ed
end-form, it must pass, step by step, through the simpler ones. Each
step of the series is the physiological consequence of the preceding
stage, and the necessary condition for the following." But whatever
theory be accepted by men of science, it is certainly not that proposed
by Haeckel. Carl Vogt after giving Haeckel's statement of the "Law of
Biogenesis" wrote: "This law which I long held as well-founded, is
absolutely and radically false." Even Oskar Hertwig, perhaps the best
known of Haeckel's former pupils, finds it necessary to change
Haeckel's expression of the biogenetic law so that "a contradiction
contained in it may be removed." Professor Morgan, finally, rejects
Haeckel's boasted "Law of Biogenesis" as "_in principle, false_."
And he furthermore seems to imply that Fleischmann merits the reproach
of men of science, for wasting his time in confuting "the antiquated
and generally exaggerated views of writers like Haeckel."
"Antiquated and generally exaggerated views." Such is the comment of
science on Haeckel's boast that Darwin's pre-eminent service to science
consisted in pointing out how purposive adaptations may be produced by
natural selection without the direction of mind just as easily as they
may be produced by artificial selection and human design. And yet the
latest and least worthy production from the pen of this Darwinian
philosopher, _The Riddle of the Universe_, is being scattered
broad-cast by the anti-Christian press, in the name and guise of
_popular_ science. It is therein that the evil consists. For the
discerning reader sees in the book itself, its own best refutation. The
pretensions of Haeckel's "consistent and monistic theory of the eternal
cosmogenetic process" are best met by pointing to the fact that its
most highly accredited and notorious representative has given to the
world in exposition and defense of pure Darwinian philosophy, a work,
which, for boldness of assertion, meagerness of proof, inconsequence of
argument, inconsistency in fundamental principles and disregard for
facts which tell against the author's theory, has certainly no equal in
contemporary literature. In the apt and expressive phrase of Professor
Paulsen, the book "fairly drips with superficiality" (von Seichtigkeit
triefen). If the man of science is to be justified, as Huxley
suggested, not by faith but by verification, Haeckel and his docile
Darwinian disciples have good reason to tremble for their scienti
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