Haeckel was in Italy when the work—the work of _his_ life, too, as the sequel shows—was published. We have seen where he was: in sight of the blue sea, penetrating for the first time into a special section of zoology, the radiolaria, and making it his own. He was far from theorising, for the first years of reality were upon him. He returned to Berlin at the beginning of May, 1860, bringing his study of the radiolaria, and resolved to publish it in comprehensive form. Here he learned for the first time that a “mad” work by Darwin had appeared, that denied the venerable Linnean dogma of the immutability of species. German official science was now invaded from two sides at once. Haeckel had returned like a new man from the freshness of Italy; and Darwin’s work, translated by Bronn, was bringing some slight extract of the English student’s thoughts, like a draught of old golden wine. They were bound to meet this time. The aged Bronn, a German naturalist of distinction and merit, had found the _Origin of Species_ interesting enough, at least, to deserve the trouble of translation. But his interest in it was very restricted. He was one of the thoughtful students of the days following Cuvier, and was not of the kind to pin his faith to one man. The appearance of the plant and animal species in the various terrestrial periods, so sharply separated by Cuvier himself, showed unmistakably an ascent from lower to higher forms. The fish is placed lower in the system than the mammal. At a certain period there were fishes living, but no mammals as yet. At another period the only plants on the earth were of the decidedly lower group of the cryptogams (ferns, shore-grasses, club-mosses), and these were succeeded by pines and palm-ferns, and finally by the true palms and foliage-trees. Cuvier’s theory of creation had to take account of this. Agassiz, who held firmly to the fresh creation of species in each new epoch, conceived the Creator as an artist who improved in his work in the course of time. Each new achievement was better than the preceding. It was rather a curious idea of the Creator! [Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH OF MARBLE BUST BY G. HEROLD. ]