CHAPTER XIV. 



BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 



ON THE RECEPTION OF THE ' ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



To the present generation, that is to say, the people a few 

 years on the hither and thither side of thirty, the name of 

 Charles Darwin stands alongside of those of Isaac Newton 

 and Michael Faraday ; and, like them, calls up the grand 

 ideal of a searcher after truth and interpreter of Nature, 

 They think of him who bore it as a rare combination of 

 genius, industry, and unswerving veracity, who earned his 

 place among the most famous men of the age by sheer native 

 power, in the teeth of a gale of popular prejudice, and un- 

 cheered by a sign of favour or appreciation from the official 

 fountains of honour ; as one who in spite of an acute sensi- 

 tiveness to praise and blame, and notwithstanding provoca- 

 tions which might have excused any outbreak, kept himself 

 clear of all envy, hatred, and malice, nor dealt otherwise than 

 fairly and justly with the unfairness and injustice which was 

 showered upon him ; while, to the end of his days, he was 

 ready to listen with patience and respect to the most insig- 

 nificant of reasonable objectors. 



And with respect to that theory of the origin of the forms 

 of life peopling our globe, with which Darwin's name is bound 

 up as closely as that of Newton with the theory of gravitation, 

 nothing seems to be further from the mind of the present 

 generation than any attempt to smother it v/ith ridicule or 

 to crush it by vehemence of denunciation. " The struggle 

 for existence," and " Natural selection," have become house- 

 hold words and every-day conceptions. The reality and the 



