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.