268 HAECKEL 



the ape are just the same even in their microscopic 

 and chemical features. This leads to a contra- 

 diction between the illustration and what Haeckel 

 expressly says in the text. We read that there is 

 indeed an external resemblance in shape between 

 these ova, but that there is bound to be a great 

 diference in internal structure, since an ape is 

 developed from the one and a human being 

 developed from the other. It would have been 

 better Mf the general reader, who is not familiar 

 with these outline pictures, had been more em- 

 phatically informed in the text below the illustration 

 that even the outline is to be taken as a general 

 and ideal scheme. In this sense we must certainly 

 admit that the illustration was bad, since it would 

 lead to a misunderstanding of the clear words of 

 the text. But what are we to say when the oppo- 

 nents of Haeckel's views viciously raise the cry of 

 '^ bad faith " on the ground of a few little slips 

 like this, and suggest that he deliberately tried to 

 mislead his readers with false illustrations? 

 Amongst the general public, in so far as it was 

 hostile to Haeckel, the charge blossomed out into 

 the most curious forms. Some declared that the 

 whole story of a resemblance between man's ovum 

 and embryo and those of other animals was an 

 invention of Professor Haeckel's ; others — we even 

 read it now and again in our own time — went so 

 far as to say that the human ovum and embryonic 

 forms only existed in Haeckel's imagination. All 

 these wild charges are of no avail. The human 

 ovum, which corresponds entirely in its general 



