22 HAECKEL 



in his Booh of Songs and wrote the finest of his 

 early letters. This Christian Sethe (he died on 

 May 31, 1857, being then Provincial Director of 

 Eevenue at Stettin), was a lawyer, like his father, 

 and the father himself came of a legal family. 

 Haeckel's own father, moreover, the husband of 

 one of Christian's sisters, was a State Councillor 

 at the time of his death, and his elder brother 

 was a Provincial Councillor. Thus Haeckel's 

 genealogical tree spreads into the legal profession 

 in a curiously complex way. 



We naturally reflect for a moment if we could 

 fancy Haeckel himself as a lawyer. It is hardly 

 possible. He would at least have been a very 

 rebellious member of the profession, and have 

 been sadly lacking in respect for the venerable 

 traditions and powdered wigs of the court — 

 assuming, of course (which a mere layman has 

 no right to question), that there ought still to 

 be such traditions and costumes in the profession. 

 In his vigorous Riddle of the Universe he has, 

 from his scientific point of view, brought strictures 

 against the legal profession that leave nothing 

 to be desired in the way of candour, when we 

 recollect the long tradition of his family. In its 

 lingering in the rear of the progress of the times 

 the whole science of law seemed to him to be a 

 "riddle of the universe." The jurist is apt to be 

 respected as an embodiment of our highest culture. 

 In reaUty that is not the case. The distinctive 

 object of his concern, man and his soul, is only 

 superficially studied in the preparation for the law, 



