MODERN EVOLUTION. i$f 



activity beyond the reach and need of a physical 

 correlate in external nature, and to give it an inde- 

 pendent value, is certainly an endeavour to go direct- 

 ly contrary to the sober and salutary method by 

 which solid human development has taken place in 

 the past, and is taking place in the present." 



The story of Darwin's work must now be re- 

 sumed. Shortly after the Linnaean meeting, he pre- 

 pared a series of chapters which, always regarded 

 by him as an " Abstract," ultimately took book form, 

 and was published, under the title of the Origin of 

 Species, on the 24th of November, 1859. 



The story of the reception of the work is admir- 

 ably told by Huxley in the chapter which he con- 

 tributed to Darwin's Life and Letters, and it may be 

 commended as useful reading to a generation which, 

 drinking-in Darwinism from its birth, will not readily 

 understand how such storm and outcry as rent the 

 air, both in scientific as well as clerical quarters, 

 could have been raised. " In fact," says Huxley, 

 " the contrast between the present condition of public 

 opinion upon the Darwinian question; between the 

 estimation in which Danvin's views are now held in 

 the scientific world; between the acquiescence, or, at 

 least, quiescence, of the theologian of the self-respect- 

 ing order at the present day, and the outburst of 

 antagonism on all sides in 1858-59, when the new 

 theory respecting the origin of species first became 

 known to the older generation to which I belong, is 



