1861 LOVE OF PHILOSOPHY 331 



part of the passion for general principles underlying 

 the facts of science which had always possessed him. 

 And the time expended upon it was not directly 

 taken from the hours of scientific work; he would 

 read in bed through the small hours of the night, 

 when sleep was slow in coming to him. In this way 

 he got through an immense amount of philosophy in 

 the course of several years. Not that he could " state 

 the views of so and so " upon any given question, or 

 desired such kind of knowledge ; he wished to find 

 out and compare with his own the answers which 

 other thinkers gave to the problems which interested 

 himself. 



A gentler reproof of this time touches his hand- 

 writing, which was never of the most legible, so that 

 his foreign correspondents in particular sometimes 

 complained. Haeckel used to get his difficulties 

 deciphered by his colleague Gegenbaur. 1 cannot 

 forbear quoting the delicate remonstrance of Professor 

 Lacaze Duthiers, and the flattering remedy he pro- 

 posed : 



March 14. Je lis 1' Anglais imprime, mais vos Ventures 

 anglaises sont si rapides, qu'il m'est quelquefois difficile de 

 m'en sortir. On me dit que vous ^crivez si bien le 

 fran9ais que je crois que je vous lirais bien mieux dans ma 

 langue ! 



On his return from examining at Dublin, he again 

 looked over proofs on biological subjects for Mr. 

 Spencer. 



