Forgive me, Herr Heackel

I was a stupid young buck

Whatever recurrence and re-incarnation are, they certainly include me spending serious time in libraries. Today I made an excursion to a college library because they have a book of Michael Faraday’s letters. When you are actually looking for something, librarians are VERY eager to help. Last summer I made a journey to a college library that had “Philosophy of Mysticism by De Prel“, which returned >10x on the effort to go there. My earnestness was obvious, and the head librarian gladly opened the doors to the private collection. People who love their work usually love to have other people also love their work.

While waiting for the librarian to return Faraday’s letters, I perused a book by Ernst Heackel, one of the prominent biologist in Germany in the late 1800’s.

In the late 1990’s I gave series of public lectures in Boston, we rented halls that hosted ~300 people. The lectures went off very well. They were mostly focused on all the topics that many of you already know me for. In one of the lectures I referenced Ernst Haeckel as a stupid, narrow sighted, closed minded fool.

Now, sitting here in the library, I am having a Conscience moment. I never saw this book of his. I gaze stupefied. I am thrown back on myself. I cannot relate the skill and love of Herr Haeckel for his subject matter. I am moving through not 12 drawings, not 144 drawings.. I am lost. How many drawings did he make?

As an artist myself, I know the time and effort to produce something. Here is a painting that I devoted five weeks to.

How many weeks did Haeckel devote to each of the paintings in this one book? There are hundreds, He must have been operating at a speed I have seldom touched. This one book, which is not his only book. Uh. I am lost right now.

How did I ever paint him as a fool? Please, forgive me.

For that one lecture in the 90’s I was talking about scientific hubris. I referenced a well known quote from Heackel about cellular life, where he told his students there is no need to study what is going on inside of cells, because the protoplasm inside cells is an unorganized mass. OK, yes, that one statement was clearly misguided for all time.

While I held in my hands Ernst Heackel’s book on the “The Art Forms in Nature”, and I was remembering my criticisms of him, I felt lost. I am lost how to evaluate this person’s quest. This man, whose book I am holding in my hands, has put out as much as I could ever hope to put out in my lifetime, here in this one book.

I am a fool to evaluate his quest. He made these pictures with his hands. How many years did he work to acquire that skill, to make these pictures with his hands?

No wonder people adored him. His love of Nature is obvious.

His statement to his students still stands, he told them, with all the force that you can now see with his skill, “there is no need to study what is going on inside cells, it is just a mass of unorganized protoplasm.” And of course all of modern medicine has flown in the face of that statement.

Forgive me, Herr Haeckel. I was trying to make a point. I was on stage in front of several hundred people. I dragged your name through the mud. I am sorry for that.