F. You are right. But a man of science may be a man of other things besides science, and though he may have, and ought to have no heart during a scientific investigation, yet when he has once come to a conclusion he may be hearty enough in support of it, and in his other capacities may be of as warm a temperament as even you can desire. C. I tell you I do not like the book. F. May I catechise you a little upon it? C. To your heart’s content. F. Firstly, then, I will ask you what is the one great impression that you have derived from reading it; or, rather, what do you think to be the main impression that Darwin wanted you to derive? C. Why, I should say some such thing as the following—that men are descended from monkeys, and monkeys from something else, and so on back to dogs and horses and hedge-sparrows and pigeons and cinipedes (what is a cinipede?) and cheesemites, and then through the plants down to duckweed. F. You express the prevalent idea concerning the book, which as you express it appears nonsensical enough. C. How, then, should you express it yourself? F. Hand me the book and I will read it to you through from beginning to end, for to express it more briefly than Darwin himself has done is almost impossible. C. That is nonsense; as you asked me what impression I derived from the book, so now I ask you, and I charge you to answer me. F. Well, I assent to the justice of your demand, but I shall comply with it by requiring your assent to a few principal statements deducible from the work. C. So be it.