Huxley 



must add his good fortune in possessing so able 

 a lieutenant as Huxley. 



Huxley was an ardent evolutionist, an able 

 writer, and a brilliant debater. A man of his 

 mental calibre was able, like a clever barrister, 

 to make out a plausible case for any theory which 

 he chose to take up. While nominally a strong 

 supporter of the Darwinian theory, he was in 

 reality fighting for the doctrine of descent. Had 

 any plausible theory of evolution been enunciated, 

 Huxley would undoubtedly have fought for it 

 equally earnestly. 



A firm believer in evolution, Huxley was, 

 as Professor Poulton says, confronted by two 

 difficulties, first, the insufficiency of the evi- 

 dence of evolution, and, secondly, the absence of 

 any explanation of how the phenomenon had 

 occurred. The Origin of Species solved both 

 these difficulties. It adduced much weighty evi- 

 dence in favour of evolution, and suggested a 

 modus operandi. Small wonder, then, that 

 Huxley became a champion of Darwinism. But, 

 as Poulton writes, on page 202 of Essays on 

 Evolution, " while natural selection thus enabled 

 Huxley freely to accept evolution, he was by no 

 means fully satisfied with it." " He never com- 

 mitted himself to a full belief in natural selection, 

 and even contemplated the possibility of its 

 ultimate disappearance/' To use Huxley's own 

 words : " Whether the particular shape which the 



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