CHAPTER VIII 



THE CROWNING YEARS 

 [By Joseph McCabe] 



WHEN Professor Bolsche closed his bio- 

 graphical sketch in 1900 with the three 

 stars that '^ still glowed," he had little suspicion 

 how widely they would yet flame out before they 

 passed from the firmament of biography to that of 

 history. As it has proved, Haeckel was then only 

 entering upon the period of vast popular influence 

 which forms the closing part of his remarkable 

 career. He had in 1900 a few thousand thoughtful 

 readers in several countries beside his own. To- 

 day he is read by hundreds of thousands in 

 Germany, England, France, and Italy, and the 

 fourtee]! different translations of his most popular 

 work have carried his ideas over the whole world. 

 To-day the thoughts of this professor of zoology in 

 an obscure German town are discussed eagerly by 

 bronzed and blackened artisans in the workshops 

 of London, Paris, and Tokio, as well as throughout 

 Germany. The reader will have noticed in the 



291 



