WORK ON 'MAN.' Ti868. 



references and remarks will be of great use should a new 

 adition of my book * be demanded, but this is hardly prob- 

 able, for the whole edition was sold within the first week, 

 and another large edition immediately reprinted, which I 

 should think would supply the demand for ever. You ask 

 me when I shall publish on the ' Variation of Species in a 

 State of Nature/ I have had the MS. for another volume 

 almost ready during several years, but I was so much 

 fatigued by my last book that I determined to amuse myself 

 by publishing a short essay on the 'Descent of Man.' I was 

 partly led to do this by having been taunted that I concealed 

 my views, but chiefly from the interest which I had long 

 taken in the subject. Now this essay has branched out into 

 some collateral subjects, and I suppose will take me more 

 than a year to complete. I shall then begin on 'Species,' 

 but my health makes me a very slow workman. I hope that 

 you will excuse these details, which I have given to show 

 that you will have plenty of time to publish your views first, 

 which will be a great advantage to me. Of all the curious 

 facts which you mention in your letter, I think that of the 

 strong inheritance of the scalp-muscles has interested me 

 most. I presume that you would not object to my giving 

 this very curious case on your authority. As I believe all 

 anatomists look at the scalp-muscles as a remnant of the 

 Pannicnlus carnosus which is common to all the lower quad- 

 rupeds, I should look at the unusual development and inheri- 

 tance of these muscles as probably a case of reversion. Your 

 observation on so many remarkable men in noble families 

 having been illegitimate is extremely curious ; and should I 

 ever meet any one capable of writing an essay on this subject, 

 I will mention your remarks as a good suggestion. Dr. 

 Hooker has several times remarked to me that morals and 

 politics would be very interesting if discussed like any branch 

 of natural history, and this is nearly to the same effect with 

 your remarks. . . . 



* 'Variation of Animals and Plants,' 



