views which are very little in harmony with the doctrines
proceeding from Jena, and which are also put forth in his manual,
_The Cell and the Tissue_. In that address we read (p. 8): "With
the same right, with which, for the good of scientific progress, an
energetic protest has been raised against a certain mysticism which
attaches to the word Vitality, I beg to give warning against an
opposite extreme which is but too apt to lead to onesided and unreal,
and hence also, ultimately to false notions of the vital process,
against an extreme which would see in the vital process nothing but a
chemico-physical and mechanical problem and thinks to arrive at true
scientific knowledge only in so far as it succeeds in tracing back
phenomena to the movements of repelling and attracting atoms and in
subjecting them to mathematical calculation."

With right does the physicist Mach, with reference to such views and
tendencies, speak of a 'mechanical mythology in opposition to the
animistic mythology of the old religions' and considers both as
"improper and fantastic exaggerations based on a one-sided judgment."
"My position on the question just stated becomes apparent from the
consideration that the living organism is not only a complex of
chemical materials and a bearer of physical forces, but also possesses
a special organization, a structure, by means of which it is very
essentially differentiated from the inorganic world, and in virtue of
which it alone is designated as living."

Here, then, the distinction between living and non-living nature is
clearly and definitely expressed, and Hertwig expresses himself just as
definitely when he says (p. 21): "Whereas, but a few decades ago a
scientific materialistic conception of the world issuing from a
onesided, unhistorical point of view, misjudged the significance of the
historic religious and ethical forces in the development of mankind, a
change has become apparent in this regard."

To this gratifying testimony against materialism the distinguished
naturalist added an equally valuable testimony regarding Darwinism on
the occasion of the naturalists' convention in 1900. He there sketched
an excellent summary of the "Development of Biology in the Nineteenth
Century," in which he decidedly opposes the materialistic-mechanical
conception of life. In so doing he also touches upon Haeckel's
carbon-hypothesis, to which the latter still clings, and says: "That
from the properties of car