LUCRETIUS AND HAECKEL BEFORE THE 

 RIDDLES OF THE UNIVERSE 



By Fred B. R. Hellems 



Part I. The Immortality of the Soul' 



That there are striking coincidences in the theories of Lucretius 

 and of Haeckel has been frequently stated and much more frequently 

 felt. It is clear, however, that many thorough-going admirers of the 

 great German monist, as well as most of his opponents, whether honest 

 or captious, have contented themselves with a vague knowledge of 

 the resemblance between the two men without recalhng the number 

 and nature of the detailed parallels. Classical men, too, I fear, have 

 been satisfied to enjoy the golden verse of him who "died chief 

 poet on the Tiber-side" without correlating his views to modern mon- 

 istic theories. Accordingly, having seen no adequate comparison, 

 in a purely academic spirit, of the solutions of the Weltrathsel pro- 

 posed by Lucretius and Haeckel and the arguments thereto appur- 

 tenant, I have conceived the hope of setting them forth with some 

 clearness and accuracy in the present paper. My object will be to 

 compare or contrast the views of these kindred spirits, without making 

 any systematic attempt to evaluate the conclusions they have reax:hed. 

 Furthermore, there is no desire on my part to emphasize Haeckel 's 

 indebtedness to Lucretius. The writer of the Weltrathsel, who speaks 

 most cordially of the ''grosse romische Dichter und Naturphilosoph, " 

 would be the first to acknowledge whatever indebtedness there may 

 be, and in any case it is inevitable that the representative of the latest 

 stages of monistic thought should bear many traces of the journey 

 through which that thought has reached its present inn. It is true 

 that we shall find more and closer resemblances to Lucretius than 

 we had expected; but, after all, the step from the Tiber of two thou- 

 sand years ago to the Rhine of to-day is short indeed compared with 



' Part II, dealing with the remaining riddles, will appear in the next nvtmber of the "Studies." 



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