108 THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS rv 



the systematising power, of Oken, without his ex- 

 travagance. The " Generelle Morphologic " is, in 

 fact, an attempt to put the Doctrine of Evolution, 

 so far as it applies to the living world, into a logical 

 form ; and to work out its practical applications to 

 their final results. The work before us, again, may 

 be said to be an exposition of the "Generelle 

 Morphologic " for an educated public, consisting, 

 as it does, of the substance of a series of lectures 

 delivered before a mixed audience at Jena, in the 

 session 1867-8. 



" The Natural History of Creation," or, as 

 Professor Haeckel admits it would have been 

 better to call his work, " The History of the 

 Development or Evolution of Nature," deals, in 

 the first six lectures, with the general and his- 

 torical aspects of the question and contains a very^ 

 interesting and lucid account of the views of Lin- 

 nseus, Cuvier, Agassiz, Goethe, Oken, Kant, 

 Lamarck, Lyell, and Darwin, and of the historical 

 filiation of these philosophers. 



The next six lectures are occupied by a well- 

 digested statement of Mr. Darwin's views. The 

 thirteenth lecture discusses two topics which are 

 not touched by Mr. Darwin, namely, the origin of 

 the present form of the solar system, and that of 

 living matter. Full justice is done to Kant, as the 

 originator of that " cosmic gas theory," as the 

 Germans somewhat quaintly call it, which is 

 commonly ascribed to Laplace. With respect to 



