1863.] THE 'ATHEN^UM.' 



truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term 

 of creation,* 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 

 tour. I never in my life saw anything like the spring flowers 

 this year. What a lot of interesting things have been lately 

 published. I liked extremely your review of De Candolle. 

 What an awfully severe article that by Falconer on Lyell ; f 

 I am very sorry for it ; I think Falconer on his side does not 



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 

 absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were 

 formed." 



* This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's 

 books speaks of " an operation 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 conception of expressing a 

 creative force as a primordial form is the Reviewer's. 



f Athenceum, April 4, 1863, p. 459. The writer asserts that justice has 

 not been done either to himself or Mr. Prestwich that Lyell has not made 

 it clear that it was their original work which supplied certain material for 

 the 'Antiquity of Man.' Falconer attempts to draw an unjust distinction 

 between a "philosopher" (here used as a polite word for compiler) like 

 Sir Charles Lyell, and original observers, presumably such as himself, and 

 Mr. Prestwich. Lyell's reply was published in the Athenceum, April 18, 

 1863. It ought to be mentioned that a letter from Mr. Prestwich (Athe- 

 nceum, p. 555), which formed part of the controversy, though of the nature 

 of a reclamation, was written in a very different spirit and tone from Dr 

 Falconer's, 



