I am glad you appreciate the rich absurdities of the new doctrine of spontogenesis [?].  Against the doctrine of spontaneous generation in the abstract I have nothing to say.  Indeed it is a necessary corollary from Darwin’s views if legitimately carried out, and I think Owen smites him (Darwin) fairly for taking refuge in “Pentateuchal” phraseology when he ought to have done one of two things—­(a) give up the problem, (b) admit the necessity of spontaneous generation.  It is the very passage in Darwin’s book to which, as he knows right well, I have always strongly objected.  The x of science and the x of genesis are two different x’s, and for any sake don’t let us confuse them together.  Maurice has sent me his book.  I have read it, but I find myself utterly at a loss to comprehend his point of view.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The following letter is interesting, as showing his continued interest in the question of skull structure, as well as his relation to his friend and fellow-worker, Dr. W.K.  Parker.]

Jermyn Street, March 18, 1863.

My dear Parker,

Any conclusion that I have reached will seem to me all the better based for knowing that you have been near or at it, and I am therefore right glad to have your letter.  If I had only time, nothing would delight me more than to go over your preparations, but these Hunterian Lectures are about the hardest bit of work I ever took in hand, and I am obliged to give every minute to them.

By and by I will gladly go with you over your vast material.

Did you not some time ago tell me that you considered the Y-shaped bone (so-called presphenoid) in the Pike to be the true basisphenoid?  If so, let me know before lecture to-morrow, that I may not commit theft unawares.

I have arrived at that conclusion myself from the anatomical relations of the bone in question to the brain and nerves.

I look upon the proposition opisthotis = turtle’s “occipital externe” = Perch’s Rocher (Cuvier) as the one thing needful to clear up the unity of structure of the bony cranium; and it shall be counted unto me as a great sin if I have helped to keep you back from it.  The thing has been dawning upon me ever since I read Kolliker’s book two summers ago, but I have never had time to work it out.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The following extracts from a letter to Hooker and a letter to Darwin describe the pressure of his work at this time.]

1863.

My dear Hooker,

...I would willingly send a paper to the Linnean this year if I could, but I do not see how it is practicable.  I lecture five times a week from now till the middle of February.  I then have to give eighteen lectures at the College of Surgeons—­six on classification, and twelve on the vertebrate skeleton.  I might write a paper on this new Glyptodon, with some eighteen to twenty plates.  A preliminary notice has already gone to the Royal Society.  I have a decade of fossil fish in progress; a fellow in the country will keep on sending me splendid new Labyrinthodonts from the coal, and that d—­d manual must come out.