My dear Darwin

Two or three days ago I received a letter from Haeckel telling me the circumstances of the affair to which you allude¹

It appears that he had been promised the Humboldt stipend—which is at the disposition of the Berlin Academy, but that when the time came in spite of the support by Helmholz, Peters & Beyrich the grant was refused²  Haeckel says that Reichert, Virchow & DuBois Raymond opposed it on account of his being “ein hervorragender Förderer der Darwinischen Irrlehren und des Wissenschaftlichen Materialismus”³ further because he had done more harm than good to Science & because his zoological monographs were of no value.

Of course one has to remember that this is an ex parte statement—but Virchow’s treatment of Haeckel has been so unfair in other cases, that I am disposed to think it represents the actual state of the case pretty fairly.⁴

It is a great piece of injustice and I wish I saw my way to remedy it. Haeckel requests that the Royal Society or the British Association might give him a subsidy  But he wants £400 or £500—that is to say a sum far beyond the capacity of the Donation Fund of the Royal Society—and very much larger than the British Association is likely to possess or to be willing to grant for a single purpose.

As to the Government Fund & Grant— in the first place we have no Funds until February and in the second though I quite agree with you, that our money might be very usefully expended for investigations such as those Haeckel proposes to undertake, I doubt whether the committee would give so large a sum to a foreigner—⁵

However that may be the question could not even be raised until next spring & Haeckel wants to go out in September

I see that Haeckel says at the end of his letter that he has written to you so I need not have troubled you with the beginning of this epistle

My colleague & I came here yesterday to look at the weir & we are off to Clitheroe this evening⁶

But before I left on Monday morning news came that a house was to be had at Grasmere—which will end my wife’s correspondence with a large part of the United Kingdom not forgetting M^rs Darwin⁷

With kindest remembrances to her & all your party

Ever | Yours very truly | T H Huxley