Darwin, C. R. to Haeckel, E. P. A.
- +
Struck by singular clarity of EH's Generelle Morphologie. Remarks on various authors seem too severe. Severity leads the reader to take the side of the attacked person.
- +
Making slow progress in correcting Variation.
Summary Add
Transcription
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E. Ap 12. My dear Sir
I hope you have returned home well in health, & that you have reaped
a rich harvest in natural science. I have been intending
for some time to write to you about your great work, of which I have lately
been reading a good deal. But it makes me almost mad
with vexation that I am able to read imperfectly only 2 or 3 pages at a
time. The whole book w
Your whole discussion on dysteologie has struck me as particularly good. But it is hopeless to specify this or that part; the
whole seems to me excellent. It is equally hopeless to attempt thanking you
for all the honours with which you so repeatedly crown me. I hope that you
will not think me impertinent if I make one criticism: some of your remarks
on various authors seem to me too severe; but I cannot judge well on this
head from being so poor a German scholar. I have however heard complaints
from several excellent authorities & admirers of your work on the
severity of your criticisms. This seems to me very
unfortunate for I have long observed that much severity leads the reader to
take the side of the attacked person. I can call to mind distinct instances
in which severity produced directly the opposite effect to what was
intended. I feel sure that our good friend Huxley,
though he has much influence, w
With respect to my own book on Variation under domestication I am making slow, but sure progress in correcting the proofs. I fear that it will interest you but little, & you will be struck how badly I have arranged some of the subjects which you have discussed. The chief use of my book will be in the large accumulation of facts by which certain propositions are I think established. I have indulged in one lengthened hypothesis, but whether this will interest you or any one else, I cannot even conjecture.
I hope before long you will write to me & tell me how you are & what you have been doing & believe me my dear Häckel yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
- +
- f1 5500.f1
The year is established by the reference to CD's working on the page-proofs of Variation (see CD's `Journal' (Appendix II)). - +
- f2 5500.f2
Haeckel had spent from November 1866 to March 1867 travelling and doing research on Tenerife and Lanzarote (see Haeckel 1867; see also letter from Ernst Haeckel, 12 May 1867). - +
- f3 5500.f3
CD had received a copy of Haeckel's Generelle Morphologie (Haeckel 1866) in late 1866 (see letter to Ernst Haeckel, 8 January 1867). There is an annotated copy in the Darwin Library--CUL (see Marginalia 1: 355--7). - +
- f4 5500.f4
CD wrote in his copy of Haeckel 1866, 2: 239: `good criticism on my term of struggle for existence—says ought to be confined to struggle between organisms for the same end—all other cases are dependance—Misseltoe depends on apple' (Marginalia 1: 356). - +
- f5 5500.f5
Haeckel discussed dysteleology (`the study of functionless rudimentary organs in animals and plants': Chambers) in Haeckel 1866, 2: 266--85; these pages are annotated in CD's copy in the Darwin Library--CUL (see Marginalia 1: 356--7). CD cited Haeckel for his discussion of rudimentary organs in Descent 1: 17. - +
- f6 5500.f6
CD had received letters criticising Haeckel 1866 from Julius Victor Carus and Fritz Müller (see letter from J. V. Carus, 5 April 1867, and letter to J. V. Carus, 11 April [1867] and n. 7). - +
- f7 5500.f7
Thomas Henry Huxley and Haeckel corresponded with one another; see Uschmann and Jahn 1959--60. - +
- f8 5500.f8
CD refers to Variation, and to his `provisional hypothesis of pangenesis' (Variation 2: 357--404).