254 HAECKEL 



out of his zoology. At length the difficult question 

 arises whether a mind of that type can be retained 

 in the honourable position of official professor. 

 The Philistines are in arms. The quiet, stubborn 

 group, that has vegetated unchanged, like a de- 

 moralised parasitic animal, from Abdern to Schilda, 

 through thousands of years of the free development 

 of the mind, boycots the professor and his family 

 for a time. The Philistines appeal from their 

 safe corner to the authorities to intervene. Once, 

 towards the close of the sixties, the situation 

 threatened to become really critical. The head of 

 the governing body of the university at the time 

 was Seebeck, a distinguished man who by no 

 means shared Haeckel's views, but had a just 

 feeling of Haeckel's honourableness and mental 

 power. In the middle of the struggle Haeckel 

 approaches him one day, and says that he is pre- 

 pared to resign his position, a sacrifice to his 

 ideas. Seebeck replied, ^'My dear Haeckel, you 

 are still young, and you will come yet to have more 

 mature views of life. After all, you will do less 

 harm here than elsewhere, so you had better stop 

 here." At Jena they still tell a similar story that 

 happened on another occasion. A stern theologian 

 presented himself in person at the chateau of Karl 

 Alexander, Grand Duke of Weimar, and begged 

 him to put an end to this scandal of the professor- 

 ship of Haeckel, the arch-heretic. The Grand 

 Duke, educated in the Weimar tradition of Goethe, 

 asked, "Do you think he really believes these 

 things that he publishes?" '* Most certainly he 



