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diff --git a/25711-8.txt b/25711-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e021ad --- /dev/null +++ b/25711-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4413 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Freedom in Science and Teaching., by +Ernst Haeckel and T. H. Huxley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Freedom in Science and Teaching. + from the German of Ernst Haeckel + +Author: Ernst Haeckel + T. H. Huxley + +Release Date: June 6, 2008 [EBook #25711] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREEDOM IN SCIENCE AND TEACHING. *** + + + + +Produced by Colin Bell, Roberta Staehlin, Joseph Cooper +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + FREEDOM + IN + SCIENCE AND TEACHING. + + + FROM THE GERMAN OF + ERNST HAECKEL. + + + _WITH A PREFATORY NOTE_ + By T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S. + + DER TELEOLOG + "Welche Verehrung verdient der Weltenschöpfer der gnädig. + Als er den Korkbaum schuf, gleich auch die Stöpfel erfand." + XENIEN. + + NEW YORK: + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, + 549 AND 551 BROADWAY. + 1879. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +In complying with the wish of the publishers of Professor Haeckel's +reply to Professor Virchow, that I should furnish a prefatory note +expressing my own opinion in respect of the subject-matter of the +controversy, Gay's homely lines, prophetic of the fate of those "who +in quarrels interpose," emerge from some brain-cupboard in which they +have been hidden since my childish days. In fact, the hard-hitting +with which both the attack and the defence abound, makes me think with +a shudder upon the probable sufferings of the unhappy man whose +intervention should lead two such gladiators to turn their weapons +from one another upon him. In my youth, I once attempted to stop a +street fight, and I have never forgotten the brief but impressive +lesson on the value of the policy of non-intervention which I then +received. + +But there is, happily, no need for me to place myself in a position +which, besides being fraught with danger, would savour of presumption: +Careful study of both the attack and the reply leaves me without the +inclination to become either a partisan or a peacemaker: not a +partisan, for there is a great deal with which I fully agree said on +both sides; not a peacemaker, because I think it is highly desirable +that the important questions which underlie the discussion, apart from +the more personal phases of the dispute, should be thoroughly +discussed. And if it were possible to have controversy without +bitterness in human affairs, I should be disposed, for the general +good, to use to both of the eminent antagonists the famous phrase of a +late President of the French Chamber--"_Tape dessus._" + +No profound acquaintance with the history of science is needed to +produce the conviction, that the advancement of natural knowledge has +been effected by the successive or concurrent efforts of men, whose +minds are characterised by tendencies so opposite that they are forced +into conflict with one another. The one intellect is imaginative and +synthetic; its chief aim is to arrive at a broad and coherent +conception of the relations of phenomena; the other is positive, +critical, analytic, and sets the highest value upon the exact +determination and statement of the phenomena themselves. + +If the man of the critical school takes the pithy aphorism "Melius +autem est naturam secare quam abstrahere"[1] for his motto, the +champion of free speculation may retort with another from the same +hand, "Citius enim emergit veritas e falsitate quam e confusione;"[2] +and each may adduce abundant historical proof that his method has +contributed as much to the progress of knowledge as that of his rival. +Every science has been largely indebted to bold, nay, even to wild +hypotheses, for the power of ordering and grasping the endless details +of natural fact which they confer; for the moral stimulus which arises +out of the desire to confirm or to confute them; and last, but not +least, for the suggestion of paths of fruitful inquiry, which, without +them, would never have been followed. From the days of Columbus and +Kepler to those of Oken, Lamarck, and Boucher de Perthes, Saul, who, +seeking his father's asses, found a kingdom, is the prototype of many +a renowned discoverer who has lighted upon verities while following +illusions, which, had they deluded lesser men, might possibly have +been considered more or less asinine. + +On the other hand, there is no branch of science which does not owe at +least an equal obligation to those cool heads, which are not to be +seduced into the acceptance of symmetrical formulæ and bold +generalisations for solid truths because of their brilliancy and +grandeur; to the men who cannot overlook those small exceptions and +insignificant residual phenomena 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 have a fair right to regard as established truths, and +those which they know to be only more or less well-founded +speculations. Is any one prepared to deny that this is the first great +commandment of the ethics of teaching? Would any responsible +scientific teacher like to admit that he had not done his best to +separate facts from hypotheses in the minds of his hearers; and that +he had not made it his chief business to enable those whom he +instructs to judge the latter by their knowledge of the former? + +More particularly does this obligation weigh upon those who address +the general public. It is indubitable, as Professor Virchow observes, +that "he who speaks to, or writes for, the public is doubly bound to +test the objective truth of that which he says." There is a sect of +scientific pharisees who thank God that they are not as those +publicans who address the public. If this sect includes anybody who +has attempted the business without failing in it, I suspect that he +must have given up keeping a conscience. For assuredly if a man of +science, addressing the public, bethinks him, as he ought to do, that +the obligation to be accurate--to say no more than he has warranty +for, without clearly marking off so much as is hypothetical--is far +heavier than if he were dealing with experts, he will find his task a +very admirable mental exercise. For my own part, I am inclined to +doubt whether there is any method of self-discipline better calculated +to clear up one's own ideas about a difficult subject, than that which +arises out of the effort to put them forth, with fulness and +precision, in language which all the world can understand. Sheridan +is said to have replied to some one who remarked on the easy flow of +his style, "Easy reading, sir, is--hard writing;" and any one who is +above the level of a scientific charlatan will know that easy speaking +is "----hard thinking." + +Again, when Professor Virchow enlarges on the extreme incompleteness +of every man's knowledge beyond those provinces which he has made +his own (and he might well have added within these also), and when +he dilates on the inexpediency, in the interests of science, of +putting forth as ascertained truths propositions which the progress +of knowledge soon upsets--who will be disposed to gainsay him? Nor +have I, for one, anything but cordial assent to give to his +declaration, that the modern development of science is essentially +due to the constant encroachment of experiment and observation on +the domain of hypothetical dogma; and that the most difficult, as +well as the most important, object of every honest worker is "_sich +ent-subjectiviren_"--to get rid of his preconceived notions, and to +keep his hypotheses well in hand, as the good servants and bad masters +that they are. + +I do not think I have omitted any one of Professor Virchow's main +theses in this brief enumeration. I do not find that they are disputed +by Haeckel, and I should be profoundly astonished if they were. What, +then, is all the coil about, if we leave aside various irritating +sarcasms, which need not concern peaceable Englishmen? Certainly about +nothing that touches the present main issues of scientific thought. +The "plastidule-soul" and the potentialities of carbon may be sound +scientific conceptions, or they may be the reverse, but they are no +necessary part of the doctrine of evolution, and I leave their defence +to Professor Haeckel. + +On the question of equivocal generation, I have been compelled, more +conspicuously and frequently than I could wish, during the last ten +years, to enunciate exactly the same views as those put forward by +Professor Virchow; so that, to my mind, at any rate, the denial that +any such process has as yet been proved to take place in the existing +state of nature, as little affects the general doctrine.[3] + +With respect to another side issue, raised by Professor Virchow, he +appears to me to be entirely in the wrong. He is careful to say that +he has no unwillingness to accept the descent of man from some lower +form of vertebrate life; but, reminding us of the special attention +which, of late years, he has given to anthropology, he affirms that +such evidence as exists is not only insufficient to support that +hypothesis, but is contrary to it. "Every positive progress which we +have made in the region of prehistoric anthropology has removed us +further from the demonstration of this relation." + +Well, I also have studied anthropological questions in my time; and I +feel bound to remark, that this assertion of Professor Virchow's +appears to me to be a typical example of the kind of incautious +over-statement which he so justly reprehends. + +For, unless I greatly err, all the real knowledge which we possess of +the fossil remains of man goes no farther back than the Quaternary +epoch; and the most that can be asserted on Professor Virchow's side +respecting these remains is, that none of them present us with more +marked pithecoid characters than such as are to be found among the +existing races of mankind.[4] But, if this be so, then the only just +conclusion to be drawn from the evidence as it stands is, that the men +of the Quaternary epoch may have proceeded from a lower type of +humanity, though their remains hitherto discovered show no definite +approach towards that type. The evidence is not inconsistent with the +doctrine of evolution, though it does not help it. If Professor +Virchow had paid as much attention to comparative anatomy and +palæontology as he has to anthropology, he would, I doubt not, be +aware that the equine quadrupeds of the Quaternary period do not +differ from existing _Equidæ_ in any more important respect than these +last differ from one another; and he would know that it is, +nevertheless, a well-established fact that, in the course of the +Tertiary period, the equine quadrupeds have undergone a series of +changes exactly such as the doctrine of evolution requires. Hence +sound analogical reasoning justifies the expectation that, when we +obtain the remains of Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene _Anthropidæ_, they +will present us with the like series of gradations, notwithstanding +the fact, if it be a fact, that the Quaternary men, like the +Quaternary horses, differ in no essential respect from those which now +live. + +I believe that the state of our knowledge on this question is still +justly summed up in words written some seventeen years ago:-- + +"In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of man hitherto +discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that +lower pithecoid form by the modification of which he has probably +become what he is. And considering what is now known of the most +ancient races of men; seeing that they fashioned flint axes, and flint +knives, and bone skewers of much the same pattern as those fabricated +by the lowest savages at the present day, and that we have every +reason to believe the habits and modes of living of such people to +have remained the same from the time of the mammoth and the tichorhine +rhinoceros till now, I do not know that the result is other than might +be expected."[5] + +I have seen no reason to change the opinion here expressed, and so far +from the fact being in the slightest degree opposed to a belief in the +evolution of man, all that has been learned of late years respecting +the relation of the Recent and Quaternary to the Tertiary mammalia +appears to me to be in striking harmony with what we know respecting +Quaternary man, supposing man to have followed the general law of +evolution. + +The only other collateral question of importance raised by Professor +Virchow is, whether the doctrine of evolution should be generally +taught in schools or not. Now I cannot find that Professor Virchow +anywhere distinctly repudiates the doctrine; all that he distinctly +says is that it is not proven, and that things which are not proven +should not be authoritatively instilled into the minds of young +people. + +If Professor Virchow will agree to make this excellent rule absolute, +and applicable to all subjects that are taught in schools, I should be +disposed heartily to concur with him. + +But what will his orthodox allies say to this? If "not provenness" is +susceptible of the comparative degree, by what factor must we multiply +the imperfection of the evidence for evolution in order to express +that of the evidence for special creation; or to what fraction must +the value of the evidence in favour of the uninterrupted succession of +life be reduced in order to express that in support of the deluge? +Nay, surely even Professor Virchow's "dearest foes," the "plastidule +soul" and "Carbon & Co.," have more to say for themselves, than the +linguistic accomplishments of Balaam's ass and the obedience of the +sun and moon to the commander of a horde of bloodthirsty Hebrews! But +the high principles of which Professor Virchow is so admirable an +exponent do not admit of the application of two weights and two +measures in education; and it is surely to be regretted that a man of +science of great eminence should advocate the stern bridling of that +teaching which, at any rate, never outrages common sense, nor refuses +to submit to criticism, while he has no whisper of remonstrance to +offer to the authoritative propagation of the preposterous fables by +which the minds of children are dazed and their sense of truth and +falsehood perverted. Professor Virchow solemnly warns us against the +danger of attempting to displace the Church by the religion of +evolution. What this last confession of faith may be I do not know, +but it must be bad indeed if it inculcates more falsities than are at +present foisted upon the young in the name of the Church. + +I make these remarks simply in the interests of fair play. Far be it +from me to suggest that it is desirable that the inculcation of the +doctrine of evolution should be made a prominent feature of general +education. I agree with Professor Virchow so far, but for very +different reasons. It is not that I think the evidence of that +doctrine insufficient, but that I doubt whether it is the business of +a teacher to plunge the young mind into difficult problems concerning +the origin of the existing condition of things. I am disposed to think +that the brief period of school-life would be better spent in +obtaining an acquaintance with nature, as it is; in fact, in laying a +firm foundation for the further knowledge Which is needed for the +critical examination of the dogmas, whether scientific or +anti-scientific, which are presented to the adult mind. At present, +education proceeds in the reverse way; the teacher makes the most +confident assertions on precisely those subjects of which he knows +least; while the habit of weighing evidence is discouraged, and the +means of forming a sound judgment are carefully withheld from the +pupil. + + * * * * * + +Professor Virchow is known to me only as he is known to the world in +general--by his high and well-earned scientific reputation. With +Professor Haeckel, on the other hand, I have the good fortune to be on +terms of personal friendship. But in making the preceding +observations, I should be sorry to have it supposed that I am holding +a brief for my friend, or that I am disposed to adopt all the opinions +which he has expressed in his reply. Nevertheless, I do desire to +express my hearty sympathy with his vigorous defence of the freedom of +learning and teaching; and I think I shall have all fair-minded men +with me when I also give vent to my reprobation of the introduction of +the sinister arts of unscrupulous political warfare into scientific +controversy, manifested in the attempt to connect the doctrines he +advocates with those of a political party which is, at present, the +object of hatred and persecution in his native land. The one blot, so +far as I know, on the fair fame of Edmund Burke is his attempt to +involve Price and Priestley in the furious hatred of the English +masses against the authors and favourers of the revolution of 1789. +Burke, however, was too great a man to be absurd, even in his errors; +and it is not upon record that he asked uninformed persons to consider +what might be the effect of such an innovation as the discovery of +oxygen on the minds of members of the Jacobin Club. + +Professor Virchow is a politician--maybe a German Burke, for anything +that I know to the contrary; at any rate, he knows the political value +of words; and, as a man of science, he is devoid of the excuses that +might be made for Burke. Nevertheless, he gravely charges his hearers +to "imagine what shape the theory of descent takes in the head of a +Socialist." + +I have tried to comply with this request, but I have utterly failed to +call up the dread image; I suppose because I do not sufficiently +sympathise with Socialists. All the greater is my regret that +Professor Virchow did not himself unfold the links of the hidden bonds +which unite evolution with revolution, and bind together the community +of descent with the community of goods. + +Professor Virchow is, I doubt not, an accomplished English scholar. +Let me commend the "Rejected Addresses" to his attention. For since +the brothers Smith sang-- + + "Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise,"-- + Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies, + +there has been nothing in literature at all comparable to the attempt +to frighten sober people by the suggestion that evolutionary +speculations generate revolutionary schemes in Socialist brains. But +then the authors of the "Rejected Addresses" were joking, while +Professor Virchow is in grim earnest; and that makes a great +difference in the moral aspect of the two achievements. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Novum Organon, li. + +[2] Partis instaurationis secundæ delineatio. + +[3] I may remark parenthetically that Professor Virchow's statement of +the attitude of Harvey towards equivocal generation is strangely +misleading. For Harvey, as every student of his works knows, believed in +equivocal generation; and, in the sense in which he uses the word ovum, +"nempe substantiam quandam corpoream vitam habentem potentia," the truth +of the axiom "omne vivum ex ovo," popularly ascribed to him, has in no +wise been affected by the discoveries of later days in the manner +asserted by Professor Virchow. + +[4] I do not admit that so much can be said; for the like of the +Neanderthal skull has yet to be produced from among the crania of +existing men. + +[5] Man's Place in Nature, p. 159. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +When the address delivered by Rudolph Virchow on the 22d of September +last year, at the fiftieth meeting of German Naturalists and +Physicians at Munich, on "Freedom of Science in the Modern State," +appeared in print in the following October, I was called upon, on many +sides, to prepare a reply. And such a reply on my part seemed, in +fact, justified by the severe strictures which Virchow in his +discourse had directed against one delivered by me only four days +previously, before the same meeting, on "The Modern Doctrine of +Evolution in its Relation to General Science." The general views which +Virchow then unfolded proved such a fundamental opposition in our +principles, and touched our dearest moral convictions so nearly, that +any reconciliation of such antagonistic views was no longer to be +thought of. Nevertheless I forbore publishing the ready reply for two +reasons: one relating to the matter itself, the other a personal one. + +With regard to the matter itself, I believed I might confidently leave +it to futurity to decide in the contention that has declared itself +between us. For on one hand the doctrine of evolution which Virchow +attacks has already so far become a sure basis of biological science +and part of the most precious mental-stock of cultivated humanity, +that neither the anathemas of the Church nor the contradiction of the +greatest scientific authority--and such an one is Virchow--can prevail +against it; and on the other hand most of the arguments which he +specially adduces against the theory of descent have been so often +discussed and so thoroughly refuted that any renewed discussion seems +in fact superfluous. + +Personally, it was in the highest degree repugnant to me to come +forward as the opponent of a man whom I learned, a quarter of a +century ago, to acknowledge and to honour as the reformer of medical +science; a man whose most ardent disciple and most enthusiastic +follower I at that time was, with whom I subsequently stood in the +closest relation as his assistant, and with whom I long after +continued in the most friendly intercourse. The more keenly I lamented +Virchow's position, for some years past, as the antagonist of our +modern doctrine of evolution, and the more I felt myself challenged to +a reply by his repeated attacks upon it, the less inclination I felt, +nevertheless, to come forward publicly as the opponent of this +distinguished and highly-honoured man. + +And if I find myself, after all, forced to reply, it is in the +persuasion that a longer silence will add to the erroneous conclusions +which my hitherto resigned attitude has already given rise to; at the +same time I believe that, precisely by reason of the peculiar interest +with which I have throughout followed Virchow's scientific +achievements, I am specially qualified to answer the question, a +hundred times repeated by letter or by word of mouth--"How is it +possible that a man who so long stood at the head of a party of +progress in science as in politics, who in political life indeed, has +outwardly maintained this position, has in science become an +instrument of the most perilous reaction?" + +A verbal answer, which I incidentally gave in March of last year at +the Concordia Banquet at Vienna, was reported in the daily papers in +such a different sense, and was in part so misunderstood or so +intentionally misrepresented, that I am forced at last, on that +account, to publish a clear and unambiguous reply. The "Augsburger +Allgemeine Zeitung," which eagerly seizes every opportunity of +expressing its unconquerable aversion to the evolution theory, accused +me, in one of its hostile articles, of a virulent and undignified +attack on Virchow. In contradiction of this misrepresentation in the +Augsburg paper--which was copied by other journals--I must expressly +assert that not Virchow but I myself am the person attacked, and +that, therefore, the matter in question is not an unjustifiable attack +by me on a formerly revered friend, but a defence to which I am +compelled by repeated and sharp attacks on his part. + +Another reason which urges me at last to break silence consists in the +continual and ample advantage that all the clerical and reactionary +organs have been taking of Virchow's address, during the last +three-quarters of a year, in favour of mental retrogression. The +shouts of triumph with which they at once hailed Virchow's "grand +moral action," that is to say, his perversion from a Free-thinker to +the side of mental darkness, was the first signal for that persistent +utilisation of his authority of which the pernicious consequences can +by no means be escaped. Friedrich von Hellwald, in his discussion on +the speeches made at Munich, has already strikingly pointed out[6] the +grave danger that exists when just such an one as Virchow, standing +under the banner of political liberalism and wrapped in the mantle of +severe science, decisively combats against the freedom of science and +of its doctrines. This serious danger has never shown so threatening +an aspect as at the present moment, when our political and religious +life appears to be encountering such a reaction as has not occurred +for a long time. The two insane attempts which, within a few weeks, +have been made by Social-democracy against the revered and reverend +person of the German Emperor have raised a storm of righteous +indignation of such violence that calm judgment is entirely +overthrown, and that many even of the most liberal of liberal +politicians not only impetuously urge us to the severest measures +against the Utopian doctrines of social democracy but, far +over-shooting the mark, demand that free-doctrine and free-thought, +that freedom of the press and even freedom of conscience shall be +thrown into the narrowest fetters. Can this reaction, lurking in the +background, find any more welcome support than is afforded by the mere +demand of such a man as Virchow for restriction of liberty in +teaching? And if he makes our present doctrines of evolution in +general and the theory of descent in particular responsible for the +mad doctrines of social-democracy, it is but a natural and just +consequence when the famous New-Prussian "Kreuz-Zeitung" throws all +the blame of these treasonable attempts of the democrats Hödel and +Nobiling--as in fact it quite lately did--directly on the theory of +descent, and especially on the hated doctrine of the "descent of man +from apes." And the danger which threatens us shows a still graver +aspect when we consider how great an influence Virchow has at the +present day as an advanced liberal, and how he is regarded in the +Prussian diet as the highest practical authority, and at the same time +as the most liberal critic when educational questions are under +consideration. Now it is well known that one of the most important +problems lying before the Prussian parliament is the consideration of +a new education-law, which will probably exercise its restricting +influence for a long time to come, not in Prussia only, but throughout +Germany; what can we expect of such an education-law if in the course +of the deliberations, among the small number of those specialists who +are generally listened to, Virchow raises his voice as a leading +authority, and brings forward the principles that he proclaimed in his +speech at Munich as the surest guarantees for the freedom of science +in the modern polity? Article XX. of the Prussian Charter, and § 152 +of the Code of the German Empire, say, "Science and its doctrines are +free." And Virchow's first step, according to the principles he now +declares, must be a motion to abrogate this paragraph. + +In the face of this imminent danger, I dare no longer hesitate about +my answer. _Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, magis amica Veritas._ An +unreserved and public opposition can be no longer postponed. As a +matter of fact, at the Munich meeting, neither did Virchow hear my +speech nor I his. I read my paper, as it is printed, on the 18th +September 1877, and left on the 19th. Virchow came to Munich only on +the 20th, and delivered his speech on the 22d. + +Bearing in mind the gratitude which I owe to Virchow as my former +master and friend at Würzburg--a gratitude which I have at all times +striven to prove by the further development of his mechanical +theory--I shall confine myself, as far as possible, to an objective +and special confutation of his assertions. Certainly the temptation on +this occasion was a strong one to pay the debt in like kind. In my +Munich lecture, among the few names to which I alluded, I particularly +mentioned that of Virchow as the distinguished founder of +cellular-pathology (p. 12).[7] Virchow's return for this was to heap +scorn and ridicule on the doctrine of evolution in his usual manner. +The critic in the "National-Zeitung," Herr Isidor Kastan, says of this +with particular satisfaction, "The ridicule with which Herr Virchow +treated this side of Haeckel's visions was indeed caustic enough, but +this is ever Virchow's way; only in this case, if in any, he was fully +justified." + +I could less easily ignore Virchow's denunciation of me than his +satire--a denunciation which gibbeted me as a confederate in the +social-democratic cause, and which made the theory of descent +answerable for the horrors of the Paris Commune. The opinion is now +widely spread that by this intentional connection of the theory of +descent with Social Democracy he has hit the hardest blow at that +theory, and that he aimed at nothing less than the removal of all +"Darwinists" from their academic chairs and professorships. This is +the inevitable consequence of his demands; for if Virchow insists with +the utmost determination that the theory of descent must not be taught +(because he does not regard it as true), what is to become of the +supporters of that theory who, like myself, regard it as +incontrovertibly true, and teach it as a perfectly sound theory? And +at least nine-tenths of all the teachers of zoology and botany in +Europe are among its supporters from immutable conviction of its +truth, as well as all morphologists without exception. Virchow cannot +expect that these teachers should collectively renounce that which +they believe to be immutable truth, and in its place set up the dogma +of the Church as the basis of their teaching, in accordance with his +wish! Nothing remains for them but to vacate their professors' chairs, +and--according to Virchow and the "Germania"--the "Modern Polity" +would be in duty bound to deprive them of their liberty of teaching if +they did not voluntarily renounce it. + +If this be indeed Virchow's purpose, as it is generally supposed to +be, with regard to me, at least, he may spare himself the trouble. +Amongst us in Jena quite other ideas prevail as to the "Freedom of +science in the modern Polity" than those which obtain in the capital, +Berlin. And among us the Berlin students' rhyme has no meaning, + + "Who knows the truth and freely speaks, + On him the law its vengeance wreaks."[8] + +The Jena students, on the contrary, sing the rhyme in its original +form-- + + "Who knows the truth and speaks it not, + A feeble wretch is he, God wot."[9] + +The Rector Magnificentissimus of the University of Jena, the Grand +Duke of Saxony, who has proved himself the protector of the arts and +sciences, has besides far more liberal views as to the liberty of +scientific investigation and teaching than the illustrious head of the +party of progress at Berlin. The enlightened and liberal Prince at +Weimar, under whose particular protection we in Jena find ourselves, +has never conceived it necessary to limit in any way the unbounded +freedom of my teaching and my writing; not even when in 1866 my +"General Morphology," and 1868 my "History of Creation" first +appeared, and when many people attempted to make the youthful +extravagances which were to be found in those works the ground of a +serious accusation. And what farther mischief have these extravagances +done, though I now sincerely lament them? + +Faithful to the glorious traditions of a past extending over three +centuries, the little Thuringian university of Jena will find a way to +preserve her perfect and unlimited freedom. She will ever bear in mind +that she is the first Protestant university of Germany, protesting +against every strait-waistcoat which hierarchical obstinacy would +force upon human reason, against every dogma by which the arrogance of +the learned may try to suppress all freedom of teaching. She will +freely seek and freely teach in accordance with her highest +convictions, untroubled by the fact that in the "great" university of +Berlin nothing may be taught, as Virchow insists, but what is +objectively ascertained, absolutely sure; that is to say, nothing that +rises above individual, indubitable, and intelligible facts; not an +idea, not a conception, not a theory, in fact not any real science; +mathematics, at most, excepted. It is our conviction that Jena will +continue to be an independent city of refuge for free science and free +teaching as long as it remains under the faithful nurture and liberal +protection of the princely house of Sax Weimar, that enlightened race +which is linked with the history of German intellect through the +matchless traditions of its glorious past. What the Wartburg was to +Martin Luther, what Weimar has been to the foremost heroes of German +literature, what Jena herself has been during three hundred years to a +vast number of illustrious investigators, that will the tried and +tested Jena of to-day undoubtedly continue to be to the modern +doctrine of evolution, as to every other doctrine which asks free +development; a strong-hold of free thought, free investigation, and +free doctrine. + + ERNST HAECKEL. + +JENA, _June 24th_, 1878. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] Kosmos, Vol. II. p. 172. + +[7] Of the German. + +[8] + + "Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie frei, + Der kommt in Berlin auf die Stadt-Vogtei." + +[9] + + "Wer die Wahrheit kennet und saget sie nicht + Der ist für wahr ein erbärmlicher Wicht." + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + + PREFATORY NOTE v + + PREFACE xxi + + CHAP. + + I. DEVELOPMENT AND CREATION 1 + + II. CERTAIN PROOFS OF THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT 10 + + III. THE SKULL THEORY AND THE APE THEORY 29 + + IV. THE CELL-SOUL AND CELLULAR PSYCHOLOGY 46 + + V. THE GENETIC AND DOGMATIC METHODS OF TEACHING 61 + + VI. THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 88 + + VII. IGNORABIMUS ET RESTRINGAMUR 99 + + + + +FREEDOM IN SCIENCE AND TEACHING. + +CHAPTER I. + +DEVELOPMENT AND CREATION. + + +Nothing is more helpful for the understanding of scientific +controversies, or for the clearing of confused conceptions, than a +contrasted statement, as defined and clear as possible, of the +simplest leading propositions of the contending doctrines. Hence it is +highly favourable to the victory of our modern doctrine of evolution +that its chief problem, the question as to the origin of species, is +being more and more pressed by these opposite alternatives: Either all +organisms are naturally evolved, and must in that case be all +descended from the simplest common parent-forms--or: That is not the +case, and the distinct species of organisms have originated +independently of each other, and in that case can only have been +created in a supernatural way, by a miracle. Natural evolution, or +supernatural creation of species--we must choose one of these two +possibilities, for a third there is not. + +But as Virchow, like many other opponents of the doctrine of +evolution, constantly confounds this latter proposition with the +doctrine of descent, and that again with Darwinism, it will not be +superfluous to indicate here, in a few words, the limitation and +subordination of these three great theories. + +I. The general doctrine of development, the progenesis-theory or +evolution-hypothesis (in the widest sense), as a comprehensive +philosophical view of the universe, assumes that a vast, uniform, +uninterrupted and eternal process of development obtains throughout +all nature; and that all natural phenomena without exception, from the +motions of the heavenly bodies and the fall of a rolling stone to the +growth of plants and the consciousness of men, obey one and the same +great law of causation; that all may be ultimately referred to the +mechanics of atoms--the mechanical or mechanistic, homogeneous or +monistic view of the universe; in one word, Monism. + +II. The doctrine of derivation, or theory of descent, as a +comprehensive theory of the natural origin of all organisms, assumes +that all compound organisms are derived from simple ones, all +many-celled animals and plants from single-celled ones, and these last +from quite simple primary organisms--from monads. As we see the +organic species, the multiform varieties of animals and plants, vary +under our eyes through adaptation, while the similarity of their +internal structure is reasonably explicable only by inheritance from +common parent-forms, we are forced to assume common parent-forms for +at least the great main divisions of the animal and vegetable +kingdoms, and for the classes, orders, and so forth. Thus the number +of these will be very limited, and the primitive archigonian +parent-forms can be nothing else than monads. Whether we finally +assume a single common parent-form (the monophyletic hypothesis), or +several (the polyphyletic hypothesis), is wholly immaterial to the +essence of the theory of descent; and it is equally immaterial to its +fundamental idea what mechanical causes are assumed for the +transformation of the varieties. This assumption of a transformation +or metamorphosis of species is, however, indispensable, and the theory +of descent is very properly called also the "metamorphosis +hypothesis," or "doctrine of transmutation;" as well as Lamarckism, +after Jean Lamarck, who first founded it in 1809. + +III. The doctrine of elimination, or the selection theory, as the +doctrine especially of "choice of breed or selection," assumes that +almost all, or at any rate most, organic species have originated by a +process of selection; the artificial varieties under conditions of +domestication--as the races of domestic animals and cultivated +plants--through artificial choice of breeds; and the natural varieties +of animals and plants in their wild state by natural choice of breeds: +in the first case, the will of man effects the selection to suit a +purpose; in the second, it is effected in a purposeless way by the +"struggle for existence." In both cases the transformation of the +organic forms takes place through the reciprocal action of the laws of +inheritance and of adaptation; in both cases it depends on the +survival or selection of the better-qualified minority. This theory of +elimination was first clearly recognised and appreciated in its full +significance by Charles Darwin in 1859, and the selection-hypothesis +which he founded on it is Darwinism properly so called. + +The relation that these three great theories, which are frequently +confounded, bear to one another may, according to the present position +of science, be simply defined as follows:--I. Monism, the universal +theory of development, or the monistic progenesis-hypothesis, is the +one only scientific theory which affords a rational interpretation of +the whole universe and satisfies the craving of our human reason for +causality, by bringing all natural phenomena into a mechanical +causal-connection as parts of a great uniform process of evolution. +II. The theory of transmutation, or descent, is an essential and +indispensable element in the monistic development hypothesis, because +it is the one only scientific theory which rationally explains the +origin of organic species--that is to say, by transformation--and +reduces it to mechanical principles. III. The theory of Selection or +Darwinism is, up to the present time, the most important of the +various theories which seek to explain the transformation of species +by mechanical principles, but it is by no means the only one. If we +assume that most species have originated through natural elimination, +we also now know, on the other hand, that many forms distinguished as +varieties are hybrids between two different varieties, and can be +propagated as such; and it is equally well worthy of consideration +that other causes are in activity in the formation of species of +which, up to the present time, we have no conception. Thus it is left +to the judgment of individual naturalists to decide what share is to +be attributed to natural selection in the origin of species, and even +at the present day authorities differ widely on the subject. Some give +it a large share, and some a very small one in the result. Moritz +Wagner, for instance, would substitute his own migration-hypothesis +for Darwin's theory of selection; while I regard the action of +migration, which acts as isolation or separation, as merely a special +mode of selection. But these differing estimates of Darwinism are +quite independent of the absolute import of the doctrine of descent +or of transformation, for the latter is as yet the only theory which +rationally explains the origin of species. If we discard it, nothing +remains but the irrational assumption of a miracle, a supernatural +creation. + +In this crucial and unavoidable dilemma, Virchow has declared himself +publicly in favour of the latter, and against the former hypothesis. +Every one who has attentively followed his occasional utterances on +the theory of descent during the last decade with an unprejudiced eye +and an unbiassed judgment, must be convinced that he fundamentally +rejects it. Still, his dissent has always been so obscured, and his +judgment on Darwinism in particular so wrapped in ambiguities, that an +opportune conversion to the opposite side seemed not impossible; and +many, even among those who stood near to Virchow--his friends and +disciples--did not know to what point he was in fact an opponent of +the evolution hypothesis in general. Virchow took the last step +towards clearing up this matter at Munich; for after his Munich +address there can be no farther doubt that he belongs to the most +decided opponents of the whole theory of evolution, including those of +inheritance and selection. + +If any one still has doubts on the matter, let him read the jubilant +hymns of triumph with which Virchow's friend and collaborator, Adolf +Bastian, greeted his Munich discourse. This "enfant terrible" of the +school--this well-nicknamed "Acting privy counsellor of the board of +confusion"[10]--whose merits in involuntarily advancing the cause of +metamorphism I have already done justice to in the preface to the +third edition of my "Natural History of Creation"[11]--expresses +himself in the "Zeitschrift für Ethnologie," which is edited by him +and Virchow (tenth yearly part, X. 1878, p. 66) as follows:--"At the +Munich meeting of naturalists, Virchow by a few weighty words cleared +the atmosphere, which was heavy and stifling under the pressure of the +incubus called Descent, and once more freed science from that +nightmare which it has so long--in many opinions so much too +long--allowed to weigh upon it; freed it, let us hope, once and for +ever. The forecasts of this storm were discernible many years since, +and its whole course has been a strictly normal one. When the germs +planted by Darwin, and that promised so much, were forced into growth +by a feverish, hot-house heat, and began to sprout into sterile weeds, +their small vitality was plain to our eyes. So long as the waves run +too high under the pressure of a psychical storm, it is almost useless +to protest against it, for every ear is too much deafened by the +noise all round to hear the voice of individuals. It is best to leave +things to go their own way, deeper and deeper into the mire, till they +come to a stand-still there of their own accord; for 'Quos deus vult +perdere prius dementat.' Thus it is in this case. When the +extravagances of the descent hypothesis, encouraged as they were by +mutual incitement, had reached their highest pitch in the ravings that +were uttered at Munich, the too pointed point broke in this +superabundance of absurdity almost by its own pointedness, and so we +were quit of it with one blow. Now, happily, all is over with the +theory of descent, or ascent, but natural science will not on that +account fare any the worse, for many of its adherents belong to her +ablest youth, and as they now need no longer waste their best time on +romantic schemes, they will have it to use at the orders and for the +advancement of science, so as to enrich her through real and solid +contributions." + +Furthermore, Bastian quotes Virchow's maxim:--"The plan of +organisation is immutable within the limits of the species; species is +not produced from species." The fundamental teleological idea of that +school, that each species has its constant and specific plan of +structure, certainly cannot be more emphatically expressed. Thus it is +undoubtedly certain that Virchow has become a Dualist, and is as +thoroughly penetrated by the truth of his principles as I, as a +Monist, am of mine. This is undoubtedly the upshot of his Munich +address, though he is throughout careful to avoid acknowledging his +chief standpoint in all its nakedness. On the contrary, even now he +still veils his antagonism under the phrase, which is also a favourite +with the clerical papers, that the theory of descent is an "unproved +hypothesis." Now it is clear that this theory never will be "proved" +if the proofs that already lie before us are not sufficient. How often +has it been repeated that the scientific certainty of the hypothesis +of descent is not grounded in this or that isolated experiment, but in +the collective sum of biological phenomena; in the causal nexus of +evolution. Then what are the new proofs of the theory of descent which +Virchow demands of us? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] "Wirkliche Geheime Ober-Confusionsrath." + +[11] Translated under the supervision of E. Ray Lankester. London: C. +Kegan Paul & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CERTAIN PROOFS OF THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. + + +All the common phenomena of Morphology and Physiology, of Chorology +and Oekology, of Ontology and Paleontology, can be explained by the +theory of descent, and referred to simple mechanical causes. It is +precisely in this, viz., that the primary simple causes of all these +complex aggregates of phenomena are common to them all, and that other +mechanical causes for them are unthinkable--it is in this that, to us, +the guarantee of their certainty consists. For this reason all these +vast and manifold aggregates of facts are so many evidences of the +doctrine of descent. This fundamental relation of facts has been so +often expounded that I need dwell no farther on it in this place; +those who wish for any closer discussion of it are referred to my +"General Morphology" (vol. ii. chap. xix.), or "The History of +Creation,"[12] or "The Evolution of Man" (vol. i. p. 93).[13] + +And where is yet farther proof of the truth of the theory of descent +to be found? Neither Virchow, nor any one of the clerical opponents +and the dualistic philosophers who are perpetually reiterating this +cry for more certain evidence, anywhere indicate where possibly such +evidence is to be sought. Where in all the world can we discover +"facts" which will speak more plainly or significantly for the truth +of transmutation than the facts of comparative morphology and +physiology; than the facts of the rudimentary organs and of embryonic +development; than the facts revealed by fossils and the geographical +distribution of organisms--in short, than the collective recognised +facts of the most diverse provinces of biological science? + +But I am in error--the certain proof that Virchow demands in order to +be perfectly satisfied with the evidence, is to be supplied by +"experiment, the test as well as the highest means of evidence." This +demand, that the doctrine of descent should be grounded on experiment, +is so perverse and shows such ignorance of the very essence of our +theory, that though we have never been surprised at hearing it +continually repeated by ignorant laymen, from the lips of a Virchow it +has positively astounded us. What can in this case be proved by +experiment, and what can experiment prove? + +"The variability of species, the transformation of species, the +transition of a species into one or more new varieties," is the +answer. Now, so far as these facts can be proved by experiment, they +actually have long since been experimentally proved in the completest +manner. For what are the numberless trials of artificial selection for +breeding purposes which men have practised for thousand of years in +breeding domestic animals and cultivated plants, but physiological +experiments which prove the transformation of species? As an example +we may refer to the different races of horses and pigeons. The swift +race-horse and the heavy pack-horse, the graceful carriage-horse and +the sturdy cart-horse, the huge dray-horse and the dwarfed pony--these +and many other "races" are so different from each other, that if we +had found them wild we should certainly have described them as quite +different varieties of one species, or even representatives of +different species. Undoubtedly, these so-called "races" and "sports" +of the horse tribe differ from each other in a much greater degree +than do the zebra, the quagga, the mountain horse, and the other wild +varieties of the horse, which every zoologist distinguishes as "bonæ +species." And yet all these artificial varieties, which man has +designedly produced by selection, are descended from a single common +parent-form, from one wild "true variety." The same is the case with +the numerous and highly differing varieties of pigeons. Domestic +pigeons and carrier-pigeons, turbits and cropper-pigeons, fantail +pigeons and owls, tumblers and pouters, trumpeters and laughing +pigeons (or Indian doves), and the rest, are all, as Darwin has +convincingly proved, descendants of a single wild variety, the +rock-pigeon (_Columba livia_). And how wonderfully various they are, +not only in general form, size, and colouring, but in the particular +form of the skull, the beak, the feet, and so forth! They differ much +more in every respect each from the others than the numerous wild +varieties which, in systems of ornithology, are recognised as true +varieties, and even as true species. It is the same with the different +artificial varieties of apples, pears, pansies, dahlias, and so on; in +short, of almost all the domestic varieties of animals and plants. We +would lay particular stress on the fact that these artificial species +which man has produced or created by artificial breeding and through +experimental transformation out of one original species, differ far +more one from another in physiological as well as in morphological +conditions than the natural species in a wild state. With these it is +self-evident that any proof by experiment of a common origin is wholly +impossible. For, so soon as we subject any wild variety of animal or +plant to such an experiment, we bring it under the conditions of +artificial breeding. + +That the morphological conception of a Species is not a positive but +only a relative conception, and that it has no other absolute or +positive value than those other similar system-categories--sports, +varieties, races, tribes, families, classes--is now acknowledged by +every systematiser who forms an honest and unprejudiced judgment of +the practical systematic distinction of species. From the very nature +of the case there are no limits to arbitrary discretion in this +department, and there are no two systematists who are at one in every +instance; this one separating forms as true varieties which that one +does not. (Compare on this point "History of Creation," vol. i., p. +273.) The conception of variety or species has a different value in +every small or large department of systematic Zoology and Botany. + +But the conception of species has just as little any fixed +physiological value. In respect to this we must especially insist that +the question of hybrid offspring, the last corner of refuge of all the +defenders of the constancy of species, has at present lost all +significance as bearing on the conception of species. For we know now, +through numerous and reliable experiences and experiments, that two +different true varieties can frequently unite and produce fertile +hybrids (as the hare and rabbit, lion and tiger, many different kinds +of the carp and trout tribes, of willows, brambles, and others); and +in the second place, the fact is equally certain that descendants of +one and the same species which, according to the dogma of the old +schools, could always effect a fertile union under certain +circumstances, either cannot effect such a union or produce only +barren hybrids (the Porto-Santo rabbit, the different races of horses, +dogs, roses, hyacinths, &c.; see "History of Creation," vol. i., p. +146). + +For a certain proof that the conception of species rests on a +subjective abstraction and has a merely relative value--like the +conception of genus, family, order, class, &c.--no class of animals is +of so much importance as that of the Sponges. In it the fluctuating +forms vary with such unexampled indefiniteness and variability as to +make all distinction of species quite illusory. Oscar Schmidt has +already pointed this out in the siliceous sponges and keratose +sponges; and I, in my monograph, in three volumes, on the Calcareous +Sponges (the result of five years of most accurate investigations of +this small animal group), have pointed out that we may at pleasure +distinguish 3, or 21, or 111, or 289, or 591 different species. I also +believe that I have thus convincingly demonstrated how all these +different forms of the calcareous sponges may quite naturally, and +without any forcing, be traced to a single common parent-form, the +simple--and not hypothetical, but existing at this present day--the +simple Olynthus. Hence I think I have here produced the most positive +analytical evidence of the transformation of species, and of the unity +of the derivation of all the species of a given group of animals, that +is generally possible. + +Properly, I might spare myself these disquisitions on the question of +species, for Virchow does not go into this main question of the theory +of descent--but this is very characteristic of his attitude. And just +as he nowhere thoroughly discusses the doctrine of transformation, +neither does he enter generally on the refutation of any of the other +certain proofs of the doctrine of descent which we in fact possess at +the present day. Neither the morphological nor the physiological +arguments for the theory of descent, neither the rudimentary organs +nor the embryonic forms, neither the paleontological nor the +chronological argument are anywhere closely examined and tested as to +their worth or their worthlessness as "certain proofs." On the +contrary, Virchow takes them quite easily, sets them aside, and +declares that "certain proofs" of the doctrine of descent do not +exist, but remain to be discovered. To be sure, he does not indicate +where they are to be sought, nor can he indicate it. How is this +strange conduct to be explained? How is it possible that a +distinguished naturalist should resist the most important step forward +of modern natural science without in any way specially investigating +it, without even practically testing and refuting the most weighty +arguments in its favour? To this question there is but one answer. +Virchow is not generally intimate with the modern doctrine of +evolution, and does not possess that knowledge of natural science +which is indispensable for any well-grounded judgment on it. + +After collecting and carefully reading all that Virchow, during many +years, had written against evolution, I arrived at the conviction that +he had not thoroughly read either Darwin's great work on the Origin of +Species, nor any other work on the theory of descent, nor had he +thought the matter out with such attention as so serious and intricate +a subject absolutely demands. Virchow did with these works as it has +been his well-known custom to do with many others--he hastily turned +over the pages, caught at a few leading words, and without any farther +trouble he has discoursed upon them, and, which is worst of all, has +perpetuated these discourses through the press. + +To excuse this conduct, and to account for Virchow's enigmatical +position in the battle of evolution, we must consider what changes +this highly-gifted and meritorious man has gone through in the course +of the last thirty years. The most important and fruitful part of his +life and labours was indisputably during the eight years when he +resided in Würzburg, from 1848 to 1856. There Virchow, with all the +keenness of his youthful intellect, with a sacred enthusiasm for +scientific truth, with indefatigable powers of work and the rarest +insight, worked out that glorious reform of scientific medicine which +will shine through all time as a star of the first magnitude in the +history of medical science. In Würzburg, Virchow elaborated that +comprehensive application of the cellular theory to pathology which +culminates in the conception that the cell is an independent living +elementary organism, and that our human organism, like that of all the +higher animals, is merely a congeries of cells--a highly fertile +conception, which Virchow now denies as resolutely as he then +supported it. In Würzburg, twenty-five years since, I sat devoutly at +his feet, and received from him with enthusiasm that clear and simple +doctrine of the mechanics of all vital activity--a truly monistic +doctrine, which Virchow now undoubtedly opposes where formerly he +defended it. In Würzburg, finally, he wrote those incomparable +critical and historical leading articles which are the ornament of the +first ten yearly series of his "Archives" of pathological anatomy. All +that Virchow effected as the great pioneer of reform in medicine, and +by which he won imperishable honour in the scientific treatment of +disease,--all this was either carried out or preconceived in Würzburg; +and even the celebrated "Cellular Pathology," a course of lectures +which he delivered during the first year and a half after quitting +Würzburg for Berlin, consists only of the collected and matured fruits +of which the blossoms are due to Würzburg. + +In the autumn of 1856 Virchow left Würzburg to settle in Berlin. The +exchange of a narrow sphere of labours for a wider one, of small means +and appliances for greater ones, proved unfavourable in this case, as +in many similar cases. Since he has been in Berlin, in a "great +Institution," and with luxurious appliances, all the scientific +results which Virchow has as yet brought to light are not to be +compared, either as to quality or quantity, to the grand and immortal +achievements which he himself effected in the little institute of +Würzburg with the scantiest means--a new proof of the maxim enunciated +by me, and hitherto never confuted, that "the scientific results of an +institute are in inverse proportion to its size." (See "The Aim and +Methods of Modern Evolution."[14]) + +Still more grave is the circumstance that, since settling in Berlin, +Virchow has more and more exchanged his theoretical scientific +activity for practical political life. It is well known how prominent +a part he plays there in the Prussian Chamber of Representatives, how +he raised himself to be the leader of the party of progress, and, to +give this political position a broader basis, took part in the +representation of the citizens of the capital; how he has taken a most +active interest, as city commissioner, in all the petty anxieties and +concerns which the charge of such a city as Berlin entails. I am far +from blaming, as many have blamed, the political and civic activity to +which Virchow has indefatigably devoted his best powers. If a man +feels in himself the inclination and vocation with strength and talent +enough, to play a conspicuous political part, by all means let him do +so; but verily I do not envy him; for the satisfaction which is +derived from the most successful and fruitful political activity is +not, to my taste, to be compared with that pure and disinterested +satisfaction of the mind which results from absorption in serious and +difficult scientific labours. In the turmoil of the political and +social struggle, even the most splendid civic crown will be dulled by +the stifling dust of practical life, which never reaches the ethereal +heights of pure science and never rests on the laurels of the +thoughtful investigator. However, as I have said, that is a matter of +taste. If Virchow really believes that he is doing a greater service +to humanity by his practical political life in Berlin than he +formerly did by his theoretical scientific work in Würzburg, that is +his affair; but for all that, in his former sphere he was +incomparable, and cannot be replaced; in the latter this is not the +case. + +If a distinguished man, be he never so remarkable for uncommon power +of work and universal gifts, passes the whole day in the friction of +political party-struggles, and throws himself as well into all the +petty and wearisome details of daily civic life, it is impossible for +him to maintain the requisite feeling for the progress of +science--particularly when it advances so rapidly and incessantly as +is the case in our day. It is therefore quite intelligible that +Virchow should soon have lost this feeling, and in the course of the +last two decades have become more and more estranged from science. And +this estrangement has at last led to so complete a change in his +fundamental views, to such a metapsychosis, that the present Virchow +of 1878 is hardly in a position to understand the youthful Virchow of +1848. + +We have seen a similar mental change occur contemporaneously in our +greatest naturalist, Carl Ernst von Baer. This gifted and profound +thinker and biologist, whose name marks a new epoch in the history of +evolution, had in his later years become wholly incompetent even to +understand those most important problems of his youthful labours +which opened up new paths of inquiry. While in his early years he laid +down principles of the greatest value to our modern doctrine of +evolution, and even went very near to adopting this hypothesis into +his system, at a later period he utterly denied it, and by his +writings on Darwinism proved that he was no longer generally capable +of mastering this difficult problem. As I am one of Von Baer's warmest +admirers, and in my "Evolution of Man," as well as in the "History of +Creation," and in other places, have most emphatically expressed that +sincere esteem, I thought I might venture to forbear from calling +attention to the discrepancy between the lucid, monistic principles of +Von Baer in his youth, and the confused dualistic views of his old +age. But as many opponents of Darwinism--and among them particularly +the Old Catholic philosopher of Munich, Huber, who has written a +series of articles in the "Augsburger Zeitung"--have made constant +capital out of the harmless talk of the feeble old Von Baer, I must in +this place explicitly declare that this dualistic prating of the old +man is quite incapable of shaking the monistic principles of the young +and enterprising pioneers of science, or of giving them the lie. + +In his autobiography Von Baer gives us the explanation of this +striking contradiction. In 1834 he entirely and for ever abandoned +the province of the history of development, at which for twenty years +he had laboured incessantly, and where he had earned splendid laurels. +To escape from the haunting and importunate ideas of the science which +had so wholly absorbed him, he fled from Königsberg to Petersburg, and +subsequently busied himself in scientific inquiries of a quite +different character. Twenty-five long years passed by, and when +Darwin's work appeared in 1859, Von Baer had too long undergone a +metapsychosis to be able to understand it. In Von Baer, as in Virchow, +the course of this remarkable metapsychosis is highly instructive, and +will itself afford to the thoughtful psychologist an interesting +evidence of the doctrine of evolution. + +However, the lack of comprehension of our modern evolution-hypothesis +is easier to explain in Virchow's case than in Von Baer's, for this +reason: morphological knowledge was greatly lacking to Virchow, while +Von Baer possessed it in the highest degree. Now morphology is +precisely that very department of inquiry in which our theory of +descent has its deepest and strongest roots, and has matured the most +glorious fruits of knowledge. The study of organic forms, or +morphology, is thus, more than any other science, interested in the +doctrine of descent, because through this doctrine it first obtained a +practical knowledge of effective causes, and was able to raise itself +from the humble rank of a descriptive study of _forms_ to the high +position of an analytical science of _form_. It is true that by the +beginning of this century the most comprehensive branch of +morphology--_i.e._, comparative anatomy--which was founded by Cuvier +and splendidly developed by Johannes Müller, had laid the foundations +on which to build a truly philosophical science of form. The enormous +mass of various empirical material, which had been accumulated by +descriptive systematists and by the dissections of zootomists since +the time of Linnæus and Pallas, had already been abundantly matured +and utilised in many ways for philosophic purposes by the synthetic +principles of comparative anatomy. But even the most important +universal laws of organisation--of which the old system of comparative +anatomy was one--had to take refuge in mystical ideas of a plan of +structure and of creative final causes (_causæ finales_); they were +incapable of arriving at a true and clear perception of effective +mechanical causes (_causæ efficientes_). This last, most difficult, +and grandest problem, Charles Darwin was the first to solve in 1859, +by setting Lamarck's theory of descent, which was already fifty years +old, on a firm footing by his own theory of selection. By this +hypothesis it was first made possible to fit together the rich +materials which had been previously amassed, into the splendid +edifice of the mechanical science of form. (See my "General +Morphology," vol. i. chap. iv.) + +The immeasurable step which Darwin thus made in organic morphology can +be adequately appreciated only by those who, like myself, were brought +up in the school of the old teleological morphology, and whose eyes +were suddenly opened by the theory of selection to a comprehension of +that greatest of all biological riddles, the creation of specific +forms. The dogma of creation, the mystic and dualistic doctrine of the +isolated creation of each separate variety, was annihilated at one +blow; the belief in transmutation has now for ever taken its +place--the mechanistic and monistic doctrine of the metamorphosis of +organic forms, of the descent of all the species of one natural class +from a common parent-form. How complete a change the science of +mechanical morphology has by this means been compelled to undergo, I +have endeavoured to point out in my "General Morphology;" and any one +who wishes to convince himself clearly of what an enormous revolution +has been brought about, particularly in comparative anatomy, may +compare the "Outlines of Comparative Anatomy" (Grundzüge der +vergleichenden Anatomie), by Carl Gegenbaur, 1870, and the latest +edition of his "Elements" (Grundrisses), with the old text-books of +that science. + +Virchow has no suspicion even of all these immeasurable strides in +morphology, for this department always lay out of his ken. His great +reforms in pathology were founded in the province of physiology, and +more especially in cellular physiology. But within the last twenty +years these two main branches of biological inquiry have grown more +and more apart. The great Johannes Müller was the last biologist who +was able to keep these departments of organic inquiry together, and +who won equally immortal honours in both divisions of the subject. +After Müller's death in 1858 they fell asunder. Physiology, as the +science especially of the functions or living activity of the +organism, addressed itself more and more to exact and experimental +methods: morphology, on the contrary, as the science of the forms and +structure of animals and plants, could naturally make but very small +use of this method; it must take refuge more and more in the history +of evolution, and so constitute an historical natural science. It was +on this very historical and genetic method of morphology, in +contradistinction to the exact and experimental method of physiology, +that I based my Munich address; and if Virchow in his answer had +really and thoroughly refuted this position, instead of fighting with +mere phrases and denunciations, this radical opposition would have +been well worthy of the fullest discussion. At the same time I have +no wish to reproach Virchow for being wholly fettered by the one-sided +views of the modern school-physiology, nor because morphology lies so +far out of his ken that he has not been able to form an independent +judgment of its aims and methods; but when, in spite of all this, he +on every occasion lets fall a disparaging judgment of it, we must +dispute his competence. It is true that in his Munich address he +emphasises the statement, "That which graces me best is that I know my +ignorance," by printing it in italics. I only regret that I am forced +to deny his possession of this very grace. Virchow does not know how +ignorant he is of morphology, else he would never have uttered his +annihilating verdict on it, else he would not continually designate +the study of the theory of descent as dilettanteism and vain dreaming, +as "a fanciful private speculation which is now making its way in +several departments of natural science." In truth, Virchow does me +greatly too much honour when he designates as my "personal crotchet" +an idea which for the last ten years has been the most precious common +possession of all morphological science. If Virchow were not so +unfamiliar with the literature of morphology, he must have known that +it is penetrated throughout by this principle of descent, that every +morphological inquiry which conscientiously pursues a well-considered +problem now assumes the doctrine of descent as granted and +indisputable. Of all this he is ignorant, and so it is intelligible +that he should continue to demand "certain proofs" of this hypothesis, +although those proofs have long since been produced. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] Vol. ii., p. 334 of translation. + +[13] London: C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1879. + +[14] Jena, Zeitschriften für Naturwissenschaft, 1875. Vol. x. +Supplement. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SKULL THEORY AND THE APE THEORY. + + +Inasmuch as Virchow persists in treating the theory of descent as an +"unproved hypothesis," inasmuch as he ignores all the forcible +evidences of that hypothesis, he deprives himself of the right of +speaking a decisive word in this, the most important scientific +dispute of the present day. Virchow is, in fact, simply incompetent in +the great question of evolution, as he is deficient in the greater +part of that knowledge--more especially morphological knowledge--which +is indispensable to forming a judgment upon it. Hence on the +turning-point of the whole matter--viz., the problem as to the origin +of species--he can have no opinion, as he has never turned his +attention to the systematic treatment of species: those transitions of +one species into another, which he asks to see, abound on all sides, +as is well known to every systematic naturalist. Only consider, for +example, the genera of Rubus and Salix among the living plants of the +present period, and the Ammonites and Brachiopoda among extinct +animals. Hence, too, Virchow can have no independent views as to the +historical development of the higher from the lower animals, because +the abundant living forms of the lower animals are almost unknown to +him, and because he has hardly any conception of the marvellous +strides which hundreds of industrious workers have made in this very +department within the last twenty years. But there can be no doubt, +indeed it is already universally acknowledged, that it is precisely +the comparative anatomy of the lower--nay, of the very lowest +animals--that has solved the greatest riddles of life, and removed the +greatest obstacles from the path of the doctrine of descent. He simply +ignores the fact that true Monads actually exist, and have been +positively identified by many different observers as structureless +"organisms without organs," and he turns out the poor Bathybius with a +kick. And yet I believe that in "Kosmos"[15] I have conclusively proved +that Monads must retain their vast elementary importance whether the +Bathybius actually exists or not. + +But even as regards the higher animals--nay, even as to the +comparative anatomy of the highest next to man, the apes--Virchow +stands apart, not understanding the views of modern morphology. + +We must here examine more closely into this, because it is precisely +in this department that Virchow's only morphological experiments have +been made; viz., his investigations as to the skulls of apes and of +men. This is precisely the one only point on which he has sought a +closer acquaintance with morphology, and precisely here it is most +clearly to be seen how little he is acquainted with the recent +advances our science has made, and that he has hardly any conception +of the extraordinary importance to that science of the theory of +descent. + +The skull theory, as is well known, has for a long time been a very +favourite theme, not only with prominent naturalists, but also with +talented amateurs. Undoubtedly the skull, viewed as the bony capsule +which encloses our most important organ of sense, our brain, has a +special claim to morphological importance; for the general +conformation of the skull corresponds on the whole to the development +of the brain, and its inner surface gives an approximate idea of the +outer surface of the brain. In this correspondence lies the only sound +kernel of the sickly, overgrown fancies of phrenology. The various +development of the skull allows of an approximate inference as to the +various degrees of development of the brain and of the mental +faculties. The comparative study of the skulls of the vertebrate +animals had excited the lively interest of morphologists by the end of +the last century, when comparative anatomy was beginning to +constitute a special science; and the genetic inquiry as to the +morphological significance and development of the skull soon grew out +of it. It was no less a man than our greatest German poet who first +answered this question, and propounded the theory that the skull was +neither more nor less than the modified foremost end of the vertebral +column, and that the separate groups of bones which lie behind one +another in the human skull, as in that of all the higher vertebrata, +answer to the separate modified vertebræ. This "vertebral theory" of +the skull, which Von Goethe and Oken simultaneously and independently +attempted to prove, aroused universal interest and maintained its +ground for seventy years, while many attempts were made to improve and +enlarge upon it in detail. + +A quite new light was thrown on this, as on every other morphological +question, as soon as Darwin in 1859 had once more put into our hands +the torch of the doctrine of descent. The inquiry as to the origin of +the skull now assumed a real and tangible form. Since all vertebrate +animals, from fishes up to man, agree so completely as to their +essential internal structure that they can be rationally conceived of +no otherwise than as branches of one stock and as descendants of one +parent-form, the distinctly formulated question as to the skull +theory which now started into prominence was this: "How, historically, +has the skull of man and of the higher animals originated from that of +the lower animals? How is the development of the bones of the skull +from the vertebræ to be proved?" The answer to these difficult +questions was supplied by the first comparative anatomist of the +present day, by Carl Gegenbaur. After Huxley had pointed out that the +ontogenesis or individual development of the skull by no means +favoured the older hypothesis of Goethe and Oken, Gegenbaur brought +forward evidence that the fundamental idea of that theory was correct; +that the skull does in fact correspond to a series of coalescent +vertebræ, but that the separate bones of the skull are not to be +regarded as representing parts of such modified vertebræ. The +skull-bones of all recent vertebrate animals are rather, for the most +part, dermal bones, which have come into closer connection as +supplementary to the cartilaginous primitive skull. We can even now +trace the number and position of the original vertebræ, from which +this primitive skull originated, by the number of the vertebral arches +(gill-arches) which are attached to it, as well as by the number and +position of those vertebræ, from nine to ten. Of all the recent +vertebrata, the cartilaginous fishes, or Selachians, have most nearly +preserved the form and structure of this primordial skull. These +Selachians, the Rays and Sharks, are on the whole the creatures which +throw the clearest light on the history of the lineage of the +vertebrata and on the organisation of our primeval fish-natured +ancestors. It is one of the particular merits of Gegenbaur that he +clearly and firmly established the place in nature of the Selachians +as the common ancestors of all vertebrate animals from fish up to man. + +None but those who have thoroughly studied the comparative morphology +of the vertebrata, who have sought the genetic issue from that +labyrinth of intricate morphological problems at the hands of the +theory of descent, can duly value the immeasurable service which +Gegenbaur has done by this and other "Investigations into the +Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrata." These investigations are as +much distinguished by a profound knowledge and careful working out of +the wonderfully-extensive empirical materials for the subject, as by +their critical acumen and philosophic grasp. At the same time they set +in the clearest light the immeasurable value of the theory of descent +in the causal explanation of the most difficult morphological +problems. Gegenbaur might, therefore, with perfect right, enunciate +this axiom in the Introduction to his "Comparative Anatomy." "The +theory of descent will at once find a touchstone of proof in +comparative anatomy. Up to this time no experience in comparative +anatomy has transpired which contradicts that theory; on the +contrary, they all lead up to it. Thus it will receive back from +science that which it has given to scientific method: clearness and +certainty." In point of fact we can adduce no morphological +investigations which better support this declaration than those very +phylogenetic researches "as to the cranium of the Selachians, as a +basis for the critical examination of the genesis of the cranium of +the vertebrata," 1872. As Virchow had formerly thoroughly studied the +old skull-hypothesis, and in his admirable discourse on "Goethe as a +Naturalist," 1861, had given an excellent exposition of it; as +moreover he had produced most valuable contributions to the normal and +pathological anatomy of the human skull, we might have expected that +he would have received Gegenbaur's grand reform of the theory of the +skull, and historical solution of the skull-problem, with the greatest +interest, and have made it the clue to his own further researches. But +we seek in vain through Virchow's latest contributions to the study of +the human skull, for any indication of his knowing or appreciating +Gegenbaur's investigations. On the contrary, we see him persistently +moving, without any clear goal in view, on that trodden and devious +path of investigation which finds the highest aim of craniological +science in the measuring of skulls, or craniometry. + +We are far from undervaluing the full significance of the results of +exact and careful descriptions and measurements of various +conformations of the skull as an empirical basis for a true and +scientific study of the skull--_i.e._, for comparative and genetic +craniology. But still we must say that the way and method by which +this skull measurement has, for ten years now, been pursued by +numerous craniologists can never yield corresponding scientific +results; on the contrary, though it is cried up as the "exact +morphology" of the skull, it simply loses itself in the domains of +harmless trifling. A large amount of time has in the last ten years +been squandered in disputes as to the best method of measuring skulls, +while the craniologists concerned have not, in the first place, +answered the obviously most important question: What end they propose +to gain by this specialist measuring, what proposition they mean to +prove by it? Most of those numerous skull measurers know nothing +beyond the perfect human skull, or at most the skulls of a few other +mammalia, while the comparative morphology and historical development +of the crania of the lower vertebrata are wholly unknown to them; and +yet these last contain the true key to the comprehension of the +others. One single month devoted by these "exact skull measurers" to +the study of Gegenbaur's theory of the skull, and to testing the +hypothesis by the skulls of Selachians, would have yielded them more +fruit and have given them more light than long years of describing and +measuring human skulls, however various. + +Virchow himself affords the most striking example of the usual results +of this so-called "exact method" of studying skulls. In his popular +essay on "The Skulls of Men and Apes," 1870, he concludes with this +notable proposition:--"It is therefore self-evident that Man can never +by any progressive development have originated from the Apes." Every +evolutionist who is familiar with the surprising facts of comparative +morphology will draw from them the opposite conclusion: "It is +self-evident that Man could only have originated from the progressive +development of the Ape (organism)." + +This brings us to that question which, in the popular treatment of the +theory of descent, is justly considered as its most important outcome +and as the keystone of the evolutionist edifice--to the well-known +proposition, "Man is descended from the Ape." While we simply ignore +all the misrepresentation, distortion, and misinterpretation which +this ape, or pithecoid hypothesis, has met with on all sides, we will +only remark that this fundamental proposition, in the sense of our +modern doctrine of evolution, can rationally have only this plain +meaning: that the human species as a whole was long since developed +from the order of apes, indeed actually from one (or perhaps more) +long since extinct form of ape; the immediate progenitors of man in +the long series of his vertebrate ancestry were apes or ape-like +animals. Of course none of the now surviving species of apes is to be +regarded as the unaltered posterity of that primeval parent-form. +Virchow, however, understanding the "ape question" in this sense, +answers it, as Bastian also does, with the most positive +contradiction. "We cannot teach the doctrine that man is descended +from apes or from any other animal, for we cannot regard it as a real +acquisition of science" (p. 31). Although I myself, in direct +opposition to this view, and in agreement with almost all my +professional colleagues, look upon the descent of man from apes as one +of the surest of phylogenetic hypotheses, I will here expressly admit +that the _relative_ certainty of this, as of all other historical +hypotheses of descent, is not comparable with the _absolute_ certainty +of the general theory of descent. It is now ten years since I first +explicitly stated (in my "Natural History of Creation," vol. ii. p. +358): "The pedigree of the human race, like that of every animal or +plant, remains in detail a more or less approximate general +hypothesis. This, however, in no way affects the application of the +theory of descent to man. In this, as in all researches into the +derivation of our organism, we must distinguish between the _general +theory_ of descent and the _specific hypothesis_ of descent. The +general theory of descent claims full and permanent value, because it +is inductively based on the whole range of common biological phenomena +and on their internal causal connection. Each special hypothesis of +descent, on the other hand, is conditional as to its specific value on +the existing state of our biological information, and on the extent of +those objective empirical grounds on which we deductively found the +hypothesis, by our subjective inferences." And I must here +emphatically add that I have on every opportunity repeated that +reservation, and have always insisted on the difference which exists +between the absolute certainty of transmutation in general and the +relative certainty of each individual specific pedigree. So that when +Semper and others of my opponents assert that I teach my specific +genealogies as "infallible dogmas," it is simply false. I have, on the +contrary, pointed out on all occasions that I regard them only as +_heuristic or provisional hypotheses_, and as a means of investigating +the actual relations of cognate races of organic forms more and more +approximately. + +Since the conception of the natural animal system as a hypothetical +genealogical tree, and the phylogenetic interpretation of +morphological affinity which that conception involves, afford in fact +the only rational interpretation of that affinity in general, my first +genealogical attempts soon found many imitators, and at the present +time numerous industrious labourers in the different departments of +systematic zoology are endeavouring to find in the construction of +such hypothetical genealogies the shortest and completest expression +of the modern conception of structural affinity. If Virchow had not +been as ignorant of the true significance and method of systematic +morphology as he is of its progress and scientific contents, he must +certainly have known this, and then he would surely have withheld his +mockery of all these grave phylogenetic studies as "personal +crotchets" and worthless dreams. + +What mighty strides towards a mechanical morphology we have made by +this phylogenetic working out of the system, and how much light and +life it has at once thrown into the system that before was dead and +cold, can only be known to those who have long and deeply studied +specific systematisation and the grouping of species; Virchow has not +the remotest suspicion of it. Moreover, these attempts have now +proceeded so far, that a large proportion of the phylogenetic +hypotheses are regarded as very nearly certain, and can hardly +undergo any further essential modifications; while the greater number +of them are still in an unfixed state, and one systematist tries to +improve them in this direction, and another in that. + +The following phylogenetic hypotheses are held to be almost +certain:----The descent of many-celled animals from single-celled, of +the Medusæ from the hydroid Polyps, of the jointed from the unjointed +worms, of the sucking from the gnawing insects, of amphibious animals +from fishes, of birds from reptiles, of the placental mammalia from +the marsupials, and so forth. I personally consider the descent of man +from the apes as equally certain; nay, I regard this most important +and pregnant genealogical hypothesis as one of those which, up to the +present time, rest on the best empirical basis. + +Huxley, in particular, fifteen years ago, in his celebrated "Man's +Place in Nature," 1863, so admirably proved the undoubted "descent of +man from apes," and so clearly discussed all the relations that had to +be taken into consideration, that very little was left to others to +do. The result of his comparative morphological investigations is +contained in this proposition----" If we take up a system of organs, +be it which we will, the comparison of its modifications throughout +the series of apes leads us to the same conclusion: that in every +single visible character man differs less from the higher apes than +these do from the lower members of the same order." It is therefore +impossible for any objective zoologist, according to the principles of +comparative systematisation, to ascribe to man any other place in the +animal world than in the order of apes; and it is quite immaterial +whether we designate this individual group as the Order of Apes, or, +with Linnæus, as the Primates. For the phylogenetic construction of +the system, the common descent of man and of apes from one common +parent-form, necessarily follows from this inevitable grouping, +and on this proposition only all the general inferences of the +"ape-hypothesis" depend. As to what that common parent-form of men and +apes may have been, very different views might probably be brought on +opposite sides; but any one who knows the collected facts that bear +upon the matter, and estimates them impartially, must, in conclusion, +arrive at the certain conviction that that hypothetical and long-since +extinct parent-form can only have been genuine apes; that is to say, +of the placental mammalian type, such as when we see them now living +before our eyes we unhesitatingly class, on the ground of their +zoological characters, as true apes, in the order of Apes or Primates. + +In this, and all other sound phylogenetic hypotheses, we may most +easily attain to a conviction of their truth by taking into +consideration and comparison the other possible hypotheses. But in +fact no single opponent of the ape-hypothesis has been able to combat +it with any other phylogenetic hypothesis that has the faintest +glimmer of probability. Not one opponent has suggested, or can +suggest, any other animal form that can serve as our nearest ancestor +than the ape. No one has ever reproached me by saying that Mother +Nature has endowed me with too little imagination; on the contrary, I +am often accused of having a superfluity of that gift of the gods; but +I have often and repeatedly exerted my imagination to picture to +myself any known or unknown animal-form as the nearest parent-form to +man in the place of the apes, and have always found myself under the +necessity of falling back upon the stock of apes. Let me conceive of +the outward conformation and the internal structure of the nearest +mammalian ancestors of men as I will, I am always forced to +acknowledge that this hypothetical parent-form ranges under the +zoologically-conceived order of apes, and cannot possibly be separated +from the Simiadoe or Primates. If, in spite of this, any one chooses, +out of a "personal crotchet," to accept some other series of unknown +animal ancestors of man that have nothing to do with apes, that is but +a mere empty hypothesis floating in the air. Our ape-hypothesis, on +the other hand, is objectively and thoroughly proved by the essential +agreement of the internal bodily structure of man and of apes, and by +the identity of their embryonic development, as I have fully shown in +my "Evolution of Man" (chaps. xix. and xxvi.) The mode and manner in +which he here puts palæontology in the foreground, and throws on the +theory of descent the task of producing an unbroken gradation of +fossil transitional forms between the apes and man, is very indicative +of Virchow's ignorance of this zoological question--in which I, as a +professional zoologist, must decisively declare his incompetence. The +reasons why such a solution of the problem is not to be expected, the +extraordinary imperfection of the palæontological record, the natural +impediments to the palæontological evidence of the genealogical table, +have been so lucidly unfolded by Darwin himself (chaps. ix. and x. of +the "Origin of Species") that I am obliged once more to come to the +conclusion that Virchow has never read it with any attention. + +Besides, long before Darwin, the gifted Lyell, the great originator of +modern geology, showed clearly and convincingly how, for many reasons, +the greater part of the fossil series must remain most imperfect, and +these reasons were at a later period so often and so fully discussed +(by myself among others, in chap. xv. of the "History of Creation," +vol. ii. pp. 24-32) that it is wholly superfluous once more and in +this place to state these well-known and time-worn questions. It only +shows how little Virchow was acquainted with geology and palæontology, +and what a limited judgment he can form of these historical causal +relations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] Vol. i. p. 293. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CELL-SOUL AND CELLULAR PSYCHOLOGY. + + +No attack in Virchow's Munich address surprised me so much, and none +so plainly betrayed the subversion of his most important scientific +views, as that which he directed against my observations on psychology +and cellular physiology. A mystic dualism in his fundamental views is +here revealed, which stands in the sharpest contrast to the mechanical +monism formerly upheld by the famous pathologist of Würzburg. + +In my Munich discourse (p. 12), I had alluded to the "grand and +fruitful application which Virchow had made, in his system of cellular +pathology, of the cell-theory to the general province of theoretic +medicine;" and as a logical amplification of that idea, I asserted +emphatically that we must ascribe an independent soul-life to every +individual organic cell. "This conception is validly proved by the +study of infusoria, amoebæ, and other one-celled organisms; for, in +these individual, isolated, living cells we find the same +manifestations of soul-life--feelings, and ideas (mental images), +will and motion, as is in the higher animals compounded of many cells" +(p. 13). Virchow now rises up in the strongest protest against this +theory of a cellular sensibility, which I regard as the inevitable +consequence of his early views of cellular physiology; it is to him +"mere trifling with words." He combats with equal decisiveness "the +scientific necessity of extending the province of psychical processes +beyond the circle of those bodies in and by which we actually see them +exhibited." He further says, "If I explain attraction and repulsion as +psychical phenomena, I simply throw the psyche out of the window; the +psyche ceases to be a psyche." Finally he says, "I assert without any +hesitation that for us the sum total of psychical phenomena is +connected with certain animals only, and not with the collective mass +of all organic beings; nay, not even with all animals in general. We +have no ground as yet for speaking of the lowest animals as possessing +psychical properties; we find such properties only in the higher +grades, and with perfect certainty only in the very highest." + +When I first read this and other astounding statements in Virchow's +paper, I involuntarily asked myself, "Can this be the same Virchow +from whom, twenty-five years ago, I learnt in Würzburg that the +soul-functions of man and animals depend on mechanical processes in +the soul-organs; that these organs are, like all other organs, +composed of cells, and that the functional activity of an organ is +nothing more than the sum of the activity of all the cells which +compose it? Is this the same Virchow whose most vital doctrine it was +that all the physical and psychical processes of the human organism +were to be referred to the mechanics of cell life; who supported the +view of the unity of all the phenomena of life with the same emphasis +with which we are now obliged to defend it against his attacks?" + +In fact, and beyond a doubt, we have here a new proof of Virchow's +complete change in all fundamental scientific principles. For the +cellular psychology which I advance is only a necessary consequence of +the cellular physiology promulgated by Virchow. His present opposition +to the former is either a renunciation of the latter or an untenable +and inconsequent position. To explain this astonishing metapsychosis, +we shall do well first to glance at the soul in general, and then give +particular consideration to the cell-soul. + +What is the Soul or Psyche? The innumerable different answers which +have been given to this crowning question of psychology, may +collectively, when freed from all extraneous matter, be brought +under two groups which we may shortly designate as the dualistic and +the monistic soul-hypothesis. According to the monistic (or +realistic) soul-hypothesis, the "soul" is nothing more than the sum +or aggregate of a multitude of special cell-activities, among which +sensation and volition--sensual perception and voluntary +movement--are the most important, the most common, and the most +widely diffused; associated with these in the higher animals and in +man, we find the more developed activities of the ganglionic cells +which are included under the conceptions of Thought, Consciousness, +Intellect, and Reason. Like all the other functional-activities of +the organic cells, these soul-functions depend ultimately on +material phenomena of motion, and more particularly on the motions +of the plasson-molecules or plastidules, the ultimate atoms of the +protoplasma, and perhaps of the nucleus also; therefore we should be +able actually to grasp and explain them, as well as every other +cognisable natural process, if we were in a position to refer them +to the mechanics of atoms. This monistic soul-hypothesis, then, is +at bottom mechanistic. If psychical mechanics--psychophysics--were +not so infinitely complex and involved, if we were in a position to +take a complete view of the historical evolution of the psychic +functions, we could reduce the whole of them (including +consciousness) to a mathematical "soul-formula." + +According to the opposite, or dualistic (or spiritualistic) +soul-hypothesis, the soul is, on the contrary, a peculiar substance, +which most people somewhat grossly conceive of as a gaseous body, +while others picture it with more subtlety, as an immaterial essence. +This "soul-substance" subsists independently of the animal-body, and +stands in only a temporary connection with certain organs of that +body--the soul-, or mental-organs. It has been imagined that this +soul-matter, which resembles that imponderable ether which is the +medium of light, is diffused between the ponderable molecules of the +soul-organs and especially of the nerve-cells, and that this +connection of the imponderable "soul" with the ponderable body +subsists only so long as the individual life lasts. At the instant of +the first beginning of the individual organism, at the moment of +generation, this imponderable "soul" passes into the body, and at the +instant of death, at the annihilation of the living individual, it +again quits the body. This mystical or dualistic soul-hypothesis, +which, as is well known, is to this day universally accepted, is +fundamentally vitalistic, inasmuch as it regards the force which is +bound up with the soul-substance, like the "vital force" of a past +time, as a peculiar force quite independent of mechanical forces. This +force does not depend on the material phenomena of motion, and is +quite independent of the mechanics of atoms. The highest law of modern +natural science, the law of the conservation of force, has, +therefore, no application in the region of soul-life, and that +mechanical causality which prevails throughout all the processes of +nature does not exist for the soul. The Psyche, in a word, is a +supernatural phenomenon, and the supernatural department of the +spiritual world stands free and independent of the natural department +of the material world. + +If we now compare the psychological views of the youthful and +unprejudiced Virchow of Würzburg with those of the older and mystical +Virchow of Berlin, there can be no doubt in the minds of the impartial +that the former, a quarter of a century ago, was as decided and +logical a monist as the latter is at present a confessed and convicted +dualist. The distinguished position which Virchow, twenty-five years +since, won by his natural conception of the nature of man, and the +great fame which he then earned in the fight for the truth, rest +precisely on this, that on every occasion he maintained with his +utmost vigour the unity of all vital phenomena, and asserted their +mechanical character. All organic life, even the soul-life, rests on +mechanical principles, on that causal mechanism of which Kant said +that "it alone contained a practical interpretation of nature," and +that "without it no natural science can exist." On this point Virchow +says well in his discourse on "Efforts at Unity in Scientific +Medicine," 1849:--"Life is only a peculiar sort of mechanics, though +it is indeed the most complex form of mechanics; that in which the +usual mechanical laws fall under the most unusual and manifold +conditions. Thus life, compared with the universal processes of motion +in nature, is a thing peculiar in itself; but it does not constitute a +diametrical, dualistic opposition to those laws; it is only a peculiar +species of motion. The motion itself is a mechanical one, for how +should we become cognisant of it if it were not based on the sensible +properties of bodies? The media of the motion are certain chemical +matters, for we recognise none but chemical matter in bodies. The +individual acts of motion reduce themselves to mechanical, or +physico-chemical, modifications of the constituent elements of the +organic unities, the cells and their equivalents." These and many +similar utterances in Virchow's earlier writings, and especially in +the essay I have mentioned, "On the Mechanical Conception of Life," +leave no doubt that he formerly supported, with a clear conscience and +his utmost energy, in psychology as in the other collected departments +of physiology, that very mechanical standpoint which we to-day accept +as the essential basis of our monism, and which stands in +irreconcilable antagonism to the dualism of the vitalistic doctrine. +To none of my teachers am I so deeply indebted for my emancipation +from all the prejudices of the dualistic doctrine, and for my +conversion to the monistic, as to Rudolf Virchow; for it was his +superior guidance which most firmly convinced me, and many others, of +the exclusive importance of the mechanical view of nature. He led me +to a clear recognition of the fact that the nature of man, like every +other organism, can only be rightly understood as a united whole, that +this spiritual and corporeal being are inseparable, and that the +phenomena of the soul-life depend, like all other vital phenomena, on +material motion only--on mechanical (or physico-chemical) +modifications of cells. And it was in perfect agreement with my most +honoured master that I subscribed then, and at this day still +subscribe, to the proposition with which he, in September 1849, closed +the preface to the above-mentioned "Efforts at Unity." "It is possible +that I may have erred in details; in the future I shall be ready and +willing to acknowledge my mistakes and to rectify them, but I enjoy +this conviction, that I shall never find myself in the position of +denying the principle of the unity of the human nature with all its +consequences!" + +To err is human! Who can say to what diametrical contradiction to his +firmest convictions man may not in the future be driven by his +adaptation to new relations in life? If we compare these stout +monistic declarations of 1849 and 1858 with the equally decided +dualistic utterances in Virchow's Munich address of 1877, we perceive +that he could not give the lie more fiercely to his former fundamental +opinions than he has there done. Not quite twenty years have passed +by, and yet, in the course of that time, in Virchow's views of the +universe, in his conception of human nature, and of the soul-life, a +change has been effected than which we can conceive of no greater. We +learn to our surprise that psychical and corporeal processes are +wholly different phenomena; that no scientific necessity whatever +exists for extending the province of psychical processes beyond the +circle of those bodies in which, and by which, we see them actually +exhibited. "We may ultimately explain the processes of the human mind +as chemical, but at any rate, it is not yet our business to amalgamate +these two subjects!" + +From the whole psychological discussion which is involved in Virchow's +Munich address, it is made clear that at the present time he regards +the "soul" in a purely dualistic sense as a substance, an immaterial +essence which only temporarily takes up its abode in the body. Highly +characteristic of this is the remarkable sentence, "If I explain +attraction and repulsion as psychical phenomena, I simply throw the +psyche out of the window; the psyche ceases to be a psyche." If we +substitute for the word "psyche" the word which corresponds to +Virchow's earlier mechanistic view--the word "motion" (or peculiar +mode of motion)--the sentence runs thus: "If I explain attraction and +repulsion as phenomena of motion, I simply throw motion out of the +window." + +Almost more remarkable is Virchow's assertion that the lowest animals +have no psychic properties; that, on the contrary, "these are only to +be found in the higher, and, with perfect certainty, only in the +highest animals." It is only to be regretted that Virchow has not here +stated what he understands by the higher and the highest animals; +where that remarkable dividing line is, beyond which the soul suddenly +appears in the hitherto soulless body. Every zoologist who is in some +degree familiar with the results of comparative morphology and +physiology will here clasp his hands in astonishment, for by this +proposition Virchow seems to mean that we must ascribe a soul-life +only to those animals in which special soul-organs, in the form of a +central and peripheral nerve-system, are developed from sense-organs +and muscles. But it is admitted that all these different soul-organs +with their characteristic properties have originated from single cells +through the division of labour (differentiation); and the nerves and +muscles especially have been developed by differentiation from the +neuro-muscular cells. The cells from which all these different +nerve-cells, muscle-cells, mind-cells, and so forth, are derived, are +originally the simple neutral cells of the epithelium of the ectoderm +or exterior germ-layer, and these cells, again, like all the cells of +many-celled animal bodies, originated in the repeated division of one +single original cell, the ovum-cell. + +The individual development or ontogenesis of each of these many-celled +animal-forms, brings this histological process of development so +clearly and evidently before our eyes that we can but directly infer +from it the truth of the phylogenesis, or gradual historical evolution +of the soul-organs. The association of cells and the division of +labour among them are the modes by which, in the first instance, the +compound many-celled organism has originated, historically, from the +simple one-celled organism. And an impartial comparative consideration +teaches us in the clearest way that a functional-activity of the +soul-cells exists in the lowest one-celled animals as well as in the +highest and many-celled; in the infusoria as well as in man. Volition +and sensation, the universal and unmistakable signs of soul-life, may +be observed among the former as well as in the latter. Voluntary +motion and conscious sensation (of pressure, light, warmth, &c.) come +under our observation so undoubtedly in the commonest forms of +infusorial animals--for instance the Ciliata, that one of their most +persevering observers, Ehrenberg, asserted undeviatingly to the day of +his death that all Infusoria must possess nerves and muscles, organs +of sense and of soul, as well as the higher animals. + +It is well known that the enormous advance which our science has lately +made in the natural history of these lowest organisms culminates in the +statement--clearly made by Siebold thirty years since, but only recently +"ascertained as proved"--that these minute creatures are _one-celled_, +and that in the case of these infusoria one single cell is capable of +all the various vital functions--including soul-functions--which in the +zoophytes (plant-animals), as the hydra and the sponges, are distributed +among the cells of the two germ-layers, and in all the higher animals +among the different tissues, organs, and apparatus of a highly developed +and constructed organism. The psychic functions of sensation and +voluntary motion, which are here distributed to such very various organs +and tissues, are in the infusoria fulfilled by the neutral plasson +material of the cell, by the protoplasma, and possibly also by the +nucleus (compare my treatise "The Morphology of the Infusoria." Jena, +Zeitschriften, 1873, vol. vii. p. 516). And just as we must attribute to +these primary animal forms an independent "soul," just as we must +plainly be convinced that the single independent cell has a "psyche," we +must as decidedly attribute a soul to every other cell; for the most +important active constituent of the cell, the protoplasm, everywhere +exhibits the same psychic properties of sensibility or irritability, and +motive power or will. The only difference is this, that in the organism +of the higher animals and plants the numerous collected cells, to a +great extent, give up their individual independence, and are subject, +like good citizens, to the soul-polity which represents the unity of the +will and sensations in the cell community. We here also must distinguish +clearly between the central soul of the whole many-celled organism or +the personal psyche (the person-soul), and the particular individual +soul or elementary soul of the individual cells constituting that +organism (the cell-soul). Their relations are strikingly illustrated in +the instructive group of Siphonophora, as I have briefly shown in my +article on "The Cell-soul and Soul-cells" (Deutsche Rundschau, July +1878). Beyond a doubt the whole stock or polity of Siphonophora has a +very definite united will and a united sensibility, and yet each of the +individual persons of which this stock (or Cormus) is composed has its +own personal will and its own particular sensations. Each of these +persons indeed was originally a separate Medusa, and the individual +Siphonophora stock originated, by association and division of labour, +out of these united Medusa communities. + +When I developed this theory of the cell-soul and designated it in my +Munich address as the "surest foundation of empirical psychology," I +believed I was drawing an inference quite to Virchow's mind, from his +own views of mechanical and cellular-physiology; and for that reason I +took the same occasion specially to celebrate his very great services +to the cell theory. How astonished then was I when in his reply this +very theory was violently attacked and satirised as "mere trifling +with words." It never could have occurred to me that Virchow had long +since become unfaithful to his most important biological principles, +and had deserted his own mechanical "theory of cells;" it never had +occurred to me that Virchow could be in great measure wanting in that +zoological knowledge which is requisite for a practical comprehension +of the cell-soul theory. He has never thoroughly studied either the +one-celled Protozoa, the Infusoria and Lobosa, nor the Coelenterata, +the highly instructive Sponges, Hydroids, Medusæ, or Siphonophora; and +thus he is wanting in those genetic principles of comparative zoology +on which our theory rests. It is in no other way conceivable that +Virchow should contemn the most important consequences of the cell +theory as "mere trifling with words." + +Next to the one-celled infusoria no phenomenon throws such direct +light on our cellular psychology as the fact that the human ovum, like +the ova of all other animals, is a single, simple cell. In accordance +with our monistic conception of the cell-soul, we must conclude that +the fertilised ovum-cell already virtually possesses those psychical +properties which, by the special combination of the peculiarities +inherited from both parents, characterise the individual soul of the +new person; in the course of the development of the germ, the +cell-soul of the fertilised ovum naturally is developed simultaneously +with its material substratum, and subsequently, after birth, it +appears in full activity. + +According to Virchow's dualistic conception of the psyche, we must, on +the contrary, assume that this immaterial essence at some period of +its embryonic development (apparently when the spine separates itself +from the external germ-layer) informs the soulless germ. Of course, +the bare miracle is thus complete, and the natural and unbroken +continuity of development is superfluous. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE GENETIC AND DOGMATIC METHODS OF TEACHING. + + +The very justifiable surprise which Virchow's Munich address has +excited in many circles is due only in part to his opposition to the +theory of descent; for the rest, and in much greater part, it is due +to the astounding arguments which he has connected with it, +particularly as to freedom for instruction. These arguments so closely +resemble those of the Jesuits that they might have been inspired +direct from the Vatican, or, which is the same thing, the notorious +"court-chaplain party" in Berlin. No wonder, then, that these +propositions, which would undermine the whole liberty of science, have +met with the loudest approbation from the "Germania," the "New +Evangelical Church Times" ("Neue Evangelischen Kirchenzeitung"), and +other leading, equivocating organs of the Church militant. On the +other hand, these odious principles are already so extensively +discussed, and have been so clearly laid down in all their +indefensibility, that I may here deal with them briefly. + +Virchow's politics as a pedagogue reach their highest pitch in this +demand: "that in all schools, from the poor schools to the +universities, nothing shall be taught that is not absolutely certain. +None but objective and absolutely ascertained knowledge is to be +imparted by the teacher to the learner; nothing subjective, no +knowledge that is open to correction, only facts, no hypotheses." The +investigation of such problems as the whole nation may be interested +in must not be restricted; that is liberty of inquiry; but the problem +ought not, without anything farther, to be the subject of _teaching_. +"When we teach we must restrict ourselves to the smaller, and yet how +great, departments which we are actually masters of." + +Rarely indeed has such a treasonable attempt on liberty of doctrine +been made by a prominent representative of science, and a leader of +the intellectual movement too, as this by Virchow. Only inquiry is to +be free and not teaching! And where in the whole history of science is +there one single scientific inquirer to be found who would not have +felt himself quite justified in teaching his own subjective +convictions with as much right as he had to construct them from +inquiry into objective facts. And where, generally speaking, is the +limit to be found between objective and subjective knowledge? Is +there, in fact, any objective science? + +This question Virchow answers in the affirmative, for he goes on to +say: "We must not forget that there is a boundary line between the +speculative departments of natural science and those that are actually +conquered and firmly established" (p. 8). In my opinion, there is no +such boundary line; on the contrary, all human knowledge as such is +subjective. An objective science which consists merely of facts +without any subjective theories is inconceivable. For evidence in +favour of this view we must take a rapid survey of the whole domain of +human science, and test the chief departments of it to see how far +they contain, on the one hand, objective knowledge and facts, and on +the other, subjective knowledge and hypotheses. We may begin directly +with Kant's assertion that in every science only so much true--that is +objective--knowledge is to be found as it contains of mathematics. +Unquestionably mathematics stand at the head of all the sciences as +regards the certainty of its teaching. But how as to those deepest and +simplest fundamental axioms which constitute the firm basis on which +the proud edifice of mathematical teaching rests? Are these certain +and proved? Certainly not. The bases of its teaching are simply +"axioms" which are incapable of proof. To give only one example of how +the very first principles of mathematics might be attacked by +scepticism and shaken by philosophical speculation, we may remember +the recent discussions as to the three dimensions of space and the +possibility of a fourth dimension; disputes which are carried on even +at the present day by the most eminent mathematicians, physicists, and +philosophers. So much as this is certain, that mathematics as little +constitute an absolutely objective science as any other, but by the +very nature of man are subjectively conditioned. A man's subjective +power of knowing can only discern the objective facts of the outer +world in general so far as his organs of sense and his brain admit in +his own individual degree of cultivation. + +However, granting that mathematics practically constitute an +absolutely certain and objective science, how is it with the rest of +the sciences? Undoubtedly the most certain among them are those "exact +sciences" whose principles are to be directly proved by mathematics; +thus, in the first place, a great part of physics. We say, "a great +part," for another large part--to speak accurately, by far the +greatest--is incapable of any exact mathematical proof. For what do we +know for certain of the essential nature of matter, or the essential +nature of force? What do we know for certain of gravitation, of the +attraction of mass, of its effects at great distances, and so on? +Newton's theory of gravitation is regarded as the most important and +certain theory of physics, and yet gravitation itself is a hypothesis. +Then, as to the other branches of physics--electricity and magnetism. +The whole scheme of these important sciences rests on the hypothesis +of "electric fluidity," or of imponderable matter of which the +existence is nothing less than proved. Or optics? Optics certainly +appertain to the most important and completest branch of physics, and +yet the undulatory theory of light, which we accept now as the +indispensable basis of optics, rests on an unproved hypothesis, on the +subjective assumption of an ethereal medium, whose existence no one is +in a position to prove objectively in any way. Nay, further, before +Young set up the undulatory theory of light, for a hundred years the +emanation theory as taught by Newton obtained exclusively in physics; +a theory which at the present day is universally regarded as +untenable. In our opinion the mighty Newton won the greatest honours +in the development of the science of optics, inasmuch as he was the +first to connect and explain the vast mass of objective optical facts +by a subjective and pregnant hypothesis. But, according to Virchow's +view, Newton on the contrary transgressed greatly by teaching this +erroneous hypothesis; for even in "exact" physics none but +"independent and certain facts" are to be taught and established by +"experiment as the highest means of proof." Physics as a whole, as +resting on mere unproved hypotheses, may be indeed an object of +inquiry but not of teaching. + +Of course the same is true of chemistry; nay, this stands on much +weaker feet, and is even less proved than physics. The whole +theoretical side of chemistry is an airy structure of hypotheses such +as does not exist in any other science. In the last three decades we +have seen a whole series of the most different theories rapidly +succeed each other, none of which can be positively proved, though at +least one of them is taught by every professor of chemistry. But what +is worst of all, the common basis of all the most dissimilar chemical +theories, viz., the atomic theory, is as unproved and unprovable as +any hypothesis can be. No chemist has ever seen an atom, but he +nevertheless considers the mechanism of atoms as the highest term of +his science, he nevertheless describes and constructs the connection +of atoms in their various combinations as though he had them before +him on the dissecting-table! All the conceptions which we possess as +to chemical structure and the affinities of matter, are subjective +hypotheses, mere conceptions as to the position and changes of +position of the various atoms, whose very existence is incapable of +proof. Away, then, with chemistry from our schools! The chemist must +only describe the properties of the different elements and those +combinations which can be put before the pupil as ascertained facts +founded in experiment, "the highest means of proof." Everything that +goes beyond this is mischievous, particularly every suggestion as to +the essence and chemical constituents of bodies; matters as to which, +in the nature of things, we can only form uncertain hypotheses. For as +all chemistry, viewed as a system of doctrine, rests solely on such +hypotheses, it may be indeed a subject of investigation but not of +teaching. + +Having thus convinced ourselves that chemistry as well as physics, +those "exact sciences," those "mechanical" bases of all other +sciences, rest on mere unproved hypotheses, and so must not be taught, +we may make short work of the other faculties. For they collectively +are more or less historical sciences and dispense wholly or in part +with even those half-exact, fundamental principles on which physics +and chemistry are based. In the first place, there is that grand, +historical, natural science, geology; the great doctrine of the +structure and composition, the origin and development of our globe. +According to Virchow this too must be limited to the description of +ascertained facts, such as the structure of mountain masses, the +character of the fossils they contain, the formation of crystals, and +so forth. But not for the world must anything be taught as to the +evolution of this globe; for this rests from beginning to end on +unproved hypotheses. For even to the present day the Plutonic and +Neptunic theories are disputing the field, and to this day we know not +as to many of the most important rocks, whether they originated by the +agency of fire or of water. The new and remarkable discoveries of the +great Challenger-expedition threaten to subvert a great many +geological notions which had long been regarded as certain. Then +again, as to fossils. Who can prove with any certainty that these +petrifactions are in truth the fossilised remains of extinct +organisms? They may be--as many distinguished naturalists of even the +last century maintained--marvellous sports of nature, mysterious +"Lusus naturæ," or mere rough, inorganic models of the labouring +Creator into which He subsequently "breathed the breath of life;" or +perhaps "stone-flesh" (caro fossilis) brought into existence, on the +dead rocks by the "fertilising air" (aura seminalis), and so forth. + +But I am wrong! for with regard to petrifactions, Virchow is in the +highest degree speculative, and accepts without any hesitation the +rash hypothesis that fossils are actually the remains of extinct +organisms, although no "certain proof" whatever can be offered in its +favour, and although experiment, the "highest means of proof," has +never yet produced a single fossil. According to him these are actual +"objective, material evidences," only here we must go no further than +certain experience teaches us, and base no subjective conclusions on +these objective facts. Thus, for instance, in the long series of the +mesozoic formations, in the different strata of the Trias, Jurassic, +and Chalk formations, for the deposition of which a lapse of many +millions of years has been required, we find absolutely no remains of +fossil mammalia beyond lower jaws; seek where we will, nothing is +anywhere to be found but lower jaws, and no other bones whatever. The +simple reasons of this striking imperfection of the palæontological +record have been clearly expounded by Lyell, Huxley, and others. +(Comp. my "History of Creation," vol. ii. p. 32.) These great +investigators, in accordance with all other palæontologists, have +demonstrated that these jaw-bones of the mesozoic period are the +remains of mammalia, accurately speaking of marsupials, on the simple +ground that the nether jaws of the extant recent marsupials show a +similar characteristic form with the fossil ones. They therefore +unhesitatingly assume that the rest of the bones in the bodies of +these extinct animals corresponded to those of living mammals. But +this is a quite inadmissible hypothesis devoid of any "certain proof!" +Where, then, are the other bones? Let us see them! till then we +decline to believe in them. According to Virchow, we ought rather to +assume that the lower jaw was the only bone in the body of these +extraordinary beasts. Are there not, in fact, snails, in which an +upper jaw is the only representation of a skeleton. + +We cannot omit taking this opportunity of casting a side glance at the +very hazardous position which Virchow, in total opposition to his +boasted cool scepticism, has taken up in anthropology as it is called, +now his favourite branch of science. In his Munich address he tells us +that he is pursuing the study of anthropology with delight, and then +asserts that "the quarternary man" is an universally-accepted fact. +Quite apart from this statement, we have seen that Virchow can never +attain to a profound and really scientific study of anthropology +simply for this reason, that he is lacking in that comprehensive +knowledge of comparative morphology which is indispensable to it; nay, +comparative anatomy and ontogenesis must be, according to him, +unpermitted speculations and the phylogenesis of man, the key to all +the most important questions of anthropology, being based upon these, +is devoid of all certain proof. All the more must we wonder at the +speculative levity with which even the sceptic Virchow in the +"Primeval History of Man" and "Fossil Anthropology," embarks in the +most hazardous conjectures, and gives out uncertain, subjective +hypotheses as certain, objective facts. + +There is, in fact, at the present day no department of science in +which the wildest and most untenable hypotheses have blossomed out so +freely as in anthropology and ethnology, so-called. All the +phylogenetic hypotheses which I myself have put forward in my +"Evolution of Man" as to the animal ancestry of man, or in my "Natural +History of Creation" as to the affinities of animal races--all the +other genealogical hypotheses which are now advanced by numerous +zoologists and botanists as to the phylogenetic evolution of the +animal and plant worlds--all these hypotheses together, which Virchow +rejects in a lump, are, critically considered as hypotheses, far +better grounded in facts, far better supported by facts, than the +majority of those innumerable airy and fanciful hypotheses with which, +for the last twelve years, the "Archiv für Anthropologie" and +"Zeitschrift für Ethnologie," edited by Virchow and Bastian, have +filled their columns. This last periodical has at least the merit of +being a tolerably consistent opponent of the doctrine of evolution, +while in the former, during twelve years, essays on both sides have +been mixed up in cheerful confusion. And how fanciful are the +short-sighted hypotheses which there blossom forth from the mixed mass +of facts, chaotically flung together. Only think of the disputes over +the stone age, bronze age, and iron age; think of the motley +discussions as to the varieties of skull-conformation and their +significance; on the races of man, the migrations of peoples and the +like. Most of these very intricate historical problems are far more +buried in obscurity, and the hypotheses to explain them dispense far +more largely with any basis of facts, than is the case with our +phylogenetic hypotheses; for these are more or less "objectively" +based on the facts of comparative anatomy and ontogenesis. + +But no one of these historical hypotheses is so daring, so little +"certainly proved," as the group of very various and contradictory +hypotheses which have been put forward as to the antiquity and first +appearance of the human species; and Virchow asserts positively "The +pleistocene man is an universally accepted fact. The tertiary man is, +on the other hand, a problem, though indeed a problem which is already +under substantial discussion!" As if the distinction between the +tertiary and quarternary periods were not itself a geological +hypothesis, and as if the significance of the fossil animal-remains, +which play the largest part in it, did not also rest on mere +hypotheses which escape all certain proof! Where, then, is the actual +experiment "as the highest means of proof," which gives evidence for +these "certain facts"? The whole discussion in general about +prehistoric man, which Virchow has mixed up with his Munich address +(pp. 30, 31), is the clearest evidence of the uncritical spirit in +which he deals with these historical problems as "exact natural +sciences." He assures us that "not one single ape's skull, nor skull +of an anthropoid ape, has ever been found which could actually have +belonged to a human owner!" and he adds this sentence, in italics, "We +cannot teach, for we cannot regard it as a real acquisition of +science, that man is descended from the ape or from any other animal!" +Then evidently no alternative remains but that he is descended from a +god, or from a clod! + +But let us go over the rest of the sciences to see what, according to +Virchow, may be taught in each without endangering the safety of +science. In the whole department of biology, as well as in +zoology--including anthropology--and in botany, instruction must be +limited to imparting those trifling fragments of knowledge which +either consist of mere descriptions of dry facts, or which supply an +explanation of them by mathematical formulas. Morphology must be +taught as mere descriptive anatomy and systematising, the history of +development as mere descriptive ontogenesis. Comparative anatomy and +phylogenesis, which by their explanatory hypotheses raise those dead +masses of facts to the place of true and living sciences--these must +not be taught at all. And how then do matters stand with regard to the +cell-theory, that fundamental theory on which every element of our +morphology and physiology depends, and by applying which Virchow +himself reached his grandest results? + +Since Schleiden in Jena, forty years ago, first put forward the +cell-theory, and Schwann immediately after applied it to the animal +kingdom and so to the whole organic world, this fundamental doctrine +has undergone very important modifications, for it is indeed a +biological theory, but not a fact. We may recollect under what +different aspects its main principles have appeared in the course of +these four decades: what changes have taken place in the conception of +the cell itself. After the organic cell had originally been conceived +of as a vesicle, consisting of a firm capsule and a fluid content, we +subsequently discerned it to be composed of a glutinous semi-fluid +cell-substance, the protoplasm, and convinced ourselves that this +protoplasm and the cell-core or nucleus enclosed in it are the most +important and indispensable constituent parts of the cell, while the +external firm capsule, the cell-membrane, is not essential and very +frequently wanting. But even now opinions widely differ as to how the +conception of a cell should be precisely defined, and what +consequences must be inferred from the cell-theory, and attempts have +not been wanting to upset it altogether and to treat it as worthless. +The anatomist Henle, of Göttingen, in particular, has repeatedly made +such an attempt, that "gifted" anatomist who, in the preface to his +bulky text-book of human anatomy, declared that scientific ideas are +mere worthless paper money, and that the noble metal of facts, on the +contrary, is the only genuine article. Not long since a bulky volume +in quarto appeared, by one Herr Nathusius-Königsborn, in which the +cell is explained to be a subordinate plastic element, and the +cell-theory is eliminated as superfluous; and this monstrous volume, +full of the most amusing nonsense, is dedicated to Herr Henle. Virchow +formerly was one of the victorious opponents of the Göttingen +physician, and wrote brilliant articles against the "rational +pathology" of "irrational Herr Henle;" now apparently he agrees with +him that the paper money of ideas is worthless as compared with the +noble metal of facts. Of course the cell-theory then loses all its +value, and cannot be a subject of instruction; for the cell itself is +not a certain and undoubted fact, but only an abstraction, a +philosophical idea. + +Nothing more clearly shows what a complete change Virchow has +undergone in his most important principles, and what an utter +metapsychosis in this special province, than his famous axiom, +uttered in 1855--"Omnis cellula e cellula." That is unquestionably the +boldest generalisation to which the youthful, independent Virchow ever +attained, and one on which he justly prided himself not a little. He +himself repeatedly compared it with Harvey's saying, which marked an +epoch--"Omne vivum ex ovo." But neither of these axioms is universally +correct. On the contrary, we now know that every cell does not +necessarily originate from a cell, any more than that every organic +individual originates from an ovum. In many cases true nucleated cells +proceed from un-nucleated cytods, as in the Gregarinæ, Myxomycetæ and +others. Nay more, the primordial organic cells could only have +originated in the first instance from non-cellular plastides or monads +by their homogeneous plasson resolving itself into an internal nucleus +and an external protoplasm. Thus, as we subsequently learnt to know +most of the exceptions to this generalisation of Virchow, it appeared +all the bolder; the more so as we were at that time far from being +able to refer all the different tissues of the higher animals with any +certainty to cells, and as not a few experiments seemed to point to +the hypothesis of free cell-formation. That guiding axiom, which so +powerfully furthered the cell-theory, Virchow, from his present +standpoint, must wholly condemn as a crime against exact science, and +he surely can never forgive himself for having propounded this +hypothesis--which was afterwards found to be not universally true--as +an important doctrinal axiom. + +We shall indeed find much worse sins against his own principles of +to-day if we turn to Virchow's own special department of science, +namely, pathological anatomy and physiology, the most important +division of theoretic medicine. The great and incomparable services +which Virchow here effected do not depend on the numerous independent +new facts which he discovered, but on the theories and hypotheses by +which, like an inspired pioneer, he sought to open a way through the +dead waste of pathological knowledge and to form it into a living +science. These new theories and the hypotheses on which they were +founded, Virchow then propounded to us, his disciples, with such +incisive assurance that every one of us was convinced of their truth; +and yet later experience has shown that they were in part +insufficiently proved and in part wholly false. For example, I will +only here recall his famous theory of the connective-tissue, for which +I myself in several of my early works (1856 to 1858) broke a lance. +His theory seemed to explain a host of the most important +physiological and pathological phenomena in the simplest manner, and +yet it was afterwards proved to be false. In spite of this, I declare +to this day that it was of the greatest service for the development of +our acquaintance with the formation of the connective-tissue; as a +guiding hypothesis and as a provisional clue to our investigations. +Virchow, on the contrary, if he impartially reflects on the part he +took in the diffusion of this misleading doctrine, must reproach +himself severely for it. For "we must draw a hard and fast line +between what we are to teach and what we are to investigate. What we +investigate are problems," but "the problem ought not to be the +subject of teaching." That Virchow, in his course of instruction, +every day belied this, his present view of teaching, that he every +hour taught his disciples some unproved theory and problematical +hypothesis, every one knows who, like myself, for years and with the +deepest interest, enjoyed his distinguished instruction. Still the +captivating charm of this instruction--in spite of the defective +method of unprepared lectures--lay precisely in this, that Virchow as +a teacher constantly let us, his pupils, enter into those problems +with which he himself at the moment was occupied; that he propounded +to us his personal hypothesis for the elucidation of the given facts. +And what really gifted teacher who lives in his science would not do +the same? Where is there, or where has there ever been, a great master +who in his teaching has confined himself to only imparting certain +and undoubtedly ascertained facts? Who has not, on the contrary, found +that the charm and value of his instruction lay precisely in +propounding the problems which link themselves with those facts, and +in teaching the uncertain theories and fluctuating hypotheses which +may serve to solve these problems? Or is there for the young and +struggling mind anything better, or more conducive to culture, than to +exercise the intelligence in problems of investigation? + +How unpractical and how absurd is Virchow's demand--that only +ascertained facts and no problematic theories shall be admitted in +teaching--will be still more strikingly shown by a glance over the +remaining provinces of human knowledge. What, indeed, will be left of +history, of philology, of political science, of jurisprudence, if we +restrict the teaching of them to absolutely-ascertained and +established facts. What of "science" will remain to them if the idea +which endeavours to discern the causes of the facts is banished? if +the problems, the theories, the hypotheses, which seek these causes +may not be generally taught? And that philosophy--the science of +knowing--by which all the common results of human knowledge are to be +bound up into one grand and harmonious whole--that philosophy, I say, +must not be generally taught, is, according to Virchow, quite +self-evident. + +Finally, there remains nothing but theology. Theology alone is the one +true science, and its dogmas alone may be taught as certain. Of +course! for it proceeds directly from revelation, and only divine +revelation can be "quite certain;" it alone can never err. Yes, +incredible as it sounds, Virchow, the sceptical opponent of dogma, the +leader of the fight for "liberty of science," Virchow now finds the +only sure basis for instruction in the dogmas of the Church. After all +that has gone before, the following memorable sentence leaves no doubt +on this score:--"Every attempt to transform our problems into dogmas, +to introduce our conjectures as a basis of instruction, particularly +any attempt simply to dispossess the Church and to supplant her dogma +by a creed of descent--ay, gentlemen--this attempt must fail, and in +its ruin will entail the greatest peril on the position of science in +general." + +The shouts of triumph of the whole clerical press over Virchow's +Munich address is thus rendered perfectly intelligible, for it is well +known that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth +than over ten just men." When Rudolf Virchow, the "notorious +materialist," the "advanced radical," the "great supporter of the +atheism of science," is so suddenly converted, when he proclaims +loudly and publicly that the dogmas of the Church are the only sure +basis of instruction, then the Church militant may well sing "Hosanna +in the highest!" Only one thing is to be regretted, that Virchow has +not more clearly defined which of the many different church-religions +is the only true one, and which of the innumerable and contradictory +dogmas are to form the sure basis of instruction. We all know that +each Church regards itself as the only truly saving one, and her own +dogma as the only true one. But as to whether it is to be +Protestantism or Catholicism, the Reformed or the Lutheran confession, +whether the Anglican or the Presbyterian dogma, whether the Roman or +the Greek Church, the Mosaic or the Mohammedan dispensation, whether +Buddhism or Brahmanism, whether, finally, it is to be one of the many +fetish-religions of the Indians and Negroes that is to form the +permanent and sure basis of instruction, let us hope that Virchow will +at the next meeting of German naturalists and physicians divulge his +opinion. + +At any rate, the "instruction of the future, according to Virchow," will +be greatly simplified if he will do this. For the dogma of the Trinity +in Unity as a basis of mathematics, the dogma of the resurrection of the +body as a basis of medicine, the dogma of infallibility as a basis of +psychology, the dogma of the immaculate conception as a basis of genetic +science, the dogma of the staying of the sun as a basis of astronomy, the +dogma of the creation of the earth, animals, and plants as a basis of +geology and phylogenesis--these or any other dogma, at pleasure, from any +other church will make all other doctrine quite superfluous. Virchow, +"that critical spirit," knows as well as I, and as every other naturalist, +that these dogmas are not true, and nevertheless, in his opinion, they +are not to be supplanted as the "basis of instruction" by those theories +and hypotheses of modern natural science of which Virchow himself says +that they may be true, that in a great measure they probably are true, +but are not yet "quite certainly proved." + +At pages 15, 24, 26, 28, and elsewhere in his Munich address, Virchow +strongly insists that only that objective knowledge may be taught +which we possess as absolutely certain fact! and then at page 29 he +requires us to conclude that the basis of instruction shall continue +to be the purely subjective dogmas of the Church; revelations and +dogmas which not only are not proved by any facts whatever, but on the +contrary, stand in the most trenchant contradiction to the most +obvious facts of natural experience and fly in the face of all human +reason. These contradictions, to be sure, are no greater than some +others which stand out conspicuous and incomprehensible in Virchow's +discourse. Thus at the beginning of his address he glorifies Lorenz +Oken and deeply laments "that he, that highly-valued and honoured +master, that ornament of the high school of Munich, had been forced +to die in exile! That cruel exile which oppressed Oken's latter years, +which left him to perish far from those cities to which he had +sacrificed the best powers of his life, that exile will be remembered +as the note of the time which we have passed through. And so long as +there continue to be meetings of German naturalists, so long may we +gratefully remember that this man to his death bore upon him all the +signs of a martyr, so long shall we point to him as one of the +witnesses who have fought for us and for the liberty of science." +Verily these words from Virchow's lips sound like the bitterest irony; +for was not Lorenz Oken one of the foremost and most zealous champions +of that monistic doctrine of development against which Rudolf Virchow +at this day is most violently striving? Did not Oken himself proceed +farther in the construction of bold hypotheses and comprehensive +theories than any supporter of the doctrine of evolution at the +present time? Is not Oken justly considered as the one typical +representative of that older period of natural philosophy who rose to +much higher and bolder flights of fancy, and left the solid ground of +facts much farther behind him than any tyro of the new philosophy? And +this makes the irony seem all the greater with which Virchow at the +beginning of his address glorifies Oken the free teacher, as a martyr +to the freedom of science, and at the end of it insists that this +freedom applies only to inquiry and not to teaching, and that the +master must teach no problem, no theory, no hypothesis. + +While this unheard-of demand sets Virchow's views of teaching in the +most extraordinary light, and while every unprejudiced and experienced +teacher must most emphatically protest against this strait-waistcoat +for instruction, he will feel no less bound to resist Virchow's other +strange demand, that every ascertained truth shall forthwith be taught +in all schools, down to the elementary schools. I myself, in my Munich +address, sought the instructional value of our monistic evolution +theory above all in the genetic method, in the inquiry, that is to +say, for the effective causes of the facts taught; and I added these +words--"How far the principles of the doctrine of universal evolution +ought to be at once introduced into our schools, and in what +succession its most important branches ought to be taught in the +different classes--cosmogony, geology, the phylogenesis of animals and +plants, and anthropology--this we must leave to practical teachers to +settle. But we believe that an extensive reform of instruction in this +direction is inevitable, and will be crowned by the fairest results." +I purposely avoided any closer discussion of this specialist +question, as I felt not even approximately capable of solving it, and +I believe, in fact, that none but skilled and experienced practical +teachers can undertake the solution of it with any success. + +For Virchow these specialist difficulties seem not to exist; he +regards my reticence as a mere "postponement of the task," and he +answers in the following astonishing sentences:--"If the theory of +descent is as certain as Herr Haeckel assumes, then we must +demand--for it is a necessary consequence--that it shall be taught in +schools. How is it conceivable that a doctrine of such importance, +which must effect such a total revolution in all our mental +consciousness, which directly tends to create a new kind of religion, +should not be included in the school scheme of instruction? How is it +possible that such a--revelation, shall I say--should be in any +measure suppressed, or that the promulgation of the greatest and most +important advance which has been made in our views during the present +century should be left to the discretion of schoolmasters? Ay, +gentlemen, that would indeed be a renunciation of the hardest kind, +and practically it could never be carried out! Every schoolmaster who +assumes this doctrine for himself will involuntarily teach it, how can +it be otherwise?" + +I must here be permitted to take Virchow exactly at his word. I +endorse almost all that he has said in these and the following +sentences. The only difference in our views is this, that Virchow +regards the theory of descent as an unproved and unproveable +hypothesis; I, on the contrary, as a fully established and +indispensable theory. How then will it be if the teachers of whom +Virchow speaks agree with my views, if--apart, of course, from all +special theories of descent--they, like me, consider the general +theory of descent as the indispensable basis of all biological +teaching? And that that is actually the case Virchow may easily +convince himself if he looks over the recent literature of zoology and +botany! Our whole morphological literature in particular is already so +deeply and completely penetrated by the doctrine of descent, +phylogenetic principles already prevail so universally as a certain +and indispensable instrument of inquiry, that no man for the future +would deprive himself of their help. As Oscar Schmidt justly +observes--"Perhaps ninety-nine per cent. of all living, or rather of +all working zoologists, are convinced by inductive methods of the +truth of the doctrine of descent." And Virchow with his magisterial +requirements will attain only the very reverse of what he aims at. How +often has it not been said already that science must either have +perfect freedom or else none at all? This is as true of teaching as +it is of inquiry, for the two are intrinsically and inseparably +connected. And so it is not in vain that it is written in section 152 +of the German Code, and in section 20 of the Prussian Charter, +"Science and her teaching shall be free!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY. + + +Every great and comprehensive theory which affects the foundations of +human science, and which, consequently, influences the systems of +philosophy, will, in the first place, not only further our theoretical +views of the universe, but will also react on practical philosophy, +ethics, and the correlated provinces of religion and politics. In my +paper read at Munich I only briefly pointed out the happy results +which, in my opinion, the modern doctrine of evolution will entail +when the true, natural religion, founded on reason, takes the place of +the dogmatic religion of the Church, and its leading principle derives +the human sense of duty from the social instincts of animals. + +The references to the social instincts which I, in common with Darwin +and many others, regard as the proper source and origin of all moral +development, appear to have afforded Virchow an opportunity in his +reply for designating the doctrine of inheritance as a "socialist +theory," and for attributing to it the most dangerous and +objectionable character which, at the present time, any political +theory can have; and these startling denunciations so soon as they +were known called forth such just indignation and such comprehensive +refutation that I might very properly pass them over here. Still we +must at least shortly examine them, in so far as they supply a further +proof that Virchow is unacquainted with the most important principles +of the development-theory of the day, and therefore is incompetent to +judge it. Moreover, Virchow, as a politician, manifestly attributed +special importance to this political application of his paper, for he +gave it the title, which otherwise would have been hardly suitable, of +"The Freedom of Science in the Modern Polity." Unfortunately he forgot +to add to this title the two words in which the special tendency of +his discourse culminates; the two pregnant words, "must cease!" + +The surprising disclosures in which Virchow denounces the doctrine of +evolution, and particularly the doctrine of descent, as socialist +theories and dangerous to the community, run as follows:--"Now, +picture to yourself the theory of descent as it already exists in the +brain of a socialist. Ay, gentlemen, it may seem laughable to many, +but it is in truth very serious, and I only hope that the theory of +descent may not entail on us all the horrors which similar theories +have actually brought upon neighbouring countries. At all times this +theory, if it is logically carried out to the end, has an uncommonly +suspicious aspect, and the fact that it has gained the sympathy of +socialism has not, it is to be hoped, escaped your notice. We must +make that quite clear to ourselves." + +On reading this statement, which seems extracted from the Berlin +"Kreuz-Zeitung," or the Vienna "Vaterland," I ask myself in surprise, +"What in the world has the doctrine of descent to do with socialism?" +It has already been abundantly proved on many sides, and long since, +that these two theories are about as compatible as fire and water. +Oscar Schmidt might with justice retort, "If the socialists would +think clearly they would feel that they must do all they can to choke +the doctrine of descent, for it declares with express distinctness +that socialist ideas are impracticable." And he proceeds to add, "And +why has not Virchow made the gentle doctrines of Christianity +responsible for the excesses of socialism? That would have had some +sense. His denunciation flung so mysteriously and so confidently +before the great public, as though it concerned 'a sure and attested +scientific truth,' is, at the same time, so hollow that it cannot be +brought into harmony with the dignity of science." + +With all these empty accusations, as with all the empty reproaches and +groundless objections which Virchow brings against the doctrine of +evolution, he takes good care in no way to touch the kernel of the +matter. How, indeed, would it have been possible without arriving at +conclusions wholly opposed to those which he has declared? For the +theory of descent proclaims more clearly than any other scientific +theory, that that equality of individuals which socialism strives +after is an impossibility, that it stands, in fact, in irreconcilable +contradiction to the inevitable inequality of individuals which +actually and everywhere subsists. Socialism demands equal rights, +equal duties, equal possessions, equal enjoyments for every citizen +alike; the theory of descent proves, in exact opposition to this, +that the realisation of this demand is a pure impossibility, and +that in the constitutionally organised communities of men, as of +the lower animals, neither rights nor duties, neither possessions +nor enjoyments have ever been equal for all the members alike nor +ever can be. Throughout the evolutionist theory, as in its biological +branch, the theory of descent--the great law of specialisation or +differentiation--teaches us that a multiplicity of phenomena is +developed from original unity, heterogeneity from original similarity, +and the composite organism from original simplicity. The conditions of +existence are dissimilar for each individual from the beginning of its +existence; even the inherited qualities, the natural "disposition," +are more or less unlike; how, then, can the problems of life and +their solution be alike for all? The more highly political life is +organised, the more prominent is the great principle of the division +of labour, and the more requisite it becomes for the lasting security +of the whole state that its members should be variously distributed in +the manifold tasks of life; and as the work to be performed by +different individuals is of the most various kind, as well as the +corresponding outlay of strength, skill, property, &c., the reward of +the work must naturally be also extremely various. These are such +simple and tangible facts that one would suppose that every reasonable +and unprejudiced politician would recommend the theory of descent, and +the evolution hypothesis in general, as the best antidote to the +fathomless absurdity of extravagant socialist levelling. + +Besides, Darwinism, the theory of natural selection--which Virchow +aimed at in his denunciation, much more especially than at +transformation, the theory of descent--which is often confounded with +it--Darwinism, I say, is anything rather than socialist! If this +English hypothesis is to be compared to any definite political +tendency--as is, no doubt, possible--that tendency can only be +aristocratic, certainly not democratic, and least of all socialist. +The theory of selection teaches that in human life, as in animal and +plant life everywhere, and at all times, only a small and chosen +minority can exist and flourish, while the enormous majority starve +and perish miserably and more or less prematurely. The germs of every +species of animal and plant and the young individuals which spring +from them are innumerable, while the number of those fortunate +individuals which develop to maturity and actually reach their +hardly-won life's goal is out of all proportion trifling. The cruel +and merciless struggle for existence which rages throughout all living +nature, and in the course of nature _must_ rage, this unceasing and +inexorable competition of all living creatures, is an incontestable +fact; only the picked minority of the qualified "fittest" is in a +position to resist it successfully, while the great majority of the +competitors must necessarily perish miserably. We may profoundly +lament this tragical state of things, but we can neither controvert it +nor alter it. "Many are called but few are chosen." The selection, the +picking out of these "chosen ones," is inevitably connected with the +arrest and destruction of the remaining majority. Another English +naturalist, therefore, designates the kernel of Darwinism very frankly +as the "survival of the fittest," as the "victory of the best." At any +rate, this principle of selection is nothing less than democratic, on +the contrary, it is aristocratic in the strictest sense of the word. +If, therefore, Darwinism, logically carried out, has, according to +Virchow, "an uncommonly suspicious aspect," this can only be found in +the idea that it offers a helping hand to the efforts of the +aristocrats. But how the socialism of the day can find any +encouragement in these efforts, and how the horrors of the Paris +Commune can be traced to them, is to me, I must frankly confess, +absolutely incomprehensible. + +Moreover, we must not omit this opportunity of pointing out how +dangerous such a direct and unqualified transfer of the theories of +natural science to the domain of practical politics must be. The +highly elaborate conditions of our modern civilised life require from +the practical politician such circumspect and impartial consideration, +such thorough historical training and powers of critical comparison, +that he will not venture to make such an application of a "natural +law" to the practice of civilised life, but with the greatest caution +and reserve. How, then, is it possible that Virchow, the experienced +and skilled politician, who, above all things, preaches caution and +reserve in theory, suddenly makes just such an application of +transformation and Darwinism--an application so radically perverse +that it actually flies in the face of the fundamental ideas of these +doctrines? I myself am nothing less than a politician. In direct +contrast with Virchow, I lack alike the gift and the training for it, +as well as taste and vocation. Hence I neither shall play any +political part in the future, nor have I hitherto made any attempt of +the kind. Though here and there I have occasionally uttered a +political opinion, or have made a political application of some theory +of natural science, these subjective opinions have no objective value. +In point of fact I have by so doing overstepped the limits of my +competence, just as Virchow has by going into questions of zoology and +particularly that of the transformation of apes: I am a layman in +political practice, as Virchow is in the province of zoological +hypothesis. Moreover, such success as Virchow has attained during the +twenty years of his painful, wearisome, and exhausting activity as a +politician does not, in truth, make me pine for such laurels. + +But this at least I, as a theoretical naturalist, may demand of +practical politicians, that in utilising our theories for political +ends they should first make themselves exactly acquainted with them; +they then, for the future, would forbear drawing conclusions from +them, the very opposite to those which ought reasonably to be +inferred. Misunderstandings would never thus be wholly avoided, +it is true, but what doctrine is universally secure against +misunderstanding? And from what theory, however sound and true, may +not the most unsound and frantic inferences be drawn? + +Nothing, perhaps, shows so plainly as the history of Christianity how +little theory and practice harmonise in human life; how little pains +are taken, even by those whose calling it is to uphold established +doctrines, to apply their natural consequences to practical life. The +Christian religion, no doubt, as well as the Buddhist, when stripped +of all dogmatic and fabulous nonsense, contains an admirable human +kernel, and precisely that human portion of Christian teaching--in the +best sense social-democratic--which preaches the equality of all men +before God, the loving of your neighbour as yourself, love in general +in the noblest sense, a fellow-feeling with the poor and wretched, and +so forth--precisely, those truly human sides of the Christian doctrine +are so natural, so noble, so pure, that we unhesitatingly adopt them +into the moral doctrine of our monistic natural religion. Nay, the +social instincts of the higher animals on which we found this religion +(for instance the marvellous sense of duty of ants, &c.) are in this +best sense strictly Christian. + +And what--we may ask--what have the professed supporters, the "learned +divines" of this religion of love done? Their deeds are written in +letters of blood in the history of the civilisation of mankind during +the last 1800 years. All else that differing church-religions have +accomplished for the forcible extension of their doctrines and for the +extirpation of heretics of other creeds, all that the Jews have been +guilty of towards the heathen, the Roman emperors towards the +Christians, the Mohammedans towards Christians and Jews alike--all +this is outdone by the hecatombs of human victims which Christianity +has demanded for the spread of her doctrines. And these were +Christians against Christians--orthodox Christians against heterodox +Christians! think only of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, of the +inconceivable and inhuman barbarities committed by the "most Christian +kings" of Spain, by their worthy colleagues in Frankfort, in Italy, +and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands then died that most horrible +death by fire, simply because they would not bend their reason to pass +under the yoke of the grossest superstition, and because their loyalty +to their convictions forbade them to deny the natural truth that they +clearly discerned. There are no deeds more hideous, base, and inhuman +than those that at that time were committed--nay, are still +committed--in the name and on account of "true Christianity." + +And finally, how do matters stand with regard to the morality of the +priests who announce themselves as the ministers of God's Word, and +whose duty is therefore above all others to carry out the saving +doctrines of Christianity in their own lives? The long, unbroken, and +horrible series of crimes of every kind which is offered by the +history of the Roman Popes is the best answer to this question. And +just as these "Vicars of God on earth" did, so did their subordinates +and accomplices, so, too, have the orthodox priests of other sects +done; never failing to set the practice of their own course of life in +the strongest possible contrast to those noble doctrines of Christian +love which were constantly on their lips. + +And as with Christianity so it is with every other religious and moral +doctrine which ought to have proved its power in the wide domain of +practical philosophy, in the education of youth, in the civilisation +of nations. The theoretic kernel of this doctrine may always and +everywhere stand in the most glaring contradiction to its practical +working-out, testifying to the endless inconsistency of human nature: +but what can all this matter to the scientific inquirer? His sole and +only task is to seek for truth and to teach what he has discerned to +be the truth, indifferent as to what consequences the various parties +of state or church may happen to draw from it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +IGNORABIMUS ET RESTRINGAMUR. + + +The dangerous attempt which Virchow made in Munich against the +freedom of science is not the first of its kind. On the contrary, +five years before, it experienced a similar attack which is most +intimately connected with this later one, so that, in conclusion, +we must here add a few words on the subject. Undoubtedly the famous +"Ignorabimus-speech" of Du Bois-Reymond, which he delivered in 1872 at +the forty-fifth meeting of German naturalists and physicians in +Leipzig, forms only the first portion of that same crusade against the +freedom of science of which Virchow's "Restringamur speech" of 1877, +at the fiftieth meeting of the same society, forms the second part. + +That brilliant and powerful essay by Du Bois-Reymond "on the +Limitation of Natural Knowledge" has already been discussed so often, +and from such different sides, that it might seem superfluous to say +another word about it. It seems to me, nevertheless, that by most +people the centre-of-gravity of its contents was overlooked in +admiration of the brilliant accessories of the essay. Indeed this +frequently happens with Du Bois-Reymond's articles, for he knows too +well how to conceal the weakness of his argument and evidence, and the +shallowness of his thought, by striking images and flowery metaphors, +and by all the phraseology of rhetoric in which the versatile French +nature is so superior to our sober German one. It is all the more +important that we should not let ourselves be dazzled by these +seductive tricks, and particularly by adduced facts which bear upon +the most important and fundamental questions of human science, but +that we should extract the hard kernel from the savoury and fragrant +fruit. In the preface to my "Evolution of Man," and in the notes 22 +and 23 of my Munich address, I have already incidentally alluded to +the chief weaknesses of the "Ignorabimus-speech;" but I must here +return somewhat more fully to the subject. + +There are, as is well known, two problems which Du Bois-Reymond +propounds as the impassable boundary of human knowledge of nature; +limits which indeed the human mind is not only incapable of passing at +the present stage of its development, but which it never can be +capable of passing in any more advanced stage. The first problem is +the nature and connection of matter and force; the second is human +consciousness. Now, first of all, as has already been said in the +preface to the "Evolution of Man," we must raise a decided protest +against the air of infallibility with which Du Bois-Reymond pronounces +that these two problems are insoluble, not only at the present time +but to all futurity. The power of development inherent in science and +knowledge is hereby simply swept away with a word. Almost every great +and difficult problem of knowledge seems to most or all contemporary +thinkers insoluble, and every path to the solution of it seems closed, +till at last the bold genius appears whose clear sight detects the +right path which till then was hidden, and which leads to the required +knowledge. We need only call to mind our present doctrine of +evolution. The problem of creation--the question as to the origin of +animal and vegetable species--was universally looked upon as +transcendental and perfectly insoluble, till the genius of Lamarck +established the principles of the theory of descent in his admirable +"Philosophie Zoologique" in 1809. Nay, even then most--and among them +the most distinguished--biologists thought the problem of creation a +quite insoluble mystery, and Darwin was the first to solve it, fifty +years later, by his theory of selection in 1859. Hence we venture to +assert that there is no scientific problem of which we may dare to say +that the mind of man will never solve it even in the remotest future. +Well does Darwin say, in the introduction to his "Descent of Man," +"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it +is those who know little and not those who know much who so positively +assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." As +far as concerns the two separate limits which Du Bois-Reymond fixes +for human knowledge, in my opinion they are undoubtedly identical. The +problem of the origin and nature of consciousness is only a special +case of the general problem of the connection of matter and force. Du +Bois-Reymond himself indicates that this is possible at the close of +his paper; for he says, "Finally, the question arises whether the two +limitations to our natural knowledge may not perhaps be identical; +that is to say, whether if we could conceive of the true essence of +matter and force, we should not also understand how the substance +which lies at their root can, under certain given conditions, feel, +desire, and think. This conception is, no doubt, the simplest, and +according to admitted principles of inquiry it is to be preferred to +that other which it confutes, and according to which, as has been +said, the world appears doubly incomprehensible. But it is in the very +nature of things that we cannot on this point come to any clear +conclusion, and all further words on the subject are idle--and so, +'Ignorabimus.'" + +The light way in which Du Bois-Reymond here passes over the most +important part of his subject is truly surprising; as if it were +ultimately indifferent whether we have before us one single insoluble +fundamental problem or two quite different ones; and as if mature +reflection did not lead to the conviction that, in fact, the second +problem is only a special case of the first general problem. I, for my +part, cannot conceive of them in any other relation; I think, too, +that all further words are by no means superfluous, but on the +contrary conduce to a very strong conviction of the unity of the +problem. That Du Bois-Reymond also has not come to any clear +conclusion on this point lies, not alone in the "nature of things," +but, as in Virchow's case, in the nature of the investigator himself; +in his lack of knowledge of the history of evolution, and in his +neglect of those comparative and genetic methods of study, without +which, in my opinion, not even an approximate solution of this highest +and most difficult question is to be looked for. + +Nothing appears to me to be of more importance for the mechanical +explanation of consciousness than the comparative consideration of its +development. We know that a new-born child has no consciousness, but +that it is slowly and gradually acquired and developed. We perceive +for ourselves how unconscious actions become conscious, and _vice +versa_. Innumerable actions which at first are troublesome and have +to be learnt with consciousness and reflection--as for instance +walking, swimming, singing, and so forth--become unconscious only by +repetition, practice, and the habit of using the organs. On the +contrary, unconscious actions become conscious as soon as we direct +our attention to them or our self-observation is attracted to them; as +for instance when we miss a step in going up stairs or touch a wrong +note on the piano; and beyond a doubt, conscious and unconscious +actions pass into each other without any distinct line of demarcation. +Finally, we see no less plainly by a comparative consideration of the +soul-life of animals, that their consciousness is slowly, gradually, +and serially developed, and that a long unbroken series of steps leads +from unconscious to conscious existence. From these comparative and +genetic experiences we may draw the conclusion that consciousness, +like sensation and volition, like all the other soul-activities, is a +function of the organism, a mechanical activity of the cells; and, as +such, is referable to chemical and physical processes. Hence, if we +were in a position to understand force as a necessary function of +matter, we could explain consciousness, as well as the soul in +general, as a necessary function of certain cells. + +How little Du Bois-Reymond is acquainted with the facts of comparative +and genetic psychology, nothing shows more strikingly than the +following astounding proposition in the "Ignorabimus-speech:"--"Where +the material conditions for psychical activity, in the form of a +nervous system, are wanting, as in plants, the naturalist cannot +recognise a soul-life, and, on this point, he but seldom meets with +contradiction." Begging your pardon! Every naturalist who is familiar +with the comparative morphology and physiology of the lower animals +will here put in a decided contradiction, for he can no more refuse to +admit the undoubted sensation and voluntary motion of the one-celled +Infusoria than of the many-celled hydroid polyps. The body of the true +Infusoria (Ciliata, Acineta, &c.), and many other Protista, remain +throughout life one single cell, and, nevertheless, this cell is as +fully furnished with all the most important attributes of the soul, +with sensation and volition, as any one of the higher animals with a +nervous system. The same obtains of the Hydra and the related hydroid +polyps, in which the neuro-muscular cells, or other distributed cells +of the outer germ-layer, fulfil the soul-functions. But as these +cells, besides this, exercise motor and other functions as well, we +cannot as yet designate them as nerve-cells, at any rate there can be +no idea of a special nervous-system. The characteristic soul-organs of +the higher animals, which we include under the conception of a +nervous-system, in fact originated by the division of labour of the +cells out of those neutral cell-groups in their lower-typed ancestors. + +In the great Soul-question Du Bois-Reymond, like Virchow, still keeps +his position on the standpoint of neural-psychology, according to +which no personal soul-life is conceivable without a nervous system. +We look upon this standpoint as left far behind, and set up in +opposition to it Cellular-psychology, the doctrine that every animal +cell has a soul; that is to say, that its protoplasm is endowed with +sensation and motion. In the one-celled Infusoria, which are so highly +sensitive and have such an energetic will, this conception will be +clear without any farther explanation. But we cannot refuse to allow +that plant-cells as well as animal-cells have psychic functions, since +we know that the phenomena of irritability, and of "automatic motion," +are the universal attributes of all protoplasm. No doubt the specific +mechanism, the cause of motion, in the irritable Mimosa and other +"sensitive" plants, is quite different from the muscular motions of +animals; but these, like those, are only specifically different forms +of development of the "cell-soul," and both proceed from the +"mechanical energy of the protoplasm." The sensibility of the +irritable protoplasm is the same in the vegetable-cell of the Mimosa +as in the animal-cell of the Hydra. How far Du Bois-Reymond is from +discerning this, and how deeply he is still entangled in +neuro-psychological views is shown most clearly in the astonishing +sentence which he has thought good to append to his above-quoted, +erroneous assertion. "And what could we reply to the naturalist if, +before he could agree to the assumption of a World-soul he required +that we should show him--bedded in neuroglia and nourished by warm +arterial blood--anywhere in the world a convolution of ganglionic +centres co-extensive with the psychic capacity of such a Soul" (!) + +In other respects we will not deny that Du Bois-Reymond stands far +nearer to our recent evolution-theory than Virchow; nay, that from +year to year he has always pronounced more and more emphatically in +favour of the theory of descent as the one possible explanation of +morphological phenomena; indeed, Du Bois-Reymond has lately counted +himself as one of those naturalists who were convinced of the truth of +evolution even before Darwin! Then it is only to be wondered why so +acute and gifted an inquirer, who is certainly not lacking in +scientific ambition, left it to Charles Darwin to place the egg of +Columbus on the ring and to point out to biological science a new +method of unlimited capacity by giving the theory of descent a +definite and reliable basis! + +It is clear from some remarks in his discourse bearing the title +"Darwin versus Galiani" (1876), that Du Bois-Reymond is still far +from understanding the full significance of transmutation as affording +a mechanical explanation of morphological problems. In this paper the +"History of Creation" is treated simply as a romance, and the +genealogies of phylogenesis are in his eyes "of about as much value as +the pedigrees of the Homeric heroes are in the eyes of historical +critics." Geologists may be extremely grateful for this estimate of +their science, for undoubtedly geology, as a structure of hypotheses, +is neither more nor less justifiable than phylogenesis, as I have +already pointed out in my Munich address: "Our phylogenetic hypotheses +may claim to have equal value with the universally-admitted hypotheses +of geology; the only difference is this, that the mighty structure of +hypotheses called geology is incomparably more complete, simpler, and +easier to grasp than that more youthful one called phylogenesis." But +as to the much-talked-of "genealogies," though they are nothing more +than the simplest, barest, and most superficial expression of the +hypotheses of phylogenesis, as provisional hypotheses they are just as +indispensable to specific phylogenesis as the theoretical +section-tables of the strata of the earth's crust are to geology. + +If Du Bois-Reymond is so convinced of the truth of transmutation as he +has lately given himself out to be, why does not he make at least one +earnest attempt to test the interpreting power of the theory of +descent in physiology--his own most special province of inquiry? Why +does he not labour at that hitherto quite unworked-out branch, +physiogenesis, at the history of the evolution of functions, at the +ontogenesis and phylogenesis of vital processes? The one idea which +has lately been often spoken of as an important discovery of Du +Bois-Reymond's--[the idea which had already been anticipated by +Leibnitz, that the "innate ideas,"--intuitions _à priori_--have +originated by transmission from primordial experience, _i.e._, +empirical, _à posteriori_ convictions], was distinctly enunciated by +me long before Du Bois-Reymond (as he omits to mention), in 1866, in +my "General Morphology" (vol. ii. p. 446), and in 1868 in the "History +of Creation" (vol. i. p. 31, vol. ii. p. 344). If Du Bois-Reymond had +practically busied himself with these problems he would certainly have +thought a little about the development of consciousness, and not have +set down as an eternally insoluble problem, "How is it possible that +matter can think?"--a form of words, be it observed, which has about +as much sense as "how matter runs," or "how matter strikes the hours." +Surely he would have guarded himself in that case from uttering the +ponderous "Ignorabimus." + +The question has been repeatedly asked why two such prominent Berlin +biologists as Virchow and Du Bois-Reymond availed themselves of the +particularly solemn occasions of the fiftieth anniversary and of the +fiftieth meeting of the German naturalists and physicians to lay lance +in rest against the progress and freedom of science. The eager +approbation which they both promptly met with from the party of the +clergy and of all other enemies of free thought--Virchow, indeed, in +much greater measure than Du Bois-Reymond--appears to justify this +inquiry. I believe I can contribute something towards answering it, +and as I am not fettered by any reverence for the Berlin tribunal of +science or by any anxiety as to vexing influential Berlin connections, +as most of my colleagues are who think as I do, I do not hesitate, +here as elsewhere, to express my honest conviction in the freest and +frankest manner, not troubling myself about the wrath which may be +roused in many actual--and not actual--officials in Berlin at this +exposition of the unvarnished truth. + +The primary cause of their "misunderstanding," and the best excuse +that can be offered for it, in Virchow and Du Bois-Reymond alike, lies +in their unacquaintance with the advance of modern morphology. As has +been repeatedly stated, no natural science is so directly to be +referred to the doctrine of evolution--and more particularly to the +theory of descent--as morphology. It is because we morphologists can +neither explain nor comprehend all the manifold and infinitely complex +form-phenomena of the animal and plant worlds without this theory, +because to us transmutation contains the only possible, rational +explanation of organic types, that we all regard it as the +indispensable basis of the scientific doctrine of form, and as +demanding no further proofs of its certainty than those which now lie +in abundance before us. + +Du Bois-Reymond, and still more Virchow, ignore these proofs, because +they are to a great extent ignorant alike of the inquiries and +results, of the methods and the aims of our modern morphology, and +this ignorance may be accounted for partly by the one-sided direction +which their biological studies have taken, partly by the fact that +there are few universities where the study of morphology is so +behindhand as at the University of Berlin. Fully twenty years have now +elapsed since the great Johannes Müller died, the last naturalist who +could command all the departments of biology. The three great +provinces of science which had been reunited into a triune kingdom +under his powerful sceptre, were then divided among three professors' +chairs: Du Bois-Reymond took that of physiology, Virchow, theoretical +pathology (pathological anatomy and physiology), and the third, and +most important chair, that of morphology (human and comparative +anatomy, including the history of evolution) fell to Boguslaus +Reichert. This choice was, as is now universally admitted, an +incomprehensible mistake. Instead of calling Carl Gegenbaur, or Max +Schultze, or some one else of youthful capacity and vigour to the +chair of morphology--a science which is the first foundation of +zoology as well as of medicine--in Reichert they selected an elderly +school anatomist cramped by strong old-fashioned notions, who had done +some good and useful specialist work, but whose general views had +developed all awry, and who for the unexampled obscurity of his +conceptions and the confusion of his ideas, was outdone by none save +only Adolf Bastian. For twenty years this man has represented animal +morphology in the second university of Germany, and in these twenty +years hardly any work worth mentioning has been done there in the +whole of this vast department--neither by the master nor by his +pupils. We have only to compare the many worthless anatomical +productions of Berlin during these two decades (for instance, the +recent confused work by Fritsch on the brain of fishes) with the rich +mine of invaluable work produced during the preceding twenty years by +Johannes Müller and his crowd of disciples. + +But, as if this were not enough, Reichert took advantage of his +influential position to hinder as far as possible all scientific study +of morphology. For example, he, with the co-operation of his +colleagues, carried through that pretended "reform" of medical +examination which puts the so-called _Tentamen physicum_ in the place +of the _philosophicum_; philosophy was entirely eliminated. Zoology +and botany, which for centuries have been very justly regarded as the +indispensable foundation of all instruction in natural science for the +young medical student, disappeared from the curriculum. Only, as if in +scorn of these sciences, in each examination a small place was +reserved for comparative anatomy--for that most difficult and +philosophical part of animal morphology which cannot be at all +understood without some previous knowledge of the other branches of +zoology. And yet comparative anatomy and the history of development +are the indispensable preliminary steps to a true scientific +comprehension of human anatomy, that most essential foundation of all +medical knowledge. Without the vivifying idea of development, mere +anatomical knowledge is an empty and lifeless cramming of the memory. + +In the place of morphology, thus degraded from its office, a detailed +study of physiology was introduced, but always in a one-sided +direction. Now these two great branches of biology, which are equally +important and have an equal claim on our attention, are so dependent +the one on the other, that a real scientific understanding of organic +life can never be obtained without due relative study of both. The +masterly and incomparable teaching of Johannes Müller owed a great +part of its captivating charm to his equitable regard for morphology +and physiology, as well as to his comprehensive treatment, from the +broadest point of view, of the enormous mass of details to be dealt +with. I therefore have not the smallest doubt that the morphological +training of medical students, as at present conducted at Berlin under +the influence of Reichert and his colleagues, is as far behind that of +Müller's day, twenty or thirty years ago, in all general comprehension +of the typical organism, as it is in advance of it in specialist +acquirements. + +In medical, as in all other scientific learning, the highest aim does +not consist in seeking to accumulate a vast chaotic mass of isolated +items of knowledge, but in a general comprehension of the science, its +aims and problems. The teacher should, above everything, guide the +pupil to this general knowledge, and then it will be easy to him, by +the aid of proper methods, to acquire mastery in each individual and +special branch. Thus in medicine, as in every other science, he is not +the best qualified who, on Bastian's method, has loaded his memory +with a confused mass of undigested facts, and has flung them all +together into his brain without any order; but, on the contrary, he +who has practically digested a considerable number of the most +important facts, and has critically co-ordinated them to a harmonious +whole. It is precisely under this aspect that transmutation is of such +inestimable value to morphology; it enables us to rise from the bare +empirical knowledge of numberless isolated facts to a philosophical +conception of their efficient causes. + +The aversion and contempt which the theories of descent and selection +have met with at Berlin, more than in any other place, is in great +measure to be explained by the circumstance that, during the last two +decades, morphological studies have been more neglected in that +university than any others. In no other city of Germany has evolution +in general, as well as Darwinism in particular, been so little valued, +so utterly misunderstood, and treated with such sovereign disdain as +in Berlin. Nay, Adolf Bastian, the most zealous of all the Berlin +opponents of our doctrines, has insisted on these facts with peculiar +satisfaction. Of all the conspicuous naturalists of Berlin only one +accepted the doctrine of transmutation from the beginning with sincere +warmth and full conviction, being, indeed, persuaded of its truth even +before Darwin himself. This was the gifted botanist Alexander Braun, +who is lately dead--a morphologist who was equally distinguished by +the extent of his comprehensive knowledge of details, as by his +philosophical mastery over them. His firm conviction of the truth of +the theory of descent is all the more remarkable because he was at the +same time a spotless character, a pious Christian in the best sense of +the word, and an extremely conservative politician; a striking example +that these convictions can dwell side by side with the principles of +the recent doctrines of evolution in one and the same person. But in +comparison with the powerful influence of the rest of the Berlin +naturalists who, for the most part, are decided opponents of +transmutation, and who have only lately--a few of them, to follow the +fashion--become converts to it, a man like Alexander Braun could have +no effect in procuring that it should be taught. + +However, this is not the first time that this very Berlin society of +learned men has set itself with remarkable firmness against the most +important advances of science. Virchow's former colleague, the +deceased Stahl, with a similar purpose and with great success, +preached this principle: "Science must turn back again." Just as at +the present day the Berlin biologists have opposed the most obstinate +and pertinacious resistance to the greatest scientific stride of this +century, so did it happen in former times with regard to other +doctrines of progress. We have only to recall Caspar Friedrich Wolff, +the great inquirer, who in 1759 first detected the nature of the +individual processes of development in the animal ovum, and founded +on it his observations in his "Theoria Generationes," which marked +an epoch in biological science. The Berlin savants, full of the +prevailing prejudices, so contrived at that time that Wolff never once +could obtain the permission which he craved, to lecture publicly, and +in consequence found himself compelled to retire to St. Petersburg for +the sake of peace. And yet in that instance there was no question +of a "theory" properly so-called. For the fundamental theory of +generation--the "theory of epigenesis"--as propounded by Wolff was +nothing more than a simple, general exposition of embryological facts +which he had been the first to recognise, and of whose truth every one +might convince himself by direct observation. In spite of this, for +another half century, the predominant error of the "Preformation-theory" +continued to be universally accepted--the ludicrous and nonsensical +doctrine, supported by the authority of Haller, that all the successive +generations of animals exist preconceived and enclosed one within the +other, and that no individual development ever takes place! _Nulla est +epigenesis!_ (Compare my "Evolution of Man," vol. i. p. 31.) + +But it would appear that it is the fate of that most interesting of +all sciences, the history of evolution, to find its most important +steps and its greatest discoveries met by the firmest and most +persistent opposition. For while Wolff's fundamental theory of +epigenesis, which was promulgated in 1759, was not recognised until +1812, Lamarck's theory of descent, founded in 1809, had to wait fully +fifty years before Darwin, in 1859, showed it to be the greatest +acquisition of modern science; and during that period, in spite of all +the progress made in empirical science, how persistently this most +comprehensive of all biological theories was combated. We need only +recollect how, in 1830, the celebrated George Cuvier silenced its most +eloquent supporter, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in the midst of the Paris +Academy, and how almost at the same time its founder, the great +Lamarck, ended his life in blindness, misery and want, while his +opponent Cuvier was enjoying the highest honours and the greatest +splendour. And yet we know now that the despised and contemned Lamarck +and Geoffroy had already grasped truths of the highest significance, +while Cuvier's much-admired and universally-accepted theory of +creation is now on all hands neglected as an absurd and untenable +delusion. But as neither Haller as against Wolff, nor Cuvier as +against Lamarck, could permanently hinder the progress of free +inquiry, neither will Virchow succeed in turning back the course of +Darwin's admirable achievement; no, not even when he is supported by +the discourses of his friend Bastian. + +While we cannot but earnestly lament Virchow's inimical attitude in +this great struggle for truth, we must not overlook the effects of his +well-founded authority in a yet wider sphere. For instance, the +hostile attitude which the greater part of the Berlin press +persistently maintains towards the doctrine of development +(particularly the Liberal "National-Zeitung") is to be referred to the +influence of his authority. But much as this reactionary vein, in this +and in other intelligent circles at Berlin, must be regretted on the +one hand, on the other we must observe that by this evil we have been +preserved from a far greater one. This greater evil--the greatest, in +fact, which German science could have to encounter--would be the +monopoly of knowledge at Berlin; a Centralisation of Science. The +injurious fruits of this system of centralisation in France, for +instance, the continual deterioration of French science through the +Parisian "Monopoly of Knowledge," and its steady decline during half a +century from the sublimest heights--these are all well known. From +such a centralisation of German science--which would be especially +dangerous if it occurred in the capital, Berlin--we may hope to be +preserved; in the first place by the manifold differences and the +many-sided individuality of the German national spirit, the +much-abused German provincialism (Particularismus). While these +provincial modes of thought can never have any permanent political +value, nor be productive of a desirable form of government, it is +beyond a doubt that their outcome has been fruitful and happy for +German science. For it owes its splendid pre-eminence over that of +other countries precisely to the many centres of culture which were +offered by those numerous petty capitals of the minor German States +which strove to outdo each other in eager emulation. It is to be hoped +that this happy decentralisation of science in our politically united +fatherland may continue to subsist! + +And next to this centrifugal tendency of our German national mind +nothing will so greatly contribute to it as a vigorous opposition to +the free advance of science, such as is just now declaring itself in +the metropolis. For by just so much as Berlin is dragged back by it in +the mighty onward stream of free intellectual movement, by so much +will it see itself outstripped by the other seats of culture in +Germany, which follow the stream with enthusiasm, or at least without +resistance. If Emil du Bois-Reymond raises the cry of "Ignorabimus," +and Rudolf Virchow his still more audacious one of "Restringamur," as +the watchwords of science, then, from Jena, let the shout be raised +and echoed from a hundred other universities--"Impavidi progrediamur!" + + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + +WORKS OF PROFESSOR ERNST HAECKEL. + +FREEDOM IN SCIENCE AND TEACHING. From the German of ERNST HAECKEL. +With a Prefatory Note by T. H. Huxley, F.R.S. 1 vol., 12mo. + +THE EVOLUTION OF MAN. A Popular Exposition of the Principal Points of +Human Ontogeny and Phylogeny. From the German of ERNST HAECKEL, +Professor in the University of Jena, author of "The History of +Creation," etc. With numerous Illustrations. In two vols., 12mo. +Cloth. Price, $5.00. + +_From the London Saturday Review._ + + "In this excellent translation of Professor Haeckel's + work, the English reader has access to the latest + doctrines of the Continental school of evolution, in its + application to the history of man. It is in Germany, + beyond any other European country, that the impulse given + by Darwin twenty years ago to the theory of evolution has + influenced the whole tenor of philosophical opinion. There + may be, and are, differences in the degree to which the + doctrine may be held capable of extension into the domain + of mind and morals; but there is no denying, in scientific + circles at least, that as regards the physical history of + organic nature much has been done toward making good a + continuous scheme of being." + + +THE HISTORY OF CREATION; or, the Development of the Earth and its +Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of +the Doctrine of Evolution in general, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, +and Lamarck in particular. From the German of ERNST HAECKEL, Professor +in the University of Jena. The translation revised by Professor E. Ray +Lankester, M.A., F.R.S., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Illustrated +with Lithographic Plates. In 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $5.00. + + + * * * * * + + +WORKS OF THOMAS H. HUXLEY, LL. D., F.R.S. + + +MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. + +ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. + +MORE CRITICISMS ON DARWIN, AND ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 1 vol., 12mo. +Limp cloth, 50 cents. + +A MANUAL OF THE ANATOMY OF VERTEBRATED ANIMALS. Illustrated. 1 vol., +12mo. Cloth, $2.50. + +A MANUAL OF THE ANATOMY OF INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. $2.50. + +LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. + +CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. + +AMERICAN ADDRESSES; with a Lecture on the Study of Biology. 12mo. +Cloth, $1.25. + +PHYSIOGRAPHY: an Introduction to the Study of Nature. With +Illustrations and Colored Plates. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50. + +ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE. By T. H. HUXLEY and W. J. YOUMANS. +1 vol., 12mo. $1.50. + + + * * * * * + + +RECENT EDUCATIONAL WORKS. + +=Principles and Practice of Teaching.= + +By JAMES JOHONNOT. + +1 volume, 12mo. Cloth. 396 pages. Price, $1.50. + + +CONTENTS. + + I. WHAT IS EDUCATION? + + II. THE MENTAL POWERS: their Order of Development, and the + Methods most conducive to Normal Growth. + + III. OBJECTIVE TEACHING: its Methods, Aims, and Principles. + + IV. SUBJECTIVE TEACHING: its Aims and Place in the Course of + Instruction. + + V. OBJECT-LESSONS: their Value and Limitations. + + VI. RELATIVE VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT STUDIES in a Course of + Instruction. + + VII. PESTALOZZI, and his Contributions to Educational Science. + + VIII. FROEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN. + + IX. AGASSIZ; and SCIENCE IN ITS RELATION TO TEACHING. + + X. CONTRASTED SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION. + + XI. PHYSICAL CULTURE. + + XII. ÆSTHETIC CULTURE. + + XIII. MORAL CULTURE. + + XIV. A COURSE OF STUDY. + + XV. COUNTRY SCHOOLS. + + +_Extract from Preface._ + + "Experience is beginning to show that teaching, like every + other department of human thought and activity, must + change with the changing conditions of society, or it will + fall in the rear of civilization, and become an obstacle + to improvement.... In this volume an endeavor has been + made to examine education from the standpoint of modern + thought, and to contribute something to the solution of + the problems that are forcing themselves upon the + attention of educators. To these ends, a concise statement + of the well-settled principles of psychology has been + made, and a connected view of the interdependence of the + sciences given, to serve as a guide to methods of + instruction, and to determine the subject-matter best + adapted to each stage of development. The systems of + several of the great educational reformers have been + analyzed, with a view to ascertain precisely what each has + contributed to the science of teaching, and how far their + ideas conform to psychological laws; and an endeavor has + been made to combine the principles derived from both + experience and philosophy into one coherent system." + + +ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN HISTORICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR, containing Accidence +and Word-Formation. By the Rev. RICHARD MORRIS, LL. D., President of +the Philological Society, London. 18mo. Cloth, 254 pages. Price, +$1.00. + +WORDS, and how to put them together. By HARLAN H. BALLARD, Principal +of Lenox High-School, Lenox, Mass. 18mo. Cloth. Price, 40 cents. + +GENERAL HISTORY, from B. C. 800 to A. D. 1876. Outlined in Diagrams +and Tables; with Index and Genealogies. For General Reference, and for +Schools and Colleges. By SAMUEL WILLARD, A. M., M. D., Professor of +History in Chicago High-School. 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.00. + +HARKNESS'S PREPARATORY COURSE IN LATIN PROSE AUTHORS, comprising four +books of Cæsar's Gallic War, Sallust's Catiline, and eight Orations of +Cicero. With Notes, Illustrations, a Map of Gaul, and a Special +Dictionary. 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.75. + +HARKNESS'S SALLUST'S CATILINE, with Notes and a Special Vocabulary. +12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.15. + +THE LATIN SPEAKER. Easy Dialogues, and other Selections for Memorizing +and Declaiming in the Latin Language. By FRANK SEWALL, A. M. 12mo. +Cloth. Price, $1.00. + + + * * * * * + + +New Volume of "The International Scientific Series." + +EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. + +BY + +ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D., + +PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. + +1 _vol._, 12_mo. Cloth, price_, $1.75. + +"In the present work I have surveyed the Teaching Art, as far as +possible, from a scientific point of view; which means, among other +things, that the maxims of ordinary experience are tested and amended by +bringing them under the best ascertained laws of the mind."--_From +Preface._ + +"Dr. Bain's _renovated curriculum_ is certainly extensive enough, even +if it omits Greek and Latin. According to this, higher education should +embrace--first, science; second, the humanities, including history and +the social science, and some portions of the universal literature; and, +third, English composition and literature."--_New York Evening Express._ + +"The work should become a text-book for teachers, not to be followed +servilely or thoughtlessly, but used for its suggestiveness."--_Boston +Gazette._ + +"Professor Bain is not a novice in this field. His work is admirable in +many respects for teacher, parent, and pupil."--_Philadelphia North +American._ + +"A work of great value to all teachers who study it +intelligently."--Boston Advertiser.__ + +"At once speculative and practical, entering largely into the philosophy +of teaching, and manfully handling facts."--_Philadelphia Press._ + + + * * * * * + + +PRIMERS + +IN SCIENCE, HISTORY and LITERATURE. + +_18mo. Flexible cloth, 45 cents each._ + + +I.--Edited by Professors HUXLEY, ROSCOE, and BALFOUR STEWART. + +_SCIENCE PRIMERS._ + + Chemistry H. E. ROSCOE. + Physics BALFOUR STEWART. + Physical Geography A. GEIKIE. + Geology A. GEIKIE. + Physiology M. FOSTER. + Astronomy J. N. LOCKYER. + Botany J. D. HOOKER. + Logic W. S. JEVONS. + Inventional Geometry W. G. SPENCER. + Pianoforte FRANKLIN TAYLOR. + Political Economy W. S. JEVONS. + + +II.--Edited by J. R. GREEN, M.A., _Examiner in the School of Modern +History at Oxford_. + +_HISTORY PRIMERS._ + + Greece C. A. FYFFE. + Rome M. CREIGHTON. + Europe E. A. FREEMAN. + Old Greek Life J. P. MAHAFFY. + Roman Antiquities A. S. WILKINS. + Geography GEORGE GROVE. + + +III.--Edited by J. R. GREEN, M.A. + +_LITERATURE PRIMERS._ + + English Grammar R. MORRIS. + English Literature STOPFORD BROOKE. + Philology J. PEILE. + Classical Geography M. F. TOZER + Shakespeare E. DOWDEN. + Studies in Bryant J. ALDEN. + Greek Literature R. C. JEBB. + English Grammar Exercises R. MORRIS. + Homer W. E. GLADSTONE. + + +_(Others in preparation.)_ + +The object of these primers is to convey information in such a manner +as to make it both intelligible and interesting to very young pupils, +and so to discipline their minds as to incline them to more systematic +after-studies. They are not only an aid to the pupil, but to the +teacher, lightening the task of each by an agreeable, easy, and +natural method of instruction. In the Science Series some simple +experiments have been devised, leading up to the chief truths of each +science. By this means the pupil's interest is excited, and the memory +is impressed so as to retain without difficulty the facts brought +under observation. The woodcuts which illustrate these primers serve +the same purpose, embellishing and explaining the text at the same +time. + + + * * * * * + + +APPLETONS' SCHOOL READERS, + +CONSISTING OF FIVE BOOKS. + +BY + + W. T. HARRIS, LL. D., + _Superintendent of Schools, + St. Louis, Mo._ + + A. J. RICKOFF, A. M., + _Superintendent of Instruction, + Cleveland, O._ + + MARK BAILEY, A. M., + _Instructor in Elocution, + Yale College._ + + + RETAIL PRICES. + + APPLETONS' FIRST READER $0.25 + APPLETONS' SECOND READER .40 + APPLETONS' THIRD READER .52 + APPLETONS' FOURTH READER .70 + APPLETONS' FIFTH READER 1.25 + + +CHIEF MERITS. + +These Readers, while avoiding extremes and one-sided tendencies, +combine into one harmonious whole the several results desirable to be +attained in a series of school reading-books. These include good +pictorial illustrations, a combination of the word and phonic methods, +careful grading, drill on the peculiar combinations of letters that +represent vowel-sounds, correct spelling, exercises well arranged for +the pupil's preparation by himself (so that he shall learn the great +lessons of self-help, self-dependence, the habit of application), +exercises that develop a practical command of correct forms of +expression, good literary taste, close critical power of thought, and +ability to interpret the entire meaning of the language of others. + + +THE AUTHORS. + +The high rank which the authors have attained in the educational field +and their long and successful experience in practical school-work +especially fit them for the preparation of text-books that will embody +all the best elements of modern educative ideas. In the schools of St. +Louis and Cleveland, over which two of them have long presided, the +subject of reading has received more than usual attention, and with +results that have established for them a wide reputation for superior +elocutionary discipline and accomplishments. Feeling the need of a +series of reading-books harmonizing in all respects with the modes of +instruction growing out of their long tentative work, they have +carefully prepared these volumes in the belief that the special +features enumerated will commend them to practical teachers +everywhere. + +Of Professor Bailey, Instructor of Elocution in Yale College, it is +needless to speak, for he is known throughout the Union as being +without a peer in his profession. _His methods make natural, not +mechanical readers._ + + + * * * * * + + +A SHORT HISTORY + +OF + +Natural Science and the Progress of Discovery, + +_FROM THE TIME OF THE GREEKS TO THE PRESENT DAY._ + +FOR SCHOOLS AND YOUNG PERSONS. + +By ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY. + +With Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. + + +"During many years the author acted as secretary to Sir Charles +Lyell, and was brought in contact with many of the leading scientific +men of the day, and felt very forcibly how many important facts and +generalizations of science, which are of great value both in the +formation of character and in giving a true estimate of life and +its conditions, are totally unknown to the majority of otherwise +well-educated persons. This work has been written for this purpose, +and it is not too much to say that it will effect its +purpose."--_European Mail_. + +"The volume is attractive as a book of anecdotes of men of science and +their discoveries. Its remarkable features are the sound judgment with +which the true landmarks of scientific history are selected, the +conciseness of the information conveyed, and the interest with which +the whole subject is nevertheless invested. Its style is strictly +adapted to its avowed purpose of furnishing a text-book for the use of +schools and young persons."--_London Daily News_. + +"Before we had read half-a-dozen pages of this book we laid it down +with an expression of admiration of the wonderful powers of the +writer. And our opinion has increased in intensity as we have gone on, +till we have come to the conclusion that it is a book worthy of being +ranked with Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences'; it is one +which should be first placed in the hands of every one who proposes to +become a student of natural science, and it would be well if it were +adopted as a standard volume in all our schools."--_Popular Science +Review_. + +"A most admirable little volume. It is a classified résumé of the +chief discoveries in physical science. To the young student it is a +book to open up new worlds with every chapter."--_Graphic_. + +"We have nothing but praise for this interesting book. Miss Buckley +has the rare faculty of being able to write for young +people."--_London Spectator_. + +"The book will be a valuable aid in the study of the elements of +natural science."--_Journal of Education_. + + + * * * * * + + +FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. + +BY ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY, + +Author of "A Short History of Natural Science," etc. + +WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. + +12mo Cloth, price, $1.50. + + +"A child's reading-book admirably adapted to the purpose intended. The +young reader is referred to nature itself rather than to books, and is +taught to observe and investigate, and not to rest satisfied with a +collection of dull definitions learned by rote and worthless to the +possessor. The present work will be found a valuable and interesting +addition to the somewhat overcrowded child's library."--_Boston +Gazette._ + +"Written in a style so simple and lucid as to be within the +comprehension of an intelligent child, and yet it will be found +entertaining to maturer minds."--_Baltimore Gazette._ + +"It deserves to take a permanent place in the literature of +youth."--_London Times._ + +"The ease of her style, the charm of her illustrations, and the +clearness with which she explains what is abstruse, are no doubt the +result of much labor; but there is nothing labored in her pages, and +the reader must be dull indeed who takes up this volume without +finding much to attract attention and to stimulate inquiry."--_Pall +Mall Gazette._ + +"So interesting that having once opened it we do not know how to leave +off reading."--_Saturday Review._ + +"We are compelled to admit that there is indeed a fairy-land of +science. This is the fairy-land upon which Miss Arabella Buckley +lectured last year, and upon which she has now produced a child's +reading-book, which is most charmingly illustrated, and which is in +every way rendered especially interesting to the juvenile +reader."--_London Athenæum._ + + + * * * * * + + +THE EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE SERIES. + +In neat 12mo volumes, bound in cloth, fully illustrated. Price per +volume, $1.00. + +This series of scientific books for boys, girls, and students of every +age, was designed by Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, Ph. D., at the Stevens +Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. Every book is addressed +directly to the young student, and he is taught to construct his own +apparatus out of the cheapest and most common materials to be found. +Should the reader make all the apparatus described in the first book +of this series, he will spend only $12.40. + + +NOW READY: + +I.--LIGHT. + +A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the +Phenomena of Light, for Students of every Age. + +_By ALFRED M. MAYER and CHARLES BARNARD._ + + +II.--SOUND: + +A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the +Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of every Age. + +_By ALFRED MARSHALL MAYER_, + +Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology; Member of +the National Academy of Sciences; of the American Philosophical +Society, Philadelphia; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, +Boston; of the New York Academy of Sciences; of the German +Astronomical Society; of the American Otological Society; and Honorary +Member of the New York Ophthalmological Society. + + +IN ACTIVE PREPARATION: + +III. Vision and the Nature of Light. + +IV. Electricity and Magnetism. + +V. Heat. + +VI. Mechanics. + +VII. Chemistry. + +VIII. The Art of experimenting with Cheap and Simple Instruments. + + + * * * * * + + +LIGHT: + +_A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the +Phenomena of Light, for the Use of Students of Every Age._ + +BY ALFRED M. MAYER and CHARLES BARNARD. + +NEAT 12MO VOLUME, FULLY ILLUSTRATED. CLOTH, PRICE, $1.00. + +"Professor Mayer has invented a series of experiments in Light which +are described by Mr. Barnard. Nothing is more necessary for +sound-teaching than experiments made by the pupil, and this book, by +considering the difficulty of costly apparatus, has rendered an +important service to teacher and student alike. It deals with the +sources of light, reflection, refraction, and decomposition of light. +The experiments are extremely simple and well suited to young +people."--_Westminster Review._ + +"This work describes, in simple language, a number of experiments +illustrating the principal properties of light, by means of a beam of +sunlight admitted into a dark room, and various contrivances. The +experiments are highly ingenious, and the young student can not fail +to learn a great deal from the book. As an example of the effective +experimental method employed, we may specially mention the device for +illustrating the refraction of light. This book is specially designed +'to give to every teacher and scholar the knowledge of the art of +experimenting.'"--_The Quarterly Journal of Science_ (London). + +"A singularly excellent little hand-book for the use of teachers, +parents, and children. The book is admirable both in design and +execution. The experiments for which it provides are so simple that an +intelligent boy or girl can easily make them, and so beautiful and +interesting that even the youngest children must enjoy the exhibition. +The experiments here described are abundantly worth all that they cost +in money and time in any family where there are boys and girls to be +entertained."--_New York Evening Post._ + +"The experiments are capitally selected, and equally as well +described. The book is conspicuously free from the multiplicity of +confusing directions with which works of the kind too often abound. +There is an abundance of excellent illustrations."--_New York +Scientific American._ + +"The experiments are for the most part new, and have the merit of +combining precision in the methods with extreme simplicity and +elegance of design. The value of the book is further enhanced by the +numerous carefully-drawn cuts, which add greatly to its +beauty."--_American Journal of Science and Arts._ + + + * * * * * + + +SOUND: + +_A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the +Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of Every Age._ + +By ALFRED MARSHALL MAYER, + +Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology; Member of +the National Academy of Sciences, etc. + +Uniform with "LIGHT," first volume of the Series. + +Neat 12mo volume, fully illustrated. Cloth, price, $1.00. + +"It would be difficult to find a better example of a series which is +excellent throughout. This little work is accurate in detail, popular +in style, and lucid in arrangement. Every statement is accompanied +with ample illustrations. We can heartily recommend it, either as an +introduction to the subject or as a satisfactory manual for those who +have no time for perusing a larger work. It contains an excellent +description, with diagrams, of Faber's Talking Machine and of Edison's +Talking Phonograph, which can not fail to be interesting to any reader +who takes an interest in the marvelous progress of natural +science."--_British Quarterly._ + +"The style of the book is very clear, and the experiments interesting. +It can not fail to have an important educational influence."--_Westminster +Review._ + +"It would really be difficult to exaggerate the merit, in the sense of +consummate adaptation to its modest end, of this little treatise on +'Sound.' It teaches the youthful student how to make experiments for +himself, without the help of a trained operator, and at very little +expense. These hand-books of Professor Mayer should be in the hands of +every teacher of the young."--_New York Sun._ + +"An admirably clear and interesting collection of experiments, +described with just the right amount of abstract information and no +more, and placed in progressive order. The recent inventions of the +phonograph and microphone lend an extraordinary interest to this whole +field of experiment, which makes Professor Mayer's manual especially +opportune."--_Boston Courier._ + + + * * * * * + + +The Works of Professor E. L. YOUMANS, M. D. + +_Class-book of Chemistry._ + +New edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. + + +_The Hand-book of Household Science._ + +A Popular Account of Heat, Light, Air, Aliment, and Cleansing, in +their Scientific Principles and Domestic Applications. 12mo. +Illustrated. Cloth, $1.75. + + +_The Culture demanded by Modern Life._ + +A Series of Addresses and Arguments on the Claims of Scientific +Education. Edited, with an Introduction on Mental Discipline in +Education. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. + + +_Correlation and Conservation of Forces._ + +A Series of Expositions by Professor Grove, Professor Helmholtz, Dr. +Mayer, Dr. Faraday, Professor Liebig, and Dr. Carpenter. Edited, with +an Introduction and Brief Biographical Notices of the Chief Promoters +of the New Views, by EDWARD L. YOUMANS, M. D. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, +$2.00. + + + * * * * * + + +_The Popular Science Monthly._ + +Conducted by E. L. and W. J. YOUMANS. + +Containing instructive and interesting articles and abstracts of +articles, original, selected, and illustrated, from the pens of the +leading scientific men of different countries; + +Accounts of important scientific discoveries; + +The application of science to the practical arts; + +The latest views put forth concerning natural phenomena, by savants of +the highest authority. + +TERMS: Five dollars per annum; or fifty cents per number. A Club of +five will be sent to any address for $20.00 per annum. + +The volumes begin May and November of each year. Subscriptions may +begin at any time. + +THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY and APPLETONS' JOURNAL, together, for +$7.00 per annum, postage prepaid. + + + * * * * * + + +_A New and Valuable Work for the Practical Mechanic and Engineer._ + +APPLETONS' CYCLOPÆDIA OF APPLIED MECHANICS. + +A DICTIONARY OF + +MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND THE MECHANICAL ARTS. + +ILLUSTRATED BY 5,000 ENGRAVINGS. + +Edited by PARK BENJAMIN, Ph. D. + + +CONTRIBUTORS. + + T. A. EDISON, PH. D. + RICHARD H. BULL, C. E. + SAMUEL WEBBER, C. E. + PROF. DE VOLSON WOOD. + CHARLES E. EMERY, C. E. + JOSHUA ROSE, M. E. + PIERRE DE P. RICKETTS, PH. D. + HON. ORESTES CLEVELAND. + W. T. J. KRAJEWSKI, C. E. + S. W. GREEN, ESQ. + JOHN BIRKINBINE, C. E. + HENRY L. BREVOORT, C. E. + LIEUT. A. A. BOYD, U. S. N. + ABRAM L. HOLLEY, C. E. + COLEMAN SELLERS, M. E. + PROF. C. W. McCORD. + IRVING M. SCOTT, ESQ. + F. A. MCDOWELL, C. E. + H. A. MOTT, JR., PH. D. + W. H. PAYNE, C. E. + GEORGE H. BENJAMIN, M. D. + THERON SKELL, C. E. + WILLIAM KENT, C. E. + W. E. KELLY, ESQ. + F. T. THURSTON, C. E. + JOHN HOLLINGSWORTH, ESQ. + + +APPLETONS' CYCLOPÆDIA OF APPLIED MECHANICS of 1879 is a new work, and +not a revision of the former Dictionary of Mechanics of 1850. It aims +to present the best and latest American practice in the mechanical +arts, and to compare the same with that of other nations. It also +exhibits the extent to which American invention and discovery have +contributed to the world's progress during the last quarter century. +Its production is deemed timely in view of the existing popular +interest in the labors of the mechanic and inventor which has been +awakened by the great International Expositions of the last decade, +and by the wonderful discoveries made by American inventors during the +past three years. + +The CONTRIBUTORS whose names are given above number many of the most +eminent American mechanical experts and engineers. Several of their +contributions contain the results of original research and thought, +never before published. Their efforts have in all cases tended to +simplify the subjects treated, to avoid technicalities, and so to +render all that is presented easily understood by the general reader +as well as by the mechanical student. Examples are appended to all +rules, explanations to all tables, and in such matters as the uses of +tools and management of machines the instructions are unusually minute +and accurate. + +In semi-monthly Parts, 50 cents each. + +Subscriptions received only for the entire work of Twenty-four Parts. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS, 549 & 551 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Freedom in Science and Teaching., by +Ernst Haeckel and T. H. 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