WHAT LED TO THE WORK AND THE SUCCESS OF IT. 173 



blowing so resonant and extraordinary, was it any 

 wonder that the. book itself was hailed with acclama- 

 tion and received with even a rush of expectation ? And 

 we have now only to see how the proceedings of Mr. 

 Huxley at the very first could but beet the excitement, 

 that, so to speak, already blazed, into an absolute 

 conflagration and a veritable fury. 



Mr. Huxley was to Mr. Darwin " his good and kind 

 agent for the propagation of the Gospel " Natural Selec- 

 tion ; and surely with all these Speeches, Addresses, 

 Lectures, Essays, Eeviews, Articles, and other relative 

 efforts on the part of Mr. Huxley before him not with- 

 out reason. In these respects we cannot venture to 

 attempt to render an accurate list of all Mr. Huxley's 

 labours ; but we shall at least not be wrong in saying 

 that There were his Speeches at Oxford in answer to 

 Owen and to the Bishop there were his Addresses or 

 Lectures at the Eoyal Institution and the School of 

 Mines there were his printed Essays there were his 

 Reviews in the Westminster, the Contemporary, and else- 

 where and there were his articles in Nature, the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the Times. The speeches 

 at Oxford and the article in the Times may be specially 

 signalised. In the former reference, Mr. Darwin wrote 

 on July 20th, 1860, to Mr. Huxley himself: " From all 

 that I hear from several quarters, it seems that Oxford 

 did the subject great good it is of enormous importance, 

 the showing the world that a few first-rate men are not 

 afraid of expressing their opinion." And in the latter 

 reference, Mr. Francis Darwin (ii. 254) avows: "There 

 can be no doubt that this powerful essay, appearing as it 

 did in the leading daily journal, must have had a strong 

 influence on the reading public." As for the lecture at 

 the Royal Institution, too, while the prestige of the 

 position is not to be forgotten, it is to be acknowledged 



