The riddle of the universe / by Ernst Haeckel ; translated by Joseph McCabe.
- Ernst Haeckel
- Date:
- 1913
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The riddle of the universe / by Ernst Haeckel ; translated by Joseph McCabe. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![day, much less as regards the remote past. We have the impartial statement of official science in the following sentence, which I quote from one of the most authorita- tive manuals on the earliest forms of life (Professor Cal- kins' Protozoa, p. 29): No one is in a position to assert that it [spontaneous generation] does not take place in some organisms, although such a view is highly improb- able; nor can it be maintained that it never has taken place in the past. And the distinguished American biologist, one of the most competent authorities, goes on to speak with respect of Haeckel's theory. Professor Schafer, Professor J. A. Thomson, and others, go beyond Haeckel, and think it probable that life is spontaneously produced in nature to-day. Still more frivolous are the attempts to oppose Haeckel on the question of the evolution of species. No biologist would now listen patiently to any scepticism as to the fact of evolution, and no informed critic of Haeckel has raised the point. It is otherwise with the machinery of evolution. Important controversies are afoot in modern biology on this subject. Here, indeed, one will find many biologists opposed to Haeckel. But the difference in opinion does not turn in the least on Haeckel's Monistic conclusions. They relate only to the share which par- ticular natural agencies—natural selection, germinal selec- tion, the transmission of acquired characters, mutation, etc.—have had in the development of species. It is highly improper to represent these scientific controversies as affecting Haeckel's anti-theological conclusion. The Evolution of Man The real divergence begins when we come to the chap- ters dealing with the origin and nature of the human](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21296558_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
