THE CROWNING YEARS 303 



So he wrote a vigorous, an irritating, an awaken- 

 ing book. It must be read in this context. The 

 charge of *' dogmatism " so often hurled at it is not 

 without humour. It is generally raised by men who 

 in the same breath hold their truths so dogmatically 

 that they resent his very questions. They forget, 

 too, that the chief conclusions of the Biddle are 

 references to the larger work in which, soundly 

 or unsoundly, they are provided with massive 

 foundations of scientific material. In England 

 there is some excuse, as the larger work is un- 

 translated and unknown ; though one may resent 

 the critic who charges Haeckel with egoism for 

 his constant references to his other works and then 

 proceeds to ridicule the slenderness of the founda- 

 tions of his theories. Further, it is too often 

 forgotten that Haeckel opens his work with a rare 

 warning to the reader that his opinions are very 

 largely ^* subjective " and his command of other 

 subjects than biology is very " unequal." In fine, 

 his constant and exaggerated allusions to the 

 opposition he encounters from his scientific 

 colleagues is, for any candid reader, a sufficient 

 corrective of " dogmatism." 



The work lit up at once a flame of controversy 

 that has hardly yet diminished in Germany. 

 Students have told me how, when some professor 

 dropped the well-knowm name in the course of his 

 lecture, the class would split at once into two 

 demonstrative sections. Ten thousand copies of 

 the library edition of the work were sold within 

 a few months, and it quickly ran to eight 



