Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
HAECKEL, ERNST HEINRICH (1834- )
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: GUI-HAN
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:HAECKEL, See also:ERNST HEINRICH (1834- ) , See also:German biologist, was See also:born at See also:Potsdam on the 16th of See also:February 1834. He studied See also:medicine and See also:science at See also:Wurzburg, See also:Berlin and See also:Vienna, having for his masters such men as Johannes See also: It happened that just when he was beginning his scientific career See also:Darwin's Origin of Species was published (1859), and such was the See also:influence it exercised over him that he became the apostle of Darwinism in See also:Germany. He was, indeed, the first German biologist to give a whole-hearted adherence to the See also:doctrine of organic See also:evolution and to treat it as the See also:cardinal conception of See also:modern See also:biology. It was he who first brought it prominently before the See also:notice of German men of science in his first memoir on the Radiolaria, which was completely pervaded with its spirit, and later at the See also:congress of naturalists at See also:Stettin in 1863. Darwin himself has placed on See also:record the conviction that Haeckel's enthusiastic propagandism of the doctrine was the See also:chief See also:factor of its success in Germany. His See also:book on See also:General See also:Morphology (1866), published when he was only See also:thirty-two years old, was called by See also:Huxley a suggestive See also:attempt to work out the See also:practical application of evolution to its final results; and if it does not take See also:rank as a classic, it will at least stand out as a landmark in the See also:history of biological doctrine in the 19th See also:century. Although it contains a statement of most of the views with which Haeckel's name is associated, it did not attract much See also:attention on its first See also:appearance, and accordingly its author rewrote much of its substance in a more popular See also:style and published it a year or two later as the Natural History of Creation (Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte), which was far more successful. In it he divided morphology into two sections—tectology, the science of organic individuality; and promorphology, which aims at establishing a See also:crystallography of organic forms. Among other matters, he laid particular stress on the " fundamental biogenetic See also:law " that ontogeny re-capitulates phylogeny, that the individual organism in its development is to a See also:great extent an See also:epitome of the See also:form-modifications undergone by the successive ancestors of the species in the course of their historic evolution. His well-known " gastraea " theory is an outcome of this generalization. He divided the whole See also:animal creation into two categories—the See also:Protozoa or unicellular animals, and the Metazoa or multicellular animals, and he pointed out that while the former remain single-celled throughout their existence, the latter are only so at the beginning, and are subsequently built up of innumerable cells, the single See also:primitive-See also:egg-See also:cell (ovum) being transformed by cleavage into a globular See also:mass of cells (morula), which first becomes a hollow vesicle and then changes into the gastrula. The simplest multi-cellular animal he conceived to resemble this gastrula with its two See also:primary layers, ectoderm and endoderm, and the earliest hypothetical form of this See also:kind, from which the higher animals might be supposed to be actually descended, he called the " gastraea." This theory was first put forward in the memoir on the calcareous sponges, which in its sub-See also:title was described as an attempt at an See also:analytical See also:solution of the problem of the origin of species, and was subsequently elaborated in various Studies on the Gastraea Theory (1873-1884). Haeckel, again, was the first to attempt to draw up a genealogical See also:tree (Stammbaum) exhibiting the relationship between the various orders of animals with regard both to one another and their See also:common origin. His earliest attempt in the General Morphology was succeeded by many others, and his efforts in this direction may perhaps be held to culminate in the See also:paper he read before the See also:fourth Inter-See also:national Zoological Congress, held at See also:Cambridge in 1898, when he traced the descent of the human See also:race in twenty-six stages from organisms like the still-existing Monera, See also:simple structureless masses of See also:protoplasm, and the unicellular See also:Protista, through the chimpanzees and the Pithecanthropus erectus, of which a few fossil bones were discovered in See also:Java in 1894, and which he held to be undoubtedly an intermediate form connecting primitive See also:man with the anthropoid apes. Not content with the study of the doctrine of evolution in its zoological aspects, Haeckel also applied it to some of the See also:oldest problems of See also:philosophy and See also:religion. What he termed the integration of his views on these subjects he published under the title of See also:Die Weltratsel (1899), which in 1901 appeared in See also:English as The Riddle of the Universe. In this book, adopting an uncompromising monistic attitude, he asserted the essential unity of organic and inorganic nature. According to his " See also:carbon-theory," which has been far from achieving general See also:acceptance, the chemico-See also:physical properties of carbon in its complex albuminoid compounds are the See also:sole and the See also:mechanical cause of the specific phenomena of See also:movement which distinguish organic from inorganic substances, and the first development of living protoplasm, as seen in the Monera, arises from such nitrogenous carbon-compounds by a See also:process of spontaneous See also:generation. See also:Psychology he regarded as merely a See also:branch of See also:physiology, and psychical activity as a See also:group of vital phenomena which depend solely on physiological actions and material changes taking See also:place in the protoplasm of the organism in which it is manifested. Every living cell has psychic properties, and the psychic life of multicellular organisms is the sum-See also:total of the psychic functions of the cells of which they are composed. Moreover, just as the highest animals have been evolved from the simplest forms of life, so the highest faculties of the human mind have been evolved from the soul of the See also:brute-beasts, and more remotely from the simple cell-soul of the unicellular Protozoa. As a consequence of these views Haeckel was led to deny the See also:immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and the existence of a See also:personal See also:God. Haeckel's See also:literary output was enormous, and at the time of the celebration of his sixtieth birthday at Jena in 1894 he had produced 42 See also:works with 13,000 pages, besides numerous scientific See also:memoirs. In addition to the works already mentioned, he wrote Freie Wissenschaft and freie Lehre (1877) in reply to a speech in which Virchow objected to the teaching of the doctrine of evolution in See also:schools, on the ground that it was an unproved See also:hypothesis; Die systematische Phylogenie (1894), which has been pronounced his best book; Anthropogenie (1874, 5th and enlarged edition 1903), dealing with the evolution of man; Uber unsere gegenwartige Kenninis vom Ursprung See also:des Menschen (1898, translated into English as The Last See also:Link, 1898); Der Kampf um den Entwickelungsgedanken (19o5, English version, Last Words on Evolution, 1906); Die Lebenswunder (1904), a supplement to the Riddle of the Universe; books of travel, such as Indische Reisebriefe (1882) and Aus Insulinde (roof), the fruits of journeys to See also:Ceylon and to Java; Kunstformen der Natur (1904), with plates representing beautiful marine animal forms; and Wanderbilder (1905), reproductions of his oil-paintings and See also:water-See also:colour landscapes. There are See also:biographies by W. Bolsche (See also:Dresden, 1900, translated into English by See also:Joseph McCabe, with additions, See also:London, 1906) and by Breitenbach (See also:Odenkirchen, 1904). See also-See also:Walther May, Ernst Haeckel; Versuch einer Chronik seines Lebens and Werkens (See also:Leipzig, 1909). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] HADRUMETUM |
[next] HAEMATITE, or HEMATITE |