18701882] ORIGIN OF SPECIES 335 



To E. Hackel. Letter 248 



Down, Dec. 27th, 1871. 



I thank you for your very interesting letter, which it has 

 given me much pleasure to receive. I never heard of anything 

 so odd as the Prior in the Holy Catholic Church believing in 

 our ape-like progenitors. I much hope that the Jesuits will 

 not dislodge him. 



What a wonderfully active man you are ! and I rejoice 

 that you have been so successful in your work on sponges. 1 

 Your book with sixty plates will be magnificent. I shall be 

 glad to learn what you think of Clark's view of sponges 

 being flagellate infusorians ; some observers in this country 

 believe in him. I am glad you are going fully to consider 

 inheritance, which is an all-important subject for us. I do not 

 know whether you have ever read my chapter on pangenesis. 

 My ideas have been almost universally despised, and I suppose 

 that I was foolish to publish them ; yet I must still think 

 that there is some truth in them. Anyhow, they have aided 

 me much in making me clearly understand the facts of 

 inheritance. 



I have had bad health this last summer, and during two 

 months was able to do nothing ; but I have now almost 

 finished a new edition of the Origin, which Victor Carus 

 is translating. 2 There is not much new in it, except one 

 chapter in which I have answered, I hope satisfactorily, Mr. 

 Mivart's supposed difficulty on the incipient development of 

 useful structures. I have also given my reasons for quite 

 disbelieving in great and sudden modifications. I am pre- 

 paring an essay on expression in man and the lower animals. 

 It has little importance, but has interested me. I doubt 

 whether my strength will last for much more serious work. 

 I hope, however, to publish next summer the results of my 

 long-continued experiments on the wonderful advantages 

 derived from crossing. I shall continue to work as long as 

 I can, but it does not much signify when I stop, as there are 

 so many good men fully as capable, perhaps more capable, 



1 Die Kalkschwdmme : eine ^Monographic; 3 vols. : Berlin, 1872. H. J. 

 Clark published a paper "On the Spongia: Ciliata? as Infusoria flagellata" 

 in the Mem. Bosto?i Nat. Hist. Soc., Vol. I., Pt. iii., 1866. See Hackel, 

 op. cit., Vol. I., p. 24. 



2 See Life and Letters, III., p. 49. 



