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Down,
Beckenham, Kent, S.E.
My dear Hooker,
I return the pamphlets, which I have been very glad to read.—It will be a curious discovery if Mr. Lowe’s observation that boiling does not kill certain molds is proved true; but then how on earth is the absence of all living things in Pasteur’s experiments to be accounted for?—I am always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis, which some day, I believe, will have a resurrection. Mr. Dyer’s paper strikes [?] me as a very able Spencieran production.
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 protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
Henrietta makes hardly any progress, and God knows when she will be well.
I enjoyed much the visit of you four gentlemen, i.e., after the Saturday night, when I thought I was quite done for.
Yours affecty
C. Darwin
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