Thomas Henry Huxley an Ernst Haeckel, London, 13. November 1868
London Nov. 13th 1868
My dear Haeckel
It is exactly a week to-day since the council of the Ray Society agreed to publish a translation of your „Morphologie“ – and I was charged to communicate with you upon the subject.
You will think it scandalous that I should have delayed writing for a week on so important a matter; but you will forgive me when I tell you that on Saturday I went to Edinburgh for the purpose of giving a lecture on Sunday Evening in that holy city: that || I have been lecturing every day this week: that on Tuesday I presided at the Ethnological society and on Wednesday at the Geological and that last night I was obliged to go a great dinner. Day after day I have been trying to find time to write letters but in vain: So much by way of publication. But the delay is really of no consequence as we .shall not be able to publish your book before 1870. In the meanwhile we shall, at once, look out for a good translation ofthe text – as the job will be a long and a tough one. My wife (who sends her best wishes and congratulations on || your fatherhood) will do the bits of Goethes poetry and I will look after the prose citations. Next on to the text itself. The council were a little alarmed at the bulk of the book and it is of the atmost importance that it should be condensed to the uttermost.
Furthermore, English propriety had taken fright at rumours touching the aggressive heterodoxy of some passages – (We do not much mind heterodoxy here, if it does not openly pro claim itself as such).
And on both these points I had not only to give very distinct assurances || such as I thought your letters had entitled me to give –; but in a certain sense to become myself responsible for your behaving yourself like a good boy!
If I had not known you and understood your nature and disposition as well as I fancy I do, I should not have allowed myself to be put in this position; but I have implicit faith in your doing what is wise and right and so making it tenable.
There is not the sljghtest desire to make you mutilate your book or leave out anything which you conceive to be absolutely essential: and I on my part || should certainly not think of asking you to make any alteration which would not on my: judgement improve the book quite irrespectively of the tastes of the British public.
Now here are some points that owe to me –
I think Chapter IV of the first book of the first volume might be omitted. Any one who is likely to apprehend such considerations on these branches will have read John Stuart’s Mill’s logic and as to the second half of the chapter it would be an awful „Stein des Anstosses“ and is not essential to „Morphologie“. || Again I would suggest that Chapter VI (Book II) should be rewritten and the aggressions taken out of it. These are some notes which would make shipwreck of us at once.
It is in Book IV however that I think condensation and excision might well go furthest. ||
It is at once very difficult to follow and very speculative.
But I stop – By this time you will be swearing at me for attacking all your favourit bits. Let me know what you think about all these matters. –
I congratulate you and Madame Haeckel heartily on the birth of jour boy. || Children work a greater metamorphosis in men than any other conditions of life. They ripen one wonderfully and make life ten times better worth having than it was.
Ever Yours faithfully
Th. H. Huxley
Is not Hallier a Professor in Jena? I have been working a good deal at the spontaneous generation question and hope to have something to say on that point before long.