Thomas Henry Huxley an Ernst Haeckel, London, 21. Januar 1868
26 Abbey Place
London N. W.
Jan. 21th 1868
My dear Haeckel
I happen just at present to be a member of the Council of the Royal Society; and observing that the name of the University of Jena is not upon the list of the public bodies to which we send our publications – I want to repair the omission.
It is necessary however that an application for our publications should be || made to the Secretary of the „Royal Society“ by the further authority in the University – in order that we have official knowledge of what is desired.
If you think it desirable therefore, will you cause such an application to be made. It would be well that it should reach us within the next two or three weeks, before the next council meeting.
If the University can offer us anything as exchange so much the better || – but it is of no consequence. And if the University library is without our Transactions and Proceedings for any number of years book the fact had better be mentioned. I told my colleagues the other day, that Jena was reviving its ancient glory in the persons of Haeckel and Gegenbaur and they are duly impressed by the fact.
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 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 arevision 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 fore limbs.
You see that among other things I have been reading Ernst Haeckel’s Morphologie.
Commend me to Dohrn if you see him. My wife sends her kind regards.
Ever yours faithfully
T. H. Huxley