NOTES AND LITERATURE 



NOTES ON EVOLUTION 



The retirement of Ernst Haeckel from his chair in the Uni- 

 versity of Jena is a punctuation mark — fortunately not a period 

 — in the long and noble story of " Il<u ckt lisnrus in der Zoologie." 

 I am aware that the coining of this phrase by Karl Semper and 

 the subsequent use of it by some zoologists and many theologists 

 were not of the nature of compliment to the veteran fighting 

 evolutionist of the Thiiringian hills. The phrase was meant 

 to connote reproach, but I prefer to see in it an unavoidable 

 recognition of the great influence and importance of Haeckel's 

 work in the history of biology and evolution. We may decry 

 speculation in zoology and phylogeny in evolution, but without 

 scientific imagination we do not go far forward in any science, 

 and the principles of evolution studied without reference to 

 their practise would leave bionomics far more "philosophical" 

 and much less "biological" than we would have it. Even if 

 Haeckel's speculations and vigorous championship of them had 

 done no more than serve as a stimulus to others to work in order 

 to fight them, they would have had their inestimable importance 

 in evolutionary history. As a matter of fact many of the 

 Haeckelian speculations of the early days are now the accepted 

 and incorporated evolution commonplaces of the present day. 



Haeckel gives up lecturing to the Jena students and peering 

 over their shoulders at their dissections to devote himself espe- 

 cially to the building up and care of his new Phyletic Museum. 

 He is now seventy-five years old, and for forty-five years has 

 taught, investigated and written at Jena. Now he gives up part 

 of this work to undertake something else in its stead. A glorious 

 record! And one not uncommon in German scholastic life. 

 Leuckart was lecturing vigorously every day in the week except 

 Sunday up to within two weeks of his death at seventy-six, and 

 the number of active and anything but superannuated pro- 

 fessors in German universities beyond the Carnegie fund retir- 

 ing age is suprisingly large. 



The new Phyletic Museum at Jena has been established solely 

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