But in all this pleasant botanising there was no serious outlook on his future profession. Haeckel’s father, with his official way of looking at things, could not reconcile himself to scientific research as an avocation. It is an old belief that the way to all preoccupation with the science of living things lies through medicine. One may question that to-day. It was the rock on which Darwin nearly came to grief. A man may be a very gifted botanist, yet be quite unfitted for the medical profession. One must have a real vocation to become a physician, more than for any other calling, or else it is a hopeless blunder. The talents are divided in much the same way as between the historian and the soldier. It is true that the two may be united, but it is equally true that very good historians have made very poor soldiers. What the medical man learns in his studies is, of course, always valuable. But it offers no test of personal talent for scientific research, nor should it be supposed that a capacity of this kind would be able, by mere formal study, to acquire the true qualities of a physician. We must learn to appreciate the physician’s calling too much ever to look on it as an incidental occupation. It always reminds me of the amiable notion of the Philistine, that a man with a turn for poetry must first take up some solid profession, and then, once he is “in the saddle,” pour out verses in his leisure hours. Poetry can never be a mistress: it demands marriage or nothing. Otherwise—well, we have instances enough. Haeckel himself afterwards said that he only acceded to his father’s wish, that he should study medicine, with a botanical mental reservation. He thought of going through the discipline conscientiously until he became a physician, and then secure a place as ship’s doctor, and travel over the world and see the tropics. Things turned out very differently. He never became a medical man such as his father had wished, but he passed over the profession into zoology. Botany remained the lost and never-forgotten love of his youth. When we look back on his whole career we can see that he was, on the whole, fortunate. Zoology afforded a richer, more abundant, and more varied material at that time. It proved to be more “philosophical.” He went after his father’s asses and found a kingdom. But to him personally it seemed to be an unmistakable renunciation—the first in an active career that was to see many resignations. * * * * * “He goes farthest who does not know where he is going.”