Above all, calm reflection took the place of excited en- 

 thusiasm. As a result it has become more and more ap- 

 parent that the past forty years have brought to light 

 nothing new that is of any value to the cause of Darwinism. 

 This significant fact has aroused doubts as to whether 

 after all Darwinism can really give a satisfactory explana- 

 tion of the genesis of organic forms. 



The rising generation is now discovering what discern- 

 ing scholars had already recognized and stated a quarter of 

 a century ago. They are also returning to a study of the 

 older opponents of Darwinism, especially of Wigand. It 

 is only now, many years after his death, that a tribute has 

 been paid to this distinguished savant which unfortunately 

 was grudgingly withheld during his life. One day recently 

 there was laid before his monument in the Botanical 

 Garden of Marburg a laurel-wreath with the inscription: 

 "To the great naturalist, philosopher and man." It came 

 from a young zoologist at Vienna who had thoroughly 

 mastered Wigand's great anti-Darwinian work, an intelli- 

 gent investigator who had set to work in the spirit of 

 Wigand. Another talented zoologist, Hans Driesch, dedi- 

 cates to the memory of Wigand two books in rapid suc- 

 cession and reprehends the contemporaries of that master 

 of science for ignoring him. O. Hammann abandons Dar- 

 winism for an internal principle of development. W. 

 Haacke openly disavows Darwinism; and even at the con- 

 vention of naturalists in 1897, L. Wilser was allowed to as- 

 sert without contradiction that, "anyone who has com- 

 mitted himself to Darwinism can no longer be ranked as 



a naturalist." 



37 



