Lecture VII

We have in the first place Haeckel, who because he elaborated his marvellous facts with most primitive ideas, led everything back to heredity and presented the whole embryonic evolution as dependent on heredity; opposed to him is the investigator His, who held more to facts, concerning whom it was objected, with a certain amount of truth, that he thought too little. His was a Zoologist and Naturalist. Because of the special way he traced out facts, he was constrained to oppose the heredity theory of Haeckel, and pointed out that certain organs and organic formations in man can only be explained when we turn away from the idea that we have to thank the co-operation of the sexes for our origin, Haeckel makes fun of this and writes:—“Therefore Herr His ascribes the origin of the human body to a certain ‘virginal’ influence that does not depend on the co-operation of the sexes!”