WITH A PREFATORY NOTE
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.
In complying with the wish of the publishers of Professor Haeckel's[v]reply to Professor Virchow, that I should furnish a prefatory noteexpressing my own opinion in respect of the subject-matter of thecontroversy, Gay's homely lines, prophetic of the fate of those "whoin quarrels interpose," emerge from some brain-cupboard in which theyhave been hidden since my childish days. In fact, the hard-hittingwith which both the attack and the defence abound, makes me think witha shudder upon the probable sufferings of the unhappy man whoseintervention should lead two such gladiators to turn their weaponsfrom one another upon him. In my youth, I once attempted to stop astreet fight, and I have never forgotten the brief but impressivelesson on the value of the policy of non-intervention which I thenreceived.
But there is, happily, no need for me to place myself in a positionwhich, besides being fraught with danger, would savour of presumption:[vi]Careful study of both the attack and the reply leaves me without theinclination to become either a partisan or a peacemaker: not apartisan, for there is a great deal with which I fully agree said onboth sides; not a peacemaker, because I think it is highly desirablethat the important questions which underlie the discussion, apart fromthe more personal phases of the dispute, should be thoroughlydiscussed. And if it were possible to have controversy withoutbitterness in human affairs, I should be disposed, for the generalgood, to use to both of the eminent antagonists the famous phrase of alate President of the French Chamber—"Tape dessus."
No profound acquaintance with the history of science is needed toproduce the conviction, that the advancement of natural knowledge hasbeen effected by the successive or concurrent efforts of men, whoseminds are characterised by tendencies so opposite that they are forcedinto conflict with one another. The one intellect is imaginative andsynthetic; its chief aim is to arrive at a broad and coherentconception of the relations of phenomena; the other is positive,critical, analytic, and sets the highest value upon the exactdetermination and statement of the phenomena themselves.
If the man of the critical school takes the pithy aphorism "Melius[vii]autem est naturam secare quam abstrahere"[1] for his motto, thechampion of free speculation may retort with another from the samehand, "Citius enim emergit veritas e falsitate quam e confusione;"[2]and each may adduce abundant historical proof that his method hascontributed as much to the progress of knowledge as that of his rival.Every science has been largely indebted to bold, nay, even to wildhypotheses, for the power of ordering and grasping the endless detailsof natural fact which they confer; for the moral stimulus which arisesout of the desire to confirm or to confute them; and last, bu