84 THE COMING [CH. 



'If I had stated.... the possibility of the introduction or 

 origination of fresh species being a natural, in contradistinction 

 to a miraculous process, I should have raised a host of prejudices 

 against me, which are unfortunately opposed at every step to 

 any philosopher who attempts to address the public on these 

 mysterious subjects 82 .' 



That Lyell was justified in not increasing the 

 difficulties which would retard the reception of his 

 views, by introducing matter, which he still regarded 

 as of a more or less speculative character, I think 

 everyone will be prepared to admit. Darwin had 

 to contend with the same difficulty in writing the 

 Origin of Species. To have included the question 

 of the origin of mankind prominently in that work 

 would have raised an almost insurmountable barrier 

 to its reception. He says in his autobiography, 

 1 1 thought it best, in order that no honourable man 

 should accuse me of concealing my views, to add that 

 by the work " light would be thrown on the origin of 

 man and his history." It would have been useless 

 and injurious to the success of the book to have 

 paraded, without giving evidence, my conviction with 

 respect to his origin 83 / 



Huxley and Haeckel have both borne testimony 

 to the fact that Lyell, at the time he wrote the 

 Principles, was firmly convinced that new species 

 had originated by evolution from old ones. Indeed 

 in a letter to John Herschel in 1836 he goes very far 



