ins and the microcephali; and number twenty-two is
_homo sapiens_, the man. The Australians and the Papuans are supposed to be
the only remaining representatives of his first stage-development. In like
manner, Haeckel also gives us the stem-branches of all the types, classes
and orders of the organisms, and forms from them a very acceptable
hypothetical pedigree; or--if we prefer to suppose a polyphyletic rather
than a monophyletic origin of species--hypothetical pedigrees of the whole
organic world.

The perspicuity and clearness of Haeckel's deductions, the extent of his
knowledge, and the singleness of his aim, to which he makes them all
subservient, lend {50} to his works a great charm. But on the other hand we
dare not conceal that, even on the ground of explanations belonging purely
to natural history, the character of hypothesis is often lost in that of
arbitrariness and of the undemonstrable. Even the unlearned in natural
science often enough get this impression when reading his works, and will
find it confirmed by scientists who not only contradict his assertions in
many cases, but disclose plain errors in his drawings--errors, indeed,
exclusively in favor of the unity-hypothesis; and in other cases they show
that drawings which are given as pictures of the real, represent merely
hypothetical opinions. There is especially evident in his works an
extremely strong tendency to impress on his hypotheses the character of an
established and proved fact, by giving them the alluring name of laws.
Entire systems of laws of the selection theory are produced, and all
imaginable assertions are also immediately called laws. For example,
Huxley, in his anatomical investigations of apes and men, arrives at the
conclusion that the differences between the highest and the lowest apes are
greater than the differences between the highest apes and man. This purely
anatomical comparison, Haeckel calls repeatedly "Huxley's Law." We are well
aware that the idea of law is capable of great extension in meaning, and in
that respect we can refer to nothing more instructive than the
well-meditated inquiry upon this idea in the "Reign of Law" of the Duke of
Argyll (London, Strahan & Co.). But if we may venture to call purely
anatomical comparisons of this nature _laws_, such a use of language
destroys all logical reasoning; and this mistake appears again in Haeckel's
philosophic {51} discussions, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. We