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CHAPTER V. 



BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY 



ON THE RECEPTION OF THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



To the present generation, that is to say, the people a few 

 years on the hither and thither side of thirty, the name of 

 Charles Darwin stands alongside of those of Isaac Newton and 

 Michael Faraday ; and, like them, calls up the grand ideal of 

 a searcher after truth and interpreter of Nature. They think 

 of him who bore it as a rare combination of genius, industry, 

 and unswerving veracity, who earned his place among the 

 most famous men of the age by sheer native power, in the 

 teeth of a gale of popular prejudice, and uncheered by a 

 sign of favour or appreciation from the official fountains of 

 honour ; as one who, in spite of an acute sensitiveness to 

 praise and blame, and notwithstanding provocations which 

 might have excused any outbreak, kept himself clear of all 

 envy, hatred, and malice, nor dealt otherwise than fairly and 

 justly with the unfairness and injustice which was showered 

 upon him ; while, to the end of his days, he was ready to 

 listen with patience and respect to the most insignificant of 

 reasonable objectors. 



And with respect to that theory of the origin of the forms of 

 life peopling our globe, with which Darwin's name is bound up 

 as closely as that of Newton with the theory of gravitation, 

 nothing seems to be further from the mind of the present 

 generation than any attempt to smother it with ridicule or 

 to crush it by vehemence of denunciation. " The struggle for 



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