PROF. ERNST HAECKEL, 



EIS LIFE, WORKS, CAREER, AND PROPHECY. 

 By Thaddeus B. Wakeman. 



It has been wisely arranged that this course of lectures 

 shall be enlivened from time to time by some account of 

 the distinguished naturalists and philosophers whose dis- 

 coveries and labors have given evolution its modern and 

 scientific form. Thus, very appropriately, in the first course 

 of this series in a former year, the pastor of this, church 

 gave an admirable discourse upon the personal career, dis- 

 coveries, and influence of Charles Darwin. And equally 

 appropriate was the most interesting account of the life, re- 

 searches, and services of Alfred Russel Wallace, by our 

 American scientist. Prof. Edward D. Cope, which opened 

 the course of the present season. Next after these two co- 

 discoverers of the great law of natural selection, no one has 

 done more to sustain, explain, and defend evolution than 

 Ernst Haeckel, the famous Professor of Zoology at the Uni- 

 versity of Jena. lie is the leading exj^onent of evolution 

 upon the continent of Europe, and has carried its conquests 

 far beyond the concepts of Darwin or Wallace. 



This evening is, therefore, properly devoted to an effort 

 to get as near as possible to him, his discoveries, his phi- 

 losopliy or view of the world, and his religion. We can ap- 

 jiroach liim best for this purpose if we consider his career 

 first as a man and naturalist, then as the exponent of the 

 monistic philosophy, and lastly as the prophet of " monism " 

 as a religion — for he has brought into use this word " mo- 

 nism " to designate the final philosophy and religion of 

 evolution and science. 



First, then, we must regard him as a man and a natu- 

 ralist, for these two, man and naturalist, in his case, have 

 never been separated ; and, as such, there are few personal 

 characters in the world really more worthy of our acquaint- 

 ance and study than this same German professor, now at 

 the age of fifty-six, working busily as a bee at his pleasant 

 villa, or in his lecture hall and museum, on the banks of 



