I86S LETTERS TO HAECKEL AND DOIIRN 325 



The rest of the year he remained in London, except 

 the last four days of December, when he was lecturing at 

 Newcastle, and stayed with Sir W. Armstrong at Jesmond. 



To Professor Haeckel 



Jan. 21, 1868. 



Don't you think we did a right thing in awarding the Copley 

 Medal to Baer last year? The old man was much pleased, and it 

 was a comfort to me to think that we had not let him go to his 

 grave without the highest honour we had to bestow. 



I am over head and ears, as we say, in work, lecturing, 

 giving addresses to the working men and (figurez vous!) to 

 the clergy.* 



In scientific work the main thing just now about which I am 

 engaged is a revision of the Dinosauria, with an eye to the 

 " Descendenz Theorie." The road from Reptiles to Birds is by 

 way of Dinosauria to the Ratitae. The bird " phylum " was 

 struthious, and wings grew out of rudimentary forelimbs. 



You see that among other things I have been reading Ernst 

 Haeckel's Morphologic. 



The next two letters reflect his views on the proper 

 work to be undertaken by men of unusual scientific ca- 

 pacity — 



Jermyn Street, /a«. 15, 1868. 



My dear Dohrn — Though the most procrastinating corre- 

 spondent in existence when a letter does not absolutely require 

 an answer, I am tolerably well-behaved when something needs 

 to be said or done immediately. And as that appears to me to 

 be the case with your letter of the 13th which has this moment 

 reached me, I lose no time in replying to it. 



The Calcutta appointment has been in my hands as well as 

 Turner's, and I have made two or three efforts, all of which un- 

 fortunately have proved unsuccessful to find: (i) A man who 



* On December 12, 1867, there was a meeting of clergy at Sion 

 House, under the auspices of Dean Farrar and the Rev. W. Rogers of 

 Bishopsgate, when the bearing of recent science upon orthodox dogma 

 was discussed. First Huxley delivered an address : some of the 

 clergy present denounced any concessions as impossible ; others 

 declared that they had long ago accepted the teachings of geology ; 

 whereupon a candid friend inquired, "Then why don't you say so 

 from your pulpits?" (See Coll. Ess. iii. iig.) 



