234: PUBLICATION OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, [ch. xii. 



is very remarkable, it seems that he is a profound naturalist. 

 He knows my Barnacle book, and appreciates it too highly. 

 Lastly he writes and thinks with quite uncommon force and 

 clearness ; and what is even still rarer, his writing is seasoned 

 with most pleasant wit. We all laughed heartily over some 

 of the sentences. . . . Who can it be ? Certainly I should 

 have said that there was only one man in England who could 

 have written this essay, and that you were the man. But I 

 suppose I am wrong, and that there is some hidden genius 

 of great calibre. For how could you influence Jupiter 

 Olympus and make him give three and a half columns to 

 pure science? The old fogies will think the world will 

 come to an end. Well, whoever the man is, he has done 

 great service to the cause, far more than by a dozen reviews 

 in common periodicals. The grand way he soars above 

 common religious prejudices, and the admission of such 

 views into the Times, I look at as of the highest importance, 

 quite independently of the mere question of species. If you 

 should happen to be acquainted with the author, for Heaven- 

 sake tell me who he is ? 



My dear Huxley, yours most sincerely. 



There can be no doubt that this powerful essay, appear- 

 ing in the leading daily Journal, must have had a strong 

 influence on the reading public. Mr. Huxley allows me to 

 quote from a letter an account of the happy chance that 

 threw into his hands the opportunity of writing it : 



" The Origin was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of 

 the Times writers at that day, in what I suppose was the 

 ordinary course of business. Mr. Lucas, though an excel- 

 lent journalist, and, at a later period, editor of Once a Week, 

 was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and 

 bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with 

 such a book. Whereupon he was recommended to ask me 

 to get him out of his difficulty, and he applied to me accord- 

 ingly, explaining, however, that it would be necessary for 

 him formally to adopt anything I 'might be disposed to 

 write, by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his 

 own. 



" I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus 

 offered -of giving the book a fair chance with the multitu- 

 dinous readers of the Times to make any difficulty about 

 conditions ; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote 

 the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my 



