Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 29 1 



against Darwinism ; but there was one who, more clearly than 

 others, saw the immense consequences of the establishment, by 

 means of the Darwin- Wallace Theory of Natural Selection, of 

 the general doctrine of evolution of organic beings, and of 

 the derivation of man himself from an animal ancestry. This 

 was the great and beloved teacher, the unequalled orator r 

 the brilliant essayist, the unconquerable champion and 

 literary swordsman Thomas Henry Huxley. 



Huxley had been a merciless opponent of the doctrine of 

 evolution as expounded by Lamarck and by Robert Chambers. 

 They had (he pointed out) failed to discover any mechanical 

 conditions from the operation of which organic evolution 

 must ensue. But the Darwin- Wallace principle of survival of 

 the fittest in the struggle for existence satisfied Huxley's 

 requirement. He became the convinced advocate of the 

 new doctrine, though I think it is true that he clung to a 

 little heresy of his own as to the occurrence of evolution by 

 saltatory variation, and also to another as to the efficacy of 

 the physiological test known as " fertile cross-breeding," as 

 a means of discriminating true from simulative species. It 

 was Huxley who, in admirable popular addresses, brought 

 the new doctrine before the minds of intelligent laymen, 

 and especially emphasised its application to the origin and 

 ancestry of mankind. When the Progressive members of 

 the Austrian Parliament shouted in a stormy debate that 

 they were " Fur Darwin ! " the significance of the ne\v con- 

 ception of the nature of living things, including man, became 

 evident, and it was recognised that " Darwinism " must in 

 the future guide statesmen and politicians as well as men of 

 science. It is in its application to the problems of human 

 society that there still remains an enormous field of work and 

 discovery for the Darwin-Wallace doctrine. 



The science of heredity, of fecundity and sterility, of 

 variation and adaptation, has to be far more completely 

 studied and developed in its application to man and to human 

 aggregates than it yet has been ; at the same time a true 

 psychology has to be arrived at and made, together with 

 a knowledge of heredity, the basis of education, of the 



