Admires EH’s Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre [1878].

Virchow’s conduct is shameful.

Thanks CD for comments on Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre [1878].

Describes work on Medusae.

Describes work on Challenger Radiolaria and publication plans.

Suggests possible visit by EH.

Comments on EH’s research.

Accepts invitation to visit Down.

Describes travel plans in Scotland.

Invites EH to spend night at Down.

Arranges to visit Down.

Confirms details of EH’s visit to Down.

Comments on new edition of EH’s book [Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 2d ed. (1870)].

Mentions his own book [Descent].

Visit by Kölliker.

Discusses applicability of evolutionary theory to the question of human origins.

Describes revisions in 2d edition of Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.

His research on calcareous sponges.

Mentions evolutionary content in Gegenbaur’s Vergleichende Anatomie [2d ed. (1870)].

Received copy of Descent.

Discusses CD’s comments on EH’s work.

Speculates about reception by press and scientists.

Remarks on sexual selection;

on human relationship to catarrhine apes.

Has rejected offer of chair at Vienna.

Compares Jena to Down.

Describes growth of his salary.

Mentions birth of Emma Haeckel.

A. M. Norman’s collection of calcareous sponges is very valuable.

Comments on Descent.

EH’s refusal of position at Vienna.

Comments on Die Kalkschwämme [1872].

A Franciscan prior, Padre Buona-Grazia, agrees with human descent.

His trip to Dalmatia.

German reception of Descent.

Mentions current work.

Refers to priest who believes in "our ape-like progenitors".

EH’s work on sponges.

Pangenesis.

Describes new edition of Origin [6th]

and his work on plant crossing.

Thanks CD for Origin, 6th ed.

Has declined chair at Strasbourg.

Describes research on calcareous sponges.

Criticises Pangenesis.

Comments on EH’s criticism of authors in third edition of Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte [1872].

Discusses book by H. C. Bastian [The beginnings of life (1872)].

Much experiment and observation needed before spontaneous generation will be empirically advanced, but philosophically the matter is clear.

Thinks Ludwig Rütimeyer has attacked EH to satisfy pious opinion in Basel.

Will soon be finished with his monograph Die Kalkschwämme [1872].

Thanks CD for Expression.

Describes work on Die Kalkschwämme and its principal conclusions.

The application of biogenetic law.

Notes variability among calcareous sponges.

Gastrula-like "Gastraea" as ancestor of multicellular animals.

Posits homology between Hydra, Olynthus of calcareous sponges, and initial germ layers of higher animals.

Comments on Lubbock’s Prehistoric times [1865]

and on David Strauss’s Der alte und der neue Glaube [1872].

Comments on EH’s forthcoming [Die Kalkschwämme (1872)].

Thinks EH is working much too hard.

On EH’s Die Kalkschwämme [1872].

Thanks CD for comments on Die Kalkschwämme.

Plans trip to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Discusses work of a Polish translator, Ludwik Masłowski.