CHx\PTER VII 



GKOWTH OF IDEAS 



AT Easter, 1867, Haeckel returned to Jena 

 through Morocco, Madrid, and Paris. He 

 spent a few of the pleasant spring weeks at the 

 Strait of Gibraltar and in the South of Spain. In 

 the fine bay of Algeciras (opposite to Gibraltar on 

 the west) the current of the Strait brought swarms 

 of interesting medusae, siphonophores, and other 

 *^ plancton-animals " into his net. In his solitary 

 walks through the mountain forests of Andalusia, 

 in the incomparable Moorish palaces and the 

 cathedrals of Seville and Cordova, Granada and 

 the Alhambra, he gazed on that wealth of Spain 

 in treasures of Nature and Art which had excited 

 his boyish imagination in the vivid pictures of 

 Washington Irving. 



With his return home a crisis occurred in his 

 career, from our biographical point of view, such 

 as we find at one point or other in the lives of 

 all great men. Up to the present the course of 

 his life has advanced steadily onward, so that the 

 simple chronological order afforded the most 



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