l86/.] PROFESSOR HAECKEL. 6/ 



[The earliest letter which I have seen from my father to 

 Professor Haeckel, was written in 1865, and from that time 

 forward they corresponded (though not, I think, with any 

 regularity) up to the end of my father's life. His friendship 

 with Haeckel was not merely growth of correspondence, as 

 was the case with some others, for instance, Fritz Miiller. 

 Haeckel paid more than one visit to Down, and these were 

 thoroughly enjoyed by my father. The following letter will 

 serve to show the strong feeling of regard which he enter- 

 tained for his correspondent a feeling which I have often 

 heard him emphatically express, and which was warmly 

 returned. The book referred to is Haeckel's ' Generelle 

 Morphologic,' published in 1866, a copy of which my father 

 received from the author in January 1867. 



Dr. E. Krause * has given a good account of Professor 

 Haeckel's services to the cause of Evolution. After speak- 

 ing of the lukewarm reception which the ' Origin ' met with in 

 Germany on its first publication, he goes on to describe the 

 first adherents of the new faith as more or less popular 

 writers, not especially likely to advance its acceptance with 

 the professorial or purely scientific world. And he claims for 

 Haeckel that it was his advocacy of Evolution in his ' Radio- 

 laria' (1862), and at the " Versammlung" of Naturalists at 

 Stettin in 1863, that placed the Darwinian question for the 

 first time publicly before the forum of German science, and 

 his enthusiastic propagandism that chiefly contributed to its 

 success. 



Mr. Huxley, writing in 1869, paid a high tribute to 

 Professor Haeckel as the Coryphaeus of the Darwinian move- 

 ment in Germany. Of his ' Generelle Morphologic,' " an 

 attempt to work out the practical applications" of the doctrine 

 of Evolution to their final results, he says that it has the 

 " force and suggestiveness, and . . . systematising power 

 of Oken without his extravagance." Professor Huxley also 

 * ' Charles Darwin und sein Verhaltniss zu Deutschland,' 1885. 



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