232 HAECKEL 



sheer attraction of the water of the ocean to the 

 continents the earth has an irregularity of shape 

 that it is barely possible to express in words. To 

 call the path of the earth round the sun, con- 

 stantly altering as it does, and still further com- 

 plicated by the sun's own movement, a real ellipse 

 is the greatest nonsense conceivable. 



In this sense every natural law is subject to dis- 

 turbances, though these in turn are the outcome of 

 natural laws. If we do not cavil over the name, 

 we find that the idea it stands for is of the greatest 

 consequence for any further use of the biogenetic 

 law. Unless it is borne in mind, the law, especially 

 in the hands of the inexpert, falls into hopeless 

 confusion. We read so often that the ancestral 

 history is identical with the embryonic develop- 

 ment. The one is a recapitulation of the other. 

 This supposed law is then applied in psychology, 

 sesthetics, and many other directions. If it 

 succeeds, there is jubilation. If it does not succeed 

 (as it does not in a thousand cases), the whole 

 blame is thrown on Haeckel. People discover that 

 ^' the biogenetic law breaks down here," and they 

 throw over Darwinism altogether. 



The second volume of the Morphology is the 

 standing palladium against all this nonsense. It 

 marks off the real readers and followers of Haeckel 

 from the superficial talkers who run after him 

 because he is famous, and will leave him unscru- 

 pulously for any other celebrity of the hour. 



The book must be read. Even in this second 

 volume an incredible amount of matter is com- 



