138 HAECKEL 



wanted to do rigorous professional work and had 

 quickly decided to settle at Jena in order to begin 

 his career as an official teacher, to become '*a 

 Darwinian " in conviction and open confession. 

 It might cost him both his official position and his 

 scientific future ; and this at the very moment 

 when he had just secured them, or was in a better 

 position to secure them. We have here for the 

 first time the open manifestation of a principle in 

 HaeckeFs life that he had hitherto only used 

 inwardly, in application to himself. The truth 

 must be told, whatever it cost. Shoot me dead, 

 morally, materially, or bodily, as you will : but 

 you will have to shoot the law first. 



Darwin's ominous book had been available in 

 Bronn's translation for two years. The German 

 professional zoologists, botanists, and geologists 

 almost all regarded it as absolute nonsense. 

 Agassiz, Griebel, Keferstein, and so many others, 

 laughed until they were red in the face, like a 

 riotous first-night public that has made up its 

 mind as to the absurdity of the play from the 

 first act, and torment the author as the cat 

 torments a mouse. Then Haeckel gave to the 

 world his long-prepared Monograph on the Badio- 

 laria (1862), the work with which he endeavours 

 to establish — in fact, must establish — ^his position 

 as an exact investigator, even amongst the 

 academic scholars of the opposite camp. All goes 

 very smoothly for many pages of the work. A 

 few traces of heresy may be detected about 

 page 100. The passage deals with the relation of 



