My dear Darwin,
The day before yesterday I met Playfair at the club, and he told me that he had heard from Miss Elliott that I was getting up what she called a "Vivisector's Bill," and that Lord Cardwell was very anxious to talk with some of us about the matter.
So you see that there is no secret about our proceedings. I gave him a general idea of what was doing, and he quite confirmed what Lubbock said about the impossibility of any action being taken in Parliament this session.
Playfair said he should like very much to know what we proposed doing, and I should think it would be a good thing to take him into consultation.
On my return I found that Pfluger had sent me his memoir with a note such as he had sent to you.
I read it last night, and I am inclined to think that it is a very important piece of work.
He shows that frogs absolutely deprived of oxygen give off carbonic acid for twenty-five hours, and gives very strong reasons for believing that the evolution of carbonic acid by living matter in general is the result of a process of internal rearrangement of the molecules of the living matter, and not of direct oxidation.
His speculations about the origin of living matter are the best I have seen yet, so far as I understand them. But he plunges into the depths of the higher chemistry in which I am by no means at home. Only this I can see, that the paper is worth careful study.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.