140 'DESCENT OF MAN' — EXPRESSION. [1871. 



in a position very much in advance of that held by it fifteen 

 years ago. The problem of Evolution is hardly any longer to 

 be treated as one of first principles ; nor has Mr. Darwin to 

 do battle for a first hearing of his central hypothesis, upborne 

 as it is by a phalanx of names full of distinction and promise, 

 in either hemisphere." 



The infolded point of the human ear, discovered by 

 Mr. Woolner, and described in the ' Descent of Man,' seems 

 especially to have struck the popular imagination ; my father 

 wrote to Mr. Woolner : — 



"The tips to the ears have become quite celebrated. One 

 reviewer (' Nature ') says they ought to be called, as I sug- 

 gested in joke, Angulus Woolnerianus* A German is very 

 proud to find that he has the tips well developed, and I 

 believe will send me a photograph of his ears."] 



C. Darwin to Jolin Brodie Innes.X 



Down, May 29 [1871]. 



My DEAR Innes, — I have been very glad to receive your 

 pleasant letter, for, to tell you the truth, I have sometimes 

 wondered whether you would not think me an outcast and 

 a reprobate after the publication of my last book [' Descent '].J 

 I do not wonder at all at your not agreeing with me, for a 

 good many professed naturalists do not. Yet when I see in 

 how extraordinary a manner the judgment of naturalists has 

 changed since I published the ' Origin,' I feel convinced that 

 there will be in ten years quite as much unanimity about man, 

 as far as his corporeal frame is concerned. . . . 



* 'Nature,' April 6, 1871. The differed, but you are one of those rare 



term suggested is Angulus Wool- mortals from whom one can differ 



nerii. and yet feel no shade of animosity, 



f Rev. J. Brodie Innes, of Milton and that is a thing which I should 



Brodie, formerly Vicar of Down. feel very proud of, if any one could 



\ In a letter of my father's to say it of me." 

 Mr. Innes, he says :— " We often 



