CONVICTIONS AND DOUBTS 201 



he accepted at once, unreservedly, and permanently. He 

 furthermore encountered what was to him the entirely 

 new idea of Natural Selection, and he instantly recognized 

 that it disposed of his second objection that no suggestion 

 in any way adequate to explain the phenomena had been 

 made. But to the end of his life he never went beyond 

 this. He never committed himself to a full belief in 

 Natural Selection, and even contemplated the possibility 

 of its ultimate disappearance. 



But Natural Selection appeared to him so reasonable, 

 so well worth consideration, that he could no longer feel 

 any force in an adverse argument depending on the want 

 of a cause. If we were so dense as not to think of such 

 a reasonable idea founded upon the most familiar of facts, 

 what right have we to make use of any such argument ? 

 To the Transmutationists and the non-Transmutationists 

 he had said, with Mercutio, 'a plague on both your houses, ' 

 and he might have expressed his opinion of Natural 

 Selection by another quotation from the same character. 

 It may not be ' so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- 

 door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve '. 



But while Natural Selection thus enabled Huxley freely 

 to accept evolution, it is evident, as I have said, that he 

 was by no means fully satisfied with it. The difficulty 

 which he felt early and late, and about which he had 

 a prolonged discussion with Darwin, was the fact that 

 the breeds created by the artificial selection of man are 

 mutually fertile, while the species created ex hypothesi by 

 Natural Selection are mutually sterile. Without going 

 into the controversy, 1 it may be said briefly, that, accord- 

 ing to Darwin, Huxley's objection merely meant that the 

 results of an experiment prolonged for an immense period 

 were not in every respect the same as those attained when 

 it endured for a time comparatively short 



The reason why other students have felt a confidence 

 in Natural Selection not shared by this great leader is to 

 be found in his own words. Speaking of ' every great 

 advance in natural knowledge', Huxley says: 'The 



1 A fairly complete account of the controversy will be found on pp. 

 77—83 of the present volume. 



