166 HAECKEL 



right to oppose Haeckel's bolder natural philosophy 

 and its conclusion — will have forfeited the right, at 

 least, in the judgment of a future and more im- 

 partial generation. They did not oppose him on 

 the lines of an equal zeal for the truth, but on much 

 lower and reactionary lines. Their concern was not 

 for the absolute triumph of truth, but for a com- 

 promise with certain forces in public life whose 

 supremacy was not grounded on logic but on 

 inherited external power. It required a certain 

 amount of diplomatic shrewdness to enter into this 

 compromise, in view of the practical power of those 

 forces. Haeckel never had this ** shrewdness." 

 We grant that. But it is certainly a confusion of 

 all standards when the shrewdness of the individual 

 tries to entrench itself behind ostensible claims of 

 scientific method ; when research abandons all 

 advance on certain sides on the plea of " exact- 

 ness " instead of philosophising — and then itself 

 makes use of this exactness for compromising with 

 an ecclesiastical tradition that only differs from 

 real philosophy in its antiquity and rigidity, its dis- 

 dain of rational argument, and its employment of 

 secular weapons that certain historical events 

 have put in its hand without any merit on its 

 own part. 



The darkest cloud that hung menacingly on the 

 horizon of Darwinism came from this quarter. At 

 the moment we are dealing with it did not cause 

 much concern. This early Darwinism thrilled 

 with optimism as with the magic of spring. 

 Haeckel had to speak once more in the course of 



