Ch. IX.] 1831—1844. 169 



"I occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and never 

 happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt 

 about the permanence of species : " and it will be made 

 abundantly clear by his letters that in supporting the opposite 

 view he felt himself a terrible heretic. 



Mr. Huxley * writes in the same sense : — 



" Within fiie ranks of biologists, at that time [1851-58], 1 

 met with nobody, except Dr. Grant, of University College, who 

 had a word to say for Evolution — and his advocacy was not 

 calculated to advance the cause. Outside these ranks, the 

 only person known to me whose knowledge and capacity com- 

 pelled respect, and who was, at the same time, a thorough- 

 going evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose acquaint- 

 ance I made, I think, in 1852, and then entered into the bonds 

 of a friendship which, I am happy to think, has known no 

 interruption. Many and prolonged were the battles we fought 

 on this topic. But even my friend's rare dialectic skill and 

 copiousness of apt illustration could not drive me from my 

 agnostic position. I took my stand upon two grounds : firstly, 

 that up to that timo, the evidence in favour of transmutation 

 was wholly insufticient ; and, secondly, that no suggestion 

 respecting the causes of the transmutation assumed, which 

 had been made, was in any way adequate to explain the 

 phenomena. Looking back at the state of knowledge at that 

 time, I really do not see that any other conclusion was 

 justifiable." 



These two last citations refer of course to a period much 

 later than the time, 1836-37, at which the Darwinian theory 

 was growing in my father's mind. The same thing is however 

 true of earlier days. 



So much for the general problem : the further question as 

 to the growth of Darwin's theory of natural selection is a less 

 complex one, and I need add but little to the history given in 

 the Autobiography of how he came by that great conception by 

 the help of which he was able to revivify " the oldest of all 

 philosophies — that of evolution." 



The first point in the slow journey towards the Origin of 

 Species was the opening of that note-book of 1837 of which 

 mention has been already made. The reader who is curious 

 on the subject will find a series of citations from this most 

 interesting note-book, in the Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 5, 

 et seq. 



The two following extracts show that he applied the theory 



• Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 188. 



