CHAPTER XI 



THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN'S WORKS 



IN two essays ' On the Coming of Age of the Origin 

 of Species 134 / and ' On the Reception of the Origin of 

 Species 135 ,' published in 1880 and 1887 respectively, 

 Huxley has discussed the course of events following 

 the publication of Darwin's great work, he having 

 the advantage of being one of the chief actors in 

 those events. There is a striking parallelism between 

 the manner that the Principles of Geology had been 

 received thirty years earlier, and the way that the 

 Origin of Species was met, both by Darwin's scientific 

 contemporaries and the reading public. 



At the outset, as we have already intimated, 

 Lyell and Darwin were equally fortunate, in that 

 each found a critic, in one of the chief organs of 

 public opinion, who was at the same time both com- 

 petent and sympathetic. The story of the lucky 

 accident by which this came about in Darwin's case 

 has been told by Huxley himself 136 , 



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

 Times writers at that time, in what was I suppose the ordinary 



