1844—1858] THE ATHEN/EUM 89 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 45 



Down, May 9U1 [1856]. 

 . . . With respect to Huxley, I was on the point of speaking 

 to Crawford and Strezlecki (who will be on Committee of the 

 Athenaeum) when I bethought me of how Owen would look 

 and what he would say. Cannot you fancy him, with slow 

 and gentle voice, asking " Will Mr. Crawford l tell me what 

 Mr. Huxley has done, deserving this honour; I only know 

 that he differs from, and disputes the authority of Cuvier, 

 Ehrenbergj and Agassiz as of no weight at all." And when 

 I began to tell Mr. Crawford what to say, I was puzzled, and 

 could refer him only to some excellent papers in the Pliil. 

 Trans., for which the medal had been awarded. But I doubt, 

 with an opposing faction, whether this would be considered 

 enough, for I believe real scientific merit is not thought 

 enough, without the person is generally well known. Now 

 1 want to hear what you deliberately think on this head : it 

 would be bad to get him proposed and then rejected ; and 

 Owen is very powerful. 



To J. D. Hooker. Letter 46 



Down [1856]. 

 I have got the Lectures, 2 and have read them. Though 

 I believe, as far as my knowledge goes, that Huxley is right, 

 yet I think his tone very much too vehement, and I have 



1 John Crawford (1783— 1868), Orientalist, Ethnologist, etc. Mr. 

 Crawford wrote a review on the Origin, which, though hostile, was free 

 from bigotry (see Life and Letters, II., p. 237). 



3 The reference is presumably to the Royal Institution Lectures given 

 in 1854-56. Those which we have seen — namely, those reprinted in the 

 Scientific Memoirs, Vol. I. — "On the Common Plan of Animal Form," 

 p. 281 ; " On certain Zoological Arguments, etc.," p. 300 ; " On Natural 

 History as Knowledge, Discipline, and Power," p. 305, do not seem to us 

 to contain anything likely to offend ; but Falconer's attack in the Ann. 

 and Mag. of Nat. Hist., June 1856, on the last-named lecture, shows 

 strong feeling. A reply by Mr. Huxley appeared in the July number 

 of the same Journal. The most heretical discussion from a modern 

 standpoint is at p. 311, where he asks how it is conceivable that the 

 bright colours of butterflies and shells or the elegant forms of Fora- 

 minifera can possibly be of service to their possessors ; and it is this 

 which especially struck Darwin, judging by the pencil notes on his copy 

 of the Lecture. 



