1 859.] CREATION. 251 



C. Darwin to T. H. Huxley. 



Down, Dec. 25th [1859]. 



MY DEAR HUXLEY, One part of your note has pleased 

 me so much that I must thank you for it. Not only Sir 

 H. H. [Holland], but several others, have attacked me about 

 analogy leading to belief in one primordial created form.* 

 (By which I mean only that we know nothing as yet [of] how 

 life originates.) I thought I was universally condemned on 

 this head. But I answered that though perhaps it would 

 have been more prudent not to have put it in, I would not 

 strike it out, as it seemed to me probable, and I give it on 

 no other grounds. You will see in your mind the kind of 

 arguments which made me think it probable, and no one 

 fact had so great an effect on me as your most curious remarks 

 on the apparent homologies of the head of Vertebrata and 

 Articulata. 



You have done a real good turn in the Agency business f 

 (I never before heard of a hard-working, unpaid agent besides 

 yourself), in talking with Sir H. H., for he will have great 

 influence over many. He floored me from my ignorance 

 about the bones of the ear, and I made a mental note to ask 

 you what the facts were. 



With hearty thanks and real admiration for your generous 

 .zeal for the subject. 



Yours most truly, 



C. DARWIN. 



You may smile about the care and precautions I have taken 

 about my ugly MS. ; \ it is not so much the value I set on 



* ' Origin,' edit. i. p. 484. into which life was first breathed." 



"Therefore I should infer from \ "My General Agent" was a 



analogy that probably all the sobriquet applied at this time by 



organic beings which have ever my father to Mr. Huxley, 



lived on this earth have descended % Manuscript left with Mr. Hux- 



fiom some one primordial form, ley for his perusal. 



