HUXLEY ON NATURAL SELECTION 15 



admirable hypothesis. Take a quotation from one of 

 his essays, printed in The Westminster Review in 

 i860: 



"Is it satisfactorily proved in fact that species 

 may be originated by selection ? That there is such 

 a thing as natural selection ? That none of the 

 phenomena exhibited by species are inconsistent with 

 the origin of species in this way ? If these questions 

 can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's 

 view steps out of the rank of hypotheses into that of 

 proved theories ; but so long as the evidence at 

 present adduced falls short of enforcing that affirma- 

 tion, so long, to our minds, must the new doctrine be 

 content to remain among the former — an extremely 

 valuable, and in the highest degree probable doc- 

 trine ; indeed the only extant hypothesis which is 

 worth anything in a scientific point of view ; but 

 still a hypothesis, and not yet a theory of species." — 

 " After much consideration, and assuredly with no 

 bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear con- 

 viction that, as the evidence stands, it is not abso- 

 lutely proven that a group of animals having all the 

 characters exhibited by species in nature, has ever 

 been originated by natural selection." Now take 

 a second quotation, from Huxley's address to the 

 Royal Society in 1894, when he was awarded the 

 Darwin Medal : 



" I am as convinced now as I was thirty-four years 

 ago, that the theory propounded by Mr. Darwin, I 

 mean that which he propounded, not that which has 

 been reported to be his by too many ill-instructed, 

 both friends and foes, has never been shown to be 

 inconsistent with any positive observations, and still 



