My dear Haeckel,
I thank you for the present of your book ('Schopfungs-geschichte,' 4th edition. The translation ('The History of Creation') was not published until 1876.), and I am heartily glad to see its great success. You will do a wonderful amount of good in spreading the doctrine of Evolution, supporting it as you do by so many original observations. I have read the new preface with very great interest. The delay in the appearance of the English translation vexes and surprises me, for I have never been able to read it thoroughly in German, and I shall assuredly do so when it appears in English. Has the problem of the later stages of reduction of useless structures ever perplexed you? This problem has of late caused me much perplexity. I have just written a letter to 'Nature' with a hypothetical explanation of this difficulty, and I will send you the paper with the passage marked. I will at the same time send a paper which has interested me; it need not be returned. It contains a singular statement bearing on so-called Spontaneous Generation. I much wish that this latter question could be settled, but I see no prospect of it. If it could be proved true this would be most important to us...
Wishing you every success in your admirable labours,
I remain, my dear Haeckel, yours very sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN.
CHAPTER 2.VIII.
MISCELLANEA, INCLUDING SECOND EDITIONS OF 'CORAL REEFS,' THE 'DESCENT OF MAN,' AND THE 'VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS.'
1874 AND 1875.
[The year 1874 was given up to 'Insectivorous Plants,' with the exception of the months devoted to the second edition of the 'Descent of Man,' and with the further exception of the time given to a second edition of his 'Coral Reefs' (1874). The Preface to the latter states that new facts have been added, the whole book revised, and "the latter chapters almost rewritten." In the Appendix some account is given of Professor Semper's objections, and this was the occasion of correspondence between that naturalist and my father. In Professor Semper's volume, 'Animal Life' (one of the International Series), the author calls attention to the subject in the following passage which I give in German, the published English translation being, as it seems to me, incorrect: "Es scheint mir als ob er in der zweiten Ausgabe seines allgemein bekannten Werks uber Korallenriffe einem Irrthume uber meine Beobachtungen zum Opfer gefallen ist, indem er die Angaben, die ich allerdings bisher immer nur sehr kurz gehalten hatte, vollstandig falsch wiedergegeben hat."
The proof-sheets containing this passage were sent by Professor Semper to my father before 'Animal Life' was published, and this was the occasion for the following letter, which was afterwards published in Professor Semper's book.]
CHARLES DARWIN TO K. SEMPER. Down, October 2, 1879.
My dear Professor Semper,
I thank you for your extremely kind letter of the 19th, and for the proof- sheets. I believe that I understand all, excepting one or two sentences, where my imperfect knowledge of German has interfered. This is my sole and poor excuse for the mistake which I made in the second edition of my 'Coral' book. Your account of the Pellew Islands is a fine addition to our knowledge on coral reefs. I have very little to say on the subject, even if I had formerly read your account and seen your maps, but had known nothing of the proofs of recent elevation, and of your belief that the islands have not since subsided. I have no doubt that I should have considered them as formed during subsidence. But I should have been much troubled in my mind by the sea not being so deep as it usually is round atolls, and by the reef on one side sloping so gradually beneath the sea; for this latter fact, as far as my memory serves me, is a very unusual and almost unparalleled case. I always foresaw that a bank at the proper depth beneath the surface would give rise to a reef which could not be distinguished from an atoll, formed during subsidence.