BECEPTION OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES/ 177 



ON THE EECEPTION OF THE 'OEIGIN OF SPECIES.'* 



By Professor HUXLEY. 



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 Fara- 

 day ; 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 com- 

 bination 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 notwithstand- 

 ing 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 



* In the last issue of The Popular Science Monthly the original an- 

 nouncement by Darwin and Wallace of the theory of organic evolution by 

 natural selection was reprinted from the 'Journal' of the Linnean Society for 

 1858. The 'Origin of Species' was published on November 24, 1859 ; its reception 

 by scientific men, by churchmen and by the general public forms one of the most 

 interesting chapters in the history of science. We reproduce part of the ac- 

 count of the matter contributed by Huxley to 'The Life and Letters of Darwin' 

 (1887), and extracts from the reviews published in 1860 in the 'Edinburgh Re- 

 view,' attributed to Richard Owen, and in 'The American Journal of Science' by 

 Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray. Regarding the Edinburgh reviewer Darwin 



wrote to Hooker: "Some of my relations say it cannot possibly be 's 



article, because the review speaks so very highly of . Poor dear simple 



folk." To Gray he wrote regarding the review quoted below: 'Your review 

 seems to me admirable ; by far the best that I have read,' and again to Wallace 

 'Asa Gray fights like a hero in defence.' Huxley also says that Gray 'fought 

 the battle splendidly in the United States,' and ranks him with Hooker, Lub- 

 bock and himself. Gray's re\'iew in the 'American Journal' and his series of 

 articles in the 'Atlantic Monthly' seem at this time, however, rather colorless 

 and chiefly concerned in arguing that if evolution is true it does not conflict 

 with natural theology. — EDrroB. 



VOL. i,x. — 12. 



