238 EVOLUTION [CHAP. Ill 



Letter 164 charged a few paragraphs with more condensed and cutting 

 sense than you have done. It is truly grand. I regret 

 extremely that you could not, or did not, end your book 

 (not that I mean to say a word against the Geological 

 History) with these pages. With a book, as with a fine day, 

 one likes it to end with a glorious sunset. I congratulate you 

 on its publication ; but do not be disappointed if it does not 

 sell largely : parts are highly scientific, and I have often 

 remarked that the best books frequently do not get soon 

 appreciated : certainly large sale is no proof of the highest 

 merit But I hope it may be widely distributed ; and I am 

 rejoiced to see in your note to Miss Rhadamanthus 1 that a 

 second thousand is called for of the little book. What a 

 letter that is of Owen's in the A tJien&u m ; 2 how cleverly he 

 will utterly muddle and confound the public. Indeed he 

 quite muddled me, till I read again your " concise statement " 3 

 (which is capitally clear), and then I saw that my suspicion 

 was true that he has entirely changed his ground to size of 

 Brain. How candid he shows himself to have taken the 

 slipped Brain ! 4 I am intensely curious to see whether Lyell 



1 This refers to Mr. Darwin's daughter (now Mrs. Litchfield), whom 

 Mr. Huxley used to laugh at for the severity of her criticisms. 



2 A letter by Owen in the Athenceum, Feb. 2ist, 1863, replying to 

 strictures on his treatment of the brain question, which had appeared in 

 Lyell's Antiquity of Man. 



3 This refers to a section (pp. 113-18) in Marts Place in Nature, 

 headed "A succinct History of the Controversy respecting the Cerebral 

 Structure of Man and the Apes." Huxley follows the question from 

 Owen's attempt to classify the mammalia by cerebral characters, published 

 by the Linn. Soc. in 1857, up to his revival of the subject at the Cambridge 

 meeting of the British Association in 1862. It is a tremendous indict- 

 ment of Owen, and seems to us to conclude not unfittingly with a 

 citation from Huxley's article in the Medical Times, Oct. nth, 1862. 

 Huxley here points out that special investigations have been made into 

 the question at issue " during the last two years " by Allen Thomson, 

 Rolleston, Marshall, Flower, Schrceder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and 

 that " all these able and conscientious observers " have testified to the 

 accuracy of his statements, " while not a single anatomist, great or 

 small, has supported Professor Owen." He sums up the case once 

 more, and concludes : " The question has thus become one of personal 

 veracity. For myself I will accept no other issue than this, grave as it 

 is, to the present controversy." 



4 Owen in the Athcnceum, Feb. 2ist, 1863, admits that in the brain 



