HAECKEL AND THE NEW ZOOLOGY 



ing them, and in writing out, to the length of three 

 monster volumes, technical dissertations upon them. 



To the untechnical reader that must seem a deadly, 

 a veritably mind-sapping task. And such, indeed, it 

 would prove to the average zoologist. But with the 

 mind of a Haeckel it is far otherwise. To him a radio- 

 larian, or any other creature, is of interest, not so much 

 on its own account as for its associations. He sees it 

 not as an individual but as a link in the scale of organic 

 things, as the bearer of a certain message of world- 

 history. Thus the radiolarians, insignificant creatures 

 though they seem, have really taken an extraordinary 

 share in building up the crust of the earth. The ooze 

 at the bottom of the sea, which finally becomes meta- 

 morphosed into chalk or stone, is but the aggregation 

 of the shells of dead radiolarians. In the light of such a 

 role the animalcule takes on a new interest. 



But even greater is the interest that attaches to 

 every creature in regard to the question of its place in 

 the organic scale of evolution. What are the homol- 

 ogies of this form and that? What its probable an- 

 cestry? What gaps does it bridge? What can it tell 

 us of the story of animal creation? These and such 

 like are the questions that have been ceaselessly before 

 Haeckel's mind in all his studies of zoology. Hence 

 the rich fountain of philosophical knowledge that has 

 welled up from what otherwise might have been the 

 most barren of laboratory borings. Thus from a care- 

 ful investigation of the sponge Haeckel was led to his 

 famous gastrula theory, according to which the pouch- 

 like sponge-animalcule virtually a stomach without 

 members is the type of organism on which all high 



