My dear Hooker

I return the pamphlets, which I have been very glad to read.— It will be a curious discovery if M^r. Lowne’s observation that boiling does not kill certain moulds is proved true; but then how on earth is the absence of all living things in Pasteur’s experiment to be accounted for?—² I am always delighted to see a word in favour of Pangenesis, which some day, I believe, will have a resurrection³   M^r Dyers paper strikes me as a very able Spencerian production.—⁴

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 (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & 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 w^d be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.—

Henrietta makes hardly any progress, & God knows when she will be well.—⁵

I enjoyed much the visit of you four Gentlemen, ie after the Saturday night, when I thought I was quite done for.—⁶

Yours affec^y | C. Darwin