iS;i.] 



MR. HUXLEY S REVIEW. 



149 



is your fault, for you have so delighted me ; I never dreamed 

 that you would have time to say a word in defence of the 

 cause which you have so often defended. It will be a long 

 battle, after we are dead and gone. . . . Great is the power 

 of misrepresentation. . . . 



C. Darwin to T. H. Huxley, 



Down, September 30 [187 1]. 



My dear Huxley, — It was very good of you to send the 

 proof-sheets, for I was very anxious to read your article. I 

 have been delighted with it. How you do smash Mivart's 

 theology : it is almost equal to your article versus Comte, — * 

 that never can be transcended. . . . But I have been pre- 

 eminently glad to read your discussion on [the ' Quarterly ' 

 reviewer's] metaphysics, especially about reason and his de- 

 finition of it. I felt sure he was wrong, but having only 

 common observation and sense to trust to, I did not know 

 what to say in my second edition of my ' Descent' Now a 

 footnote and reference to you will do the work. . . . For me, 

 this is one of the most important parts of the review. But for 

 pleasure, I have been particularly glad that my few words f on 

 the distinction, if it can be so called, between Mivart's two 

 forms of morality, caught your attention. I am so pleased 

 that you take the same view, and give authorities for it ; but I 

 searched Mill in vain on this head. How well you argue the 

 whole case. I am mounting climax on climax ; for after all 

 there is nothing, I think, better in your whole review than your 



* ' Fortnightly Review,' 1869. 

 With regard to the relations of 

 Positivism to Science, my father 

 wrote to Mr. Spencer in 1875 : 

 " How curious and amusing it is to 

 see to what an extent the Positivists 

 hate all men of science ; I fancy 

 they are dimly conscious what 



laughable and gigantic blunders 

 their prophet made in predicting 

 the course of science." 



t 'Descent of Man/ vol. i. p. 

 87. A discussion on the question 

 whether an act done impulsively 

 or instinctively can be called moral. 



