Newburyport, Massachusetts, U. S. A.
January 23, 1901.
Professor Ernst Haeckel,
University of Jena,
Jena, Saxe-Weimar, Ger.
Dear Sir; -
I wish to express to you the deep gratitude of a young and obscure lay reader of your latest work, „The Riddle of the Universe“ (English translation by Mr. McCabe). I take this liberty with one whom I look upon as the most eminent living scientist only because I believe that the sentiment to which I give utterance in my own poor language is, or will be, shared by a goodly number of that large class of independent young thinkers which American colleges have recently been turning out. As an honest, fearless, uncompromising exposition of a rational philosophy this book is most timely. As a comprehensive, thorough, and up-to-date solution of „world-problems“ it satisfies a crying need of our minds.
Except in psychology (your criticism of which is severely just) the scientific departments of the higher schools of learning in America seem to give due prominence to Darwinism and to the general doctrines of evolution. The insight which the average college man consequently gets of the wonderful progress of science during the last century, though probably superficial, || is sufficient, in connection with current scientific literature, to convince many that the philosophy of which you are such an able advocate is the truest and the best. Yet when we look for support from our professors and eminent Americans, we find that they hesitate to draw from the facts they have taught us the conclusion to which the premises seem to us so naturally and easily to lead. There appears to the either a kind of mysticism or else a cowardly timidity holding their honest thought in subjection. A notable instance of this recently occured in a book written by my Harvard professor of geology, N. S. Shaler („The Individual: A Study of Life and Death“). The hesitancy of those to whom we instinctively turn for guidance has made us doubtful of the truth of our convictions.
Moreover, theologians and unrenowned philosophers are pouring out all sorts of vague, misty philosophical theories, all of them more or less idealistic, and in support of which Spencer and even Huxley frequently are cited. They try to make us believe that the „gross materialism of a few German thinkers“ (or, „of Haeckel and his school“) has been fully exploded. Surrounded by this chaos of speculations we hardly have dared to give any theory an unqualified approval.
I predict that your book will be wholesome disinfectant against the troublesome doctrines so prevalent here in America, and that it will not only clarify but will also help and || stimulate the minds of us young thinkers. And we shall explain the „dualism“ which is such barrier in the path of our elders as being caused by heredity, which forces superstition into the ideas of even our learned professors, but which has lost its power to do so with the minds of so many of our, the coming, generation.
With heart-felt thanks for the pleasure and the aid which personally I have derived from „The Riddle of the Universe“, I am
Most respectfully yours,
Ernest Foss