18 



SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 



[1863. 



It will be some time before we see " slime, protoplasm, &c." 

 generating a new animal.* But I have long regretted that I 

 truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term 

 of creation,f by which I really meant " appeared " by some 

 wholly unknown process. It is mere rubbish, thinking at 

 present of the origin of life ; one might as well think of the 

 origin of matter. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, Friday night [April 17, 1863]. 



My DEAR HOOKER, — I have heard from Oliver that you 

 will be now at Kew, and so I am going to amuse myself by 

 scribbling a bit. I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed your 



" Under the influence of his fore- 

 gone conclusion that I have ac- 

 cepted Mr. Darwin as my master, 

 and his hypothesis as my guide, 

 your reviewer represents me as 

 blind to the significance of the 

 general fact stated by me, that 

 * there has been no advance in the 

 foraminiferous type from the palae- 

 ozoic period to the present time.' 

 But for such a foregone conclusion 

 he would have recognised in this 

 statement the expression of my 

 conviction that the present state of 

 scientific evidence, instead of sanc- 

 tioning the idea that the descend- 

 ants of the primitive type or types 

 of Foraminifera can ever rise to 

 any higher grade, justifies the anti- 

 Darwinian inference, that however 

 widely they diverge from each other 

 and from their originals, they still 

 remain Foraminifera." 



* On the same subject my father 

 wrote in 1871 : "It is often said 

 that all the conditions for the first 

 production of a living organism are 



now present, which could ever have 

 been present. But if (and oh ! 

 what a big if !) we could conceive 

 in some warm little pond, with all 

 sorts of ammonia and phosphoric 

 salts, light, heat, electricity, &c, 

 present, that a proteine compound 

 was chemically formed ready to 

 undergo still more complex changes, 

 at the present day such matter 

 would be instantly devoured or ab- 

 sorbed, which would not have been 

 the case before living creatures 

 were formed." 



f This refers to a passage in 

 which the reviewer of Dr. Car- 

 penter's book speaks of " an opera- 

 tion of force," or " a concurrence 

 of forces which have now no place 

 in nature," as being, " a creative 

 force, in fact, which Darwin could 

 only express in Pentateuchal terms 

 as the primordial form ' into which 

 life was first breathed.' " The con- 

 ception of expressing a creative 

 force as a primordial form is the 

 Reviewer's. 



