Today, at the dawn of the new century, nothing is 

 more certain than that Darwinism has lost its prestige 

 among men of science. It has seen its day and will soon 

 be reckoned a thing of the past. A few decades hence 

 when people will look back upon the history of the doc- 

 trine of Descent, they will confess that the years between 

 i860 and 1880 were in many respects a time of carnival; 

 and the enthusiasm which at that time took possession of 

 the devotees of natural science will appear to them as the 

 excitement attending some mad revel. 



A justification of our hope that Wigand's warning pre- 

 diction will finally be fulfilled is to be found in the fact 

 that today the younger generation of naturalists is de- 

 parting more and more from Darwinism. It is a fact 

 worthy of special mention that the opposition to Darwin- 

 ism today comes chiefly from the ranks of the zoologists, 

 whereas thirty years ago large numbers of zoologists from 

 Jena associated themselves with the Darwinian school, 

 hoping to find there a full and satisfactory solution for the 

 profoundest enigmas of natural science. 



The cause of this reaction is not far to seek. There 

 was at the time a whole group of enthusiastic Darwinians 

 among the university professors, Haeckel leading the van, 

 who clung to that theory so tenaciously and were so zealous 

 in propagating it, that for a while it seemed impossible 

 for a young naturalist to be anything but a Darwinian. 

 Then the inevitable reaction gradually set in. Darwin him- 

 self died, the Darwinians of the sixties and seventies lost 

 their pristine ardor, and many even went beyond Darwin. 



36 



