In March, 1861, Haeckel completed the _Dissertatio pro venia legendi_ at Jena that he had quickly decided on. It dealt, of course, with his new field: the limit and the system of the animal group to which the radiolaria belonged, the rhizopods. He was immediately appointed private teacher at Jena, and found himself in the lovely valley of the Saale, beneath the mountain about whose summit the red rays lingered. He had been drawn from Berlin to Messina to find a home—a home for ever—in the increasing stress. In the following year, 1862, the official position of Extraordinary Professor of Zoology was created, and this brought him close, even externally, to Gegenbaur. Everything was, it is true, in a very primitive condition at first. In August he married Anna Sethe—a sunny dream of fresh young happiness. In the same year he published his _Monograph on the Radiolaria_, a huge folio volume with thirty-five remarkably good copperplates, such as our more rational but slighter technical methods no longer dare produce. Wagenschieber, of Berlin, the last of the fine scientific copper etchers, had been in constant personal touch with Haeckel, and reproduced his original drawings in masterly style. With this work Haeckel was fully established in his position as a professional zoologist. It is still one of the finest monographs that was issued in the nineteenth century; from the literary point of view, also, it was one of the purest and most lucid works of its kind, full of great and earnest thoughts, and without any bitterness—a work, perhaps, that Haeckel has not since equalled. The most influential and official scientists of the time had to respect this work: possibly with the sole exception of the aged Ehrenberg, to whom it dealt a deadly blow in this department, without, of course, undervaluing his great antecedent services. He never even studied it sufficiently to be able to quote the title of it correctly. Nevertheless, a flame broke out at one spot in this monograph. In a very short time Haeckel’s whole figure would stand out in the red reflection of its glow—a figure really great, solitary, suddenly deserted by all the bewigged and powdered professors—Haeckel himself, as the world has come to know him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV DARWIN