Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, and writer who made significant contributions to the theory of evolution. He popularized Darwin's ideas in Germany and developed the concept of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," which suggests that the development of an organism mirrors its evolutionary history. Haeckel also created detailed biological illustrations and wrote influential books like "The Riddle of the Universe" and "The Evolution of Man." He coined numerous biological terms, including "ecology" and "stem cell," influencing both science and philosophy.

Author's Books:


In turning from the embryology to the phylogeny of man—from the development of the individual to that of the species—we must bear in mind the direct causal connection that exists between these two main branches of the science of human evolution. This important causal nexus finds its simplest expression in "the fundamental law of organic development," the content and purport of which we have... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. In complying with the wish of the publishers of Professor Haeckel's reply to Professor Virchow, that I should furnish a prefatory note expressing my own opinion in respect of the subject-matter of the controversy, Gay's homely lines, prophetic of the fate of those "who in quarrels interpose," emerge from some brain-cupboard in which they have been hidden since my... more...

PREFACE The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This philosophical discourse contained, with... more...

The work which we now place within the reach of every reader of the English tongue is one of the finest productions of its distinguished author. The first edition appeared in 1874. At that time the conviction of man's natural evolution was even less advanced in Germany than in England, and the work raised a storm of controversy. Theologians—forgetting the commonest facts of our individual... more...