My dear Haeckel

According to our English fashion, I wish you “a merry Christmas & many of them”. As you are so young & have such wonderful energy, I am sure you will do more than any man in Europe in inculcating our great principle of evolution. I thank you very sincerely for your most kind letter of the 20^th.¹

I was very much disappointed with the review of your book in Nature, & grieved at its spirit.² The reason that so few copies have been sold in England is, I believe, that very few Englishmen read German with ease; & this I attribute to our wretched early education.

In my own case, I find I never improve in German, & have consequently read only a few chapters of you Anthropogenie; but these I read with much interest, & as usual, found many new ideas.³ I am glad to hear that you are going to the Mediterranean to continue your Gastræa theory, which has excited so wide-spread an interest.⁴ I have not heard of Hellwald’s book, & I should be glad to see it, although I shall not be able to read the whole.⁵ D^r Dodel of Zurich tells me that he has just published a work on evolution, from a botanical point of view, but I have not yet received it.⁶ Huxley tells me that he has been working on the structure of the head of the embryo Amphioxus, & it seems that he has made wonderful progress in understanding the morphology of the vertebrate skull.⁷ He has also been writing against genealogical classification, & seems to think all present attempts are premature.⁸

With all good wishes believe me | my dear Haeckel | yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin