The idea of
evolution by
natural selection proposed by
Charles Darwin put an end to these metaphysical theologies. In a letter to
Joseph Dalton Hooker on 1 February 1871,
[74] Darwin discussed the suggestion that the original spark of life may have begun in a "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." He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." He had written to Hooker in 1863 stating that, "It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter." In
On the Origin of Species, he had referred to life having been "created", by which he "really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process", but had soon regretted using the Old Testament term "creation".
[75]