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Since his day they have been re-discovered or rather re-named by a host of students, including Haeckel, Weismann, and many of scarcely less distinction. The Mendelian "factors," as I maintain must be clear to any student of the idea, are Spencer's physiological units.
Especially the circles dominated by the social democrats swear by nothing higher than Darwin and Haeckel. In fact, only a short time ago Bebel publicly professed himself a convert to Haeckel's wisdom. It is inevitable, however, that light should gradually dawn even in these circles, for it would be indeed strange, if no honest man could be found to tell them the truth regarding Darwinism.
Suffice it to say that, after reading Haeckel's "Weltraetsel," one would be led to think that there is no question of a "deathbed of Darwinism," but that on the contrary Darwinism, as remodeled by Haeckel, is more in the ascendant to-day than ever. Let us judge of its prestige by the reception accorded the "Weltraetsel."
On the contrary Haeckel's own scientific colleagues were the first to discover and publish the matter some time in the seventies, and in consequence excluded Haeckel from their circle. Why does Schmidt not mention here the names of Ruetimeyer, His, and Semper?
When Darwin died, in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-two, Darwinism and infidelity were words no longer synonymous. The discrepancies and inconsistencies of the theories of Darwin were seen by him as by his critics, and he was ever willing to admit the doubt. None of his disciples was as ready to modify his opinions as he. "We must beware of making science dogmatic," he once said to Haeckel.
Thus, outside the hours of teaching, Professor Haeckel has all along been able to find about eight hours a day for personal, original research. When he told Professor Huxley so in the days of their early friendship, Huxley exclaimed: "Then you ought to be the happiest man alive. Why, I can find at most but two hours a day to use for myself."
In America the famous botanist Asa Gray, who had long been a correspondent of Darwin's but whose advocacy of the new theory had not been anticipated, became an ardent propagandist; while in Germany Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, the youthful but already noted zoologist, took up the fight with equal enthusiasm.
This passage is as inaccurate as most of those by Professor Haeckel that I have had occasion to examine have proved to be. Letting alone that Buffon, not Lamarck, is the foremost name in connection with descent, I have already shown in "Evolution Old and New" that Lamarck goes exhaustively into the how and why of modification.
Would Darwin and Ernst Haeckel ever have made their great discoveries about the evolution of life if, instead of observing life and the structure of living beings, they had shut themselves up in a laboratory and there made chemical experiments with tissue cut out of an organism?
The Chancellor had seen the body an unpleasant sight. But it was not of the dead man that General Mettlich thought. It was of the other. The dead tell nothing. But the living, under torture, tell many things. And this man Haeckel, young as he was, knew much that was vital.
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