HUXLEY AND NATURAL SELECTION. 121 



time, the evidence in favour of transmutation was 

 wholly insufficient ; and, secondly, that no suggestion 

 respecting the causes of the transnuitation assumed, 

 which had been made, was in any way adequate 

 to explain the phenomena." It is obvious that these 

 two grounds are entirely distinct, and that the logical 

 foundation of the first is far more secure than that of 

 the second. 



The effect of the " Origin " was completely to 

 convince Huxley on the first ground: from that 

 time he never doubted the truth of evolution, how- 

 ever it may have been brought about. With regard 

 to the second ground, it is quite clear that Huxley 

 had a very high opinion of natural selection: he 

 thought it incomparably the best suggestion upon 

 the subject that had ever been made, and he firmly 

 believed that it accounted for something — that it may 

 even have taken a dominant part in bringing about 

 evolution. On the other hand, he never felt quite 

 confident about the entire sufficiency of the evidence 

 in its favour. It is probable that he was far more 

 interested in the establishment of evolution as a 

 fact than in natural selection as an explanation of 

 it. He saw the vast amount of research in all kinds 

 of new or almost neglected lines, which would be 

 directly inspired by evolution. And his own in- 

 vestigations in some of these lines soon afforded 

 some of the most weighty evidence in favour of the 

 doctrine. Natural selection had not the same per- 

 sonal interest for him; no one has expounded it 



