tropics. Things turned 

 out very differently. He never became a medical 

 man such as his father had wished, but he passed 

 over the profession into zoology. Botany re- 

 mained the lost and never-forgotten love of his 

 youth. When we look back on his W'hole career 

 we can see that he was, on the whole, fortunate. 

 Zoology afforded a richer, more abundant, and 

 more varied material at that time. It proved 

 to be more ^' philosophical." He went after his 

 father's asses and found a kingdom. But to him 

 personally it seemed to be an unmistakable re- 

 nunciation — the first in an active career that 

 was to see many resignations. 



• • • • • 



** He goes farthest who does not know where 

 he is going." 



Haeckel once applied this motto to himself 

 and his star, in a humorous after-dinner speech. 

 With this kind of safe predestination he reached 

 Wiirtzburg in the autumn of 1852 as a medical 

 student. Medicine had in those days received 



