94 LIFE OF 



by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and 

 mental endowments will tend to progress towards per- 

 fection." The concluding sentence of the "Origin of 

 Species" has become one of our classical quotations. 

 " There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several 

 powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms 

 or into one ; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling 

 on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a 

 beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonder- 

 ful have been, and are being, evolved." 



This is not the place to give a history of the criticisms 

 and discussions which arose in regard to "The Origin 

 of Species," especially as Darwin himself took no public 

 part in them, except by the alterations made in successive 

 editions. As indicating the tone of prominent critical 

 organs, we may note that The Athenizum (November 19, 

 1859) acknowledges there is something poetical in the 

 theory. " If a monkey has become a man, what may not 

 a man become?" Neither book, author, nor subject 

 being ordinary, " the work deserves attention." The 

 Edinburgh Review considered that the author left the 

 que'stion very nearly where he found it. Failing to find 

 original observations adequate even to give a colour to 

 the hypothesis, the reviewer sought to find flaws in the 

 author's mode of reasoning, and concluded that " we are 

 called upon to accept a hypothesis on the plea of want 

 of knowledge." Defective information, vagueness, and 

 incompleteness are charged upon the man whom we now 

 delight to honour " intellectual husks," we are told, are 

 all that he offers. Professor Huxley, who lectured at the 

 Royal Institution, on February 10, 1860, on " Species and 



