THE CROWNING YEARS 311 



on some of HaeckeFs references to fellow-anthro- 

 pologists like Virchow. It is not many years since 

 the great pathologist declared emphatically at a 

 scientific congress that "we could just as well 

 conceive man to have descended from a sheep or 

 an elephant as from an ape." When a leading 

 anthropologist could say such things in 1894, a 

 strain is laid on our charity. Darwin's words, 

 written in a letter to Haeckel, press on us once 

 more : *' Virchow's conduct is shameful, and I trust 

 he will one day feel the shame of it." Professor 

 Rabl has lately contended that his deceased father- 

 in-law (Virchow) admitted the evolution of man in 

 private. We cannot wonder if Haeckel merely 

 retorts : " So much the more shame on his public 

 utterances." Such things must, at least, be borne 

 in mind when one reads Haeckel's severe judgment 

 on some of his great contemporaries. 



The Evolution of Man not only offers the com- 

 plete proof of its thesis — a proof accepted by every 

 prominent biologist in England and by many pre- 

 lates (such as the Bishop of London and the Dean 

 of Westminster) — but affords also interesting proof 

 of Haeckel's artistic gifts. Some of the best plates 

 in the work are executed by him. But in the same 

 year, 1903, he gave a more popular evidence of it. 

 In detached numbers he published the large and 

 beautiful volume of his Art-forms in Nature, In 

 this work he depicts with remarkable success 

 hundreds of the most beautiful forms that his long 

 study of marine life had brought before him. A 

 fine expression of the man's dual nature, the work 



