HAECKEL AND THE NEW ZOOLOGY 



means barren of interest. For if the multitudinous 

 creatures of the living world are but diversified twig- 

 lets of a great tree of ascent, spread by branching from 

 a common root, at least it is worth knowing what 

 larger branches each group of twiglets representing 

 a genus, let us say has sprung from. In particular, 

 since the topmost twig of the tree is represented by 

 man himself and his nearest relatives, is it of human 

 interest to inquire just what branches and main stems 

 will be come upon in tracing back the lineage of this 

 particular offshoot. This attempt had, perhaps, no vast, 

 vital importance in the utilitarian sense in which these 

 terms are oftenest used, but at least it had human in- 

 terest. Important or otherwise, it was the task that lay 

 open to zoology, and apparently its only task, so soon 

 as the Darwinian hypothesis had made good its status. 

 The man who first took this task in hand, and who 

 has most persistently and wisely followed it, and hence 

 the man who became the recognized leader in the field 

 of the new zoology, was, as I have already intimated, 

 Professor Haeckel. His hypothetical tree of man's 

 lineage, tracing the ancestry of the human family back 

 to the earliest geological times and the lowest orders 

 of beings, has been familiar now for just a third of a 

 century. It was at first confessedly only a tentative 

 genealogy, with many weak limbs and untraced 

 branches. It was perfected from time to time, as new 

 data came to hand, through studies of paleontology, of 

 embryology, and of comparative anatomy. It will be 

 of interest, then, to inquire just what is its status to- 

 day and to examine briefly Professor Haeckel's own 

 most recent pronouncement regarding it. 



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