2 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1863. 



does not believe my brain or heart are primarily affected, but I 

 have been so steadily going downhill, I cannot help doubting- 

 whether I can ever crawl a little uphill again. Unless I can, 

 enough to work a little, I hope my life may be very short, 

 for to lie on a sofa all day and do nothing but give trouble to 

 the best and kindest of wives and good dear children is 

 dreadful." 



The minor works in this year were a short paper in the 

 ( Natural History Review' (N.S. vol. iii. p. 115), entitled "On 

 the so-called Auditory-Sac of Cirripedes," and one in the 

 ' Geological Society's Journal ' (vol. xix.), on the " Thickness of 

 the Pampaean Formation near Buenos Ayres." The paper 

 on Cirripedes was called forth by the criticisms of a German 

 naturalist Krohn,* and is of some interest in illustration of my 

 father's readiness to admit an error. 



With regard to the spread of a belief in Evolution, it could 

 not yet be said that the battle was won, but the growth of 

 belief was undoubtedly rapid. So that, for instance, Charles 

 Kingsley could write to F. D. Maurice : f 



" The state of the scientific mind is most curious ; Darwin 

 is conquering everywhere, and rushing in like a flood, by the 

 mere force of truth and fact." 



Mr. Huxley was as usual active in guiding and stimulating; 

 the growing tendency to tolerate or accept the views set forth 

 in the ' Origin of Species.' He gave a series of lectures to 

 working men at the School of Mines in November, 1862. 

 These were printed in 1863 from the shorthand notes of Mr. 

 May, as six little blue books, price 4^. each, under the title, 

 'Our Knowledge of the Causes of Organic Nature.' When 

 published they were read with interest by my father, who thus 

 refers to them in a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker : 



* Krohn stated that the structures orifice described in the 'Mono- 

 described by my father as ovaries graph of the Cirripedia ' as the 

 were in reality salivary glands, also auditory meatus. 

 that the oviduct runs down to the f Kingsley's ' Life,' vol. ii. p. 171. 



