THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 43 



the question of the origin of man ; but the conclusions 

 he did not wish to draw were drawn by others, by 

 Huxley in England and by Haeckel in Germany. 

 It was only in his "Origin of Man and Sexual Selec- 

 tion," a book published much later, in 1871, that he 

 finally decided to follow their example. But the im- 

 port of his theory immediately became apparent to 

 all without any intimation on his part, and charges J 

 of materialism, of atheism and of immorality were 

 V brought against him from the very first. 

 \ We can truthfully say that all his opponents were, 

 in the last analysis, swayed consciously or uncon- 

 sciously by one of two motives, their theological turn y 

 of mind or their hatred for alhgenerarideas in science. 

 Those years of storm and stress gave a marvellous 

 impetus to all branches of knowledge, and will re- 

 main memorable in the annals of science. There was 

 not one department of thought which did not then 

 feel the influence of the new doctrine, henceforth 

 firmly implanted. Not to mention biology, whose 

 various branches were absolutely revolutionised by 

 the introduction of the comparative method, new sci- 

 ences were born. Anthropology, the study of prim- 4- 

 itive man and of savage tribes, comparative psychol- c- 

 ogy, inaugurated by Herbert Spencer, a transformed \ 

 philology, sociology led along a new path — such are 

 the many conquests for which credit is due"to the vic- 

 torious transmutation idea. 



