He never leaves the University of Jena—and it never abandons him. It is a kind of spiritual marriage. In 1865, when the sky was still free from clouds, he was invited to take a position at Würtzburg, his old school-place. He declined the invitation, and was then appointed ordinary professor at Jena. Then the evil days came. The conclusions of his _Morphology_ were popularised by himself, and went out far and wide amongst the masses. People opened their eyes to find that this audacious scientist was making “war upon God” out of his zoology. At length the difficult question arises whether a mind of that type can be retained in the honourable position of official professor. The Philistines are in arms. The quiet, stubborn group, that has vegetated unchanged, like a demoralised parasitic animal, from Abdern to Schilda, through thousands of years of the free development of the mind, boycots the professor and his family for a time. The Philistines appeal from their safe corner to the authorities to intervene. Once, towards the close of the sixties, the situation threatened to become really critical. The head of the governing body of the university at the time was Seebeck, a distinguished man who by no means shared Haeckel’s views, but had a just feeling of Haeckel’s honourableness and mental power. In the middle of the struggle Haeckel approaches him one day, and says that he is prepared to resign his position, a sacrifice to his ideas. Seebeck replied, “My dear Haeckel, you are still young, and you will come yet to have more mature views of life. After all, you will do less harm here than elsewhere, so you had better stop here.” At Jena they still tell a similar story that happened on another occasion. A stern theologian presented himself in person at the chateau of Karl Alexander, Grand Duke of Weimar, and begged him to put an end to this scandal of the professorship of Haeckel, the arch-heretic. The Grand Duke, educated in the Weimar tradition of Goethe, asked, “Do you think he really believes these things that he publishes?” “Most certainly he does,” was the prompt reply. “Very good,” said the Grand Duke, “then the man simply does the same as you do.”