The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-10-07
POPULAR APoLoeETIcs.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev.
james Watcher.

XVI. HaeckePs Solution Of the
World RiddIes.-Continued.
The third riddle is the origin of life,
OF course, for Haeckel there is no diff
ficulty. Science has indeed never OBJ
served spontaneous generation (gen-
cratic aequivoca), that is the origin OF
the living from the lifeless, on the con-
trary. it has proved that life can only
come from life (Omne vivum eX vivo)
but Haeckel says land he certainly
must knoWD: Life evidently must
have come from lifeless matter, other
wise it would not be here. That fol-
lows logically as the night the day! |
reason thus: ITO deny spontaneous
generation would be to accept the mi
raculOus.'' To accept the miraculous
is in the unphilosophical language of
Haeckel as much as Ito admit a Gre
ator., But Haeckel wants no God,
hence he rather accepts the unscien-
tific and contradictory spontaneous
generation, and casts mysterious awe
around this mystery with number OF
new Greek words, such as abiogenesis
lorigin of life from the non-liVing),
archigenesis or archigony (the same
as abiogenesis), autogenesis (self-pro-
duction), plasmogony (origin Of plas-
mas But what does this display Of
Greek words prove? Absolutely no
thing. Greek words are the special
fancy of Haeckel; in all his writings
we find them in superabundance to
cast around them the halo of learning
and awe for the unwary.
In his "Anthropologie" Haeckel
makes use of deception with his gen
ealogical trees of man. ION account
of superficial similarities in individual
stadia of the development of men and
animals Tin the embryonic state),
Haeckel constructs a historico-genea
logical parallel with more daring than
logic; the gaps in this line of human
ancestors he fills in with empty fanci'
full pictures, and by imaginary steps IN
this genealogical tree, gives these
imaginary human ancestors fancitul
names, as primeval gastraeae Consist
ing of a stomach), primeval amnlota
(having an amnion-fetal envelope
urimeval pro-mammals, primeVal mar
supials (having a pouch for carrying
the immature young), primeVal ape
men, etc. And this jargon is to prove
scientifically by means of the 'funda
mental biogenetic law that man is de-
scended from the brute!" P. Was
mann, 'Biologie," p. 456. CT. also
Simmer aus Maria-Laach 1909, vol
rs, p. 1859 f., 297 If, 422 IF.
On Haeckers work Der Kampf UNI
den Entwicklungsgedanken'' 19O5o,
Englished, Last Words on Evolution
C19O6), Father Wasmann, the great au'
thority on biology, says e. C. p. 45D :
1T is always the same humbug-We
can find no milder eXpression-which
Haeckel has published for the last
twenty years, only with an enlarged
hut by no means with an improved edl
tion. From his fictitious monera, uni
cellular animals that do not exist al
all without a nucleus (aS he claims)
he leads us up a flight of stairs OF
thirty steps Tin 1875 there were only
twenty-five steps,, richly ornamented
with the purple rags of scientific tech
Tical terms, to the dizzy heights of the
{ homines loquaces-the talking or rath'
err the talkative men of the present
time. 1t is really not worth while to
renter more closelysupon this romance
in which Haeckel has applied scien
titicaIiy" the fundamental biogenetic
law to man."
*Plasma is the Yiscous fluid in the
cell, which together with the cellular
nucleus constitutes the living cell of
which all living matter is composed.
ITO be continued.)