Note 236 — Chapter XIV · THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 1861—1871.
Reading edition
This refers to a passage in which the reviewer of Dr. Carpenter's book speaks of "an operation of force," or "a concurrence of forces which have now no place in nature," as being, "a creative force, in fact, which Darwin could only express in Pentateuchal terms as the primordial form 'into which life was first breathed.'" The conception of expressing a creative force as a primordial form is the reviewer's.