262 HAECKEL 



circumstances intervened. As things are, it was 

 only his academic colleagues that had any right to 

 the new biology. A new book on God and creation 

 would go out to "the publicans and sinners." 

 Interest must be lit up amongst the people at large, 

 where there was as yet only the faintest spark. It 

 appeared, moreover, that most of his academic 

 colleagues in 1867 had no wish to enter on the new 

 path he had opened out. A new generation would 

 have to grow up first. The Morphology^ from 

 which Haeckel on his travels had expected at least 

 a revolution, met at first with an icy silence. There 

 was hardly any discussion of it, and no excitement 

 whatever. Haeckel quickly made up his mind. 

 He must turn in the other direction. Gegenbaur 

 consoles him. He has given too much — twenty 

 dishes instead of one. He must serve up the best 

 part of the work on one dish, and it will be taken. 

 Haeckel agrees with him to some extent, but his 

 heavy technical artillery cannot be simplified so 

 easily as that. The only possible thing to do is to 

 give an extract of it, which will make the broad 

 lines of the system clear. But as soon as that is 

 done, he sees that the extract is still only the 

 general philosophical part of it, and will not appeal 

 to the general public. 



It was such reflections as these that led to the 

 writing of his History of Creation^ a popular 

 work.* 



The chapters of this work were first delivered 



* Translated into English with the above title. Literally, the 



title is : The Story of Natural Creation, 



