which, when tracked to their causes,
are so often the death of brilliant hypotheses; to the men, finally,
who, by demonstrating the limits to human knowledge which are set by
the very conditions of thought, have warned mankind against fruitless
efforts to overstep those limits.

Neither of the eminent men of science, whose opinions are at present
under consideration, can be said to be a one-sided representative
either of the synthetic or of the analytic school. Haeckel, no less
than Virchow, is distinguished by the number, variety, and laborious
accuracy of his contributions to positive knowledge; while Virchow, no
less than Haeckel, has dealt in wide generalisations, and, until the
obscurantists thought they could turn his recent utterances to
account, no one was better abused by them as a typical free-thinker
and materialist. But, as happened to the two women grinding at the
same mill, one has been taken and the other left. Since the
publication of his famous oration, Virchow has been received into the
bosom of orthodoxy and respectability, while Haeckel remains an
outcast!

To those who pay attention to the actual facts of the case, this is a
very surprising event; and I confess that nothing has ever perplexed
me more than the reception which Professor Virchow's oration has met
with, in his own and in this country; for it owes that reception, not
to the undoubted literary and scientific merits which it possesses,
but to an imputed righteousness for which, so far as I can discern, it
offers no foundation. It is supposed to be a recantation; I can find
no word in it which, if strictly construed, is inconsistent with the
most extreme of those opinions which are commonly attributed to its
author. It is supposed to be a deadly blow to the doctrine of
evolution; but, though I certainly hold by that doctrine with some
tenacity, I am able, _ex animo_, to subscribe to every important
general proposition which its author lays down.

In commencing his address, Virchow adverts to the complete freedom of
investigation and publication in regard to scientific questions which
obtains in Germany; he points out the obligation which lies upon men
of science, even if for no better reason than the maintenance of this
state of things, to exhibit a due sense of the responsibility which
attaches to their speaking and writing, and he dwells on the necessity
of drawing a clear line of demarcation between those propositions
which they hav