126 DARWINIAN INTERESTS 



now, at Owen's College, Manchester, on Friday, and lecturing 

 again to working men at Liverpool yesterday, and to be 

 back in London to-night ! 



The following deals with Sir William Thomson (Lord 

 Kelvin's) address at the Edinburgh meeting of the British 

 Association in 1871. In it he had suggested that life had 

 been brought to the earth by ' seed-bearing aerolite^.' Huxley, 

 who was present, welcomed the implicit acceptance of evolution 

 by such a theory, however improbable in itself, and whatever 

 the criticisms passed on Darwin's views of the working of 

 evolution. 



To Charles Darwin 



August 5, 1871. 



I have been reading W. Thomson's * address, and am 

 anxious to hear your opinion of it. What a belly-full it is, 

 and how Scotchy ! It seems to be very able indeed, and what 

 a good notion it gives of the gigantic achievements of mathe- 

 maticians and physicists it really makes one giddy to 

 read of them. I do not think Huxley will thank him for his 

 reference to him as a positive unbeliever in spontaneous 

 generation these mathematicians do not seem to me to 

 distinguish between un-belief and a-belief I know no other 

 name for the state of mind that is traduced under the term 

 scepticism. I had no idea before that pure mathematics 

 had achieved such wonders in practical science, and I wonder 

 how far Thomson's statements will be contested. The total 

 absence of any allusion to Tyndall's labors, even when comets 

 are his theme, seems strange to me. 



The notion of introducing life by Meteors 2 is astounding 

 and very unphilosophical, as being dragged in head and 



1 William Thomson (1824-1907), afterwards Lord Kelvin, was the son of 

 James Thomson, who became Professor of Mathematics at Glasgow. Inherit- 

 ing his father's powers in an intensified degree, he entered the college at 

 the early age of eleven, and thus, though Hooker's junior by seven years, 

 managed to be in the same class with him. 



1 Huxley wrote to Hooker (August 11) : ' What do you think of Thomson's 

 " creation by cockshy "God Almighty sitting like an idle boy at the seaside 

 and shying aerolites (with germs), mostly missing, but sometimes hitting a 

 planet ! ' Following which Hooker adds to Darwin on the 15th : ' Huxley calls 

 Thomson's the " Cock-shy theory "God makes a cockshy of the world. I 

 hear that he baited T. awfully in section D.' 



