The condition at each successive moment of this huge system, as it issues from the already quiet past and is about to invade the still undisturbed future, is one of violent internal commotion. Its elements are in constant flux and change.
Evolution is in any case a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings and agriculture, would be recognisable from a distance as great as that of the moon.
As regards the practical side of eugenics, we need not linger to reopen the unending argument whether man possesses any creative power of will at all, or whether his will is not also predetermined by blind forces or by intelligent agencies behind the veil, and whether the belief that man can act independently is more than a mere illusion.
Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to future generations; it renders its action more pervading than hitherto, by dealing with families and societies in their entirety, and it enforces the importance of the marriage covenant by directing serious attention to the probable quality of the future offspring. It sternly forbids all forms of sentimental charity that are harmful to the race, while it eagerly seeks opportunity for acts of personal kindness. It strongly encourages love and interest in family and race. In brief, eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature.
ERNST HAECKEL
Ernst Haeckel, who was born in Potsdam, Germany, Feb. 16, 1834, descends from a long line of lawyers and politicians. To his father's annoyance, he turned to science, and graduated in medicine. After a long tour in Italy in 1859, during which he wavered between art and science, he decided for zoology, and made a masterly study of a little-known group of sea-animalcules, the Radiolaria. In 1861 he began to teach zoology at Jena University. Darwin's "Origin of Species" had just been translated into German, and he took up the defence of Darwinism against almost the whole of his colleagues. His first large work on evolution, "General Morphology," was published in 1866. He has since published forty-two distinct works. He is not only a master of zoology, but has a good command of botany and embryology. Haeckel's "Evolution of Man" (Anthropogenie), is generally accepted as being his most important production. Published in 1874, at a time when the theory of natural evolution had few supporters in Germany, the work was hailed with a storm of controversy, one celebrated critic declaring that it was a blot on the escutcheon of Germany. From the hands of English scientists, however, the treatise received a warm welcome. Darwin said he would probably never have written his "Descent of Man" had Haeckel published his work earlier.
I.—The Science of Man