ends as much as I wish. Let me again
thank you for your letter. To believe that I have at all influenced
the minds of able men is the greatest satisfaction I am capable of
receiving.

LETTER 248. TO E. HACKEL. Down, December 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. (248/1. "Die Kalkschwamme: eine
Monographie; 3 volumes: Berlin, 1872. H.J. Clark published a paper "On
the Spongiae Ciliatae as Infusoria flagellata" in the "Mem. Boston Nat.
Hist. Soc." Volume I., Part iii., 1866. See Hackel, op. cit., Volume I.,
page 24.) 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 next edition of the
"Origin," which Victor Carus is translating. (248/2. See "Life and
Letters," III., page 49.) 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 preparing 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, than myself o