n8 CHARLES DARWIN 



them with ease to symmetry and order. To Herbert 

 Spencer, an evolutionist in'fibre from the very beginning, 

 the fresh doctrine of natural selection came like a power- 

 ful ally and an unexpected assistant in deciphering the 

 deep fundamental problems on which he was at that 

 moment actually engaged; and in his 'Principles of 

 Biology,' even then in contemplation, he at once adopted 

 and utilised the new truth with all the keen and vigorous 

 insight of his profound analytic and synthetic intellect, 

 The first part of that important work was issued to 

 subscribers just three years after the original appearance 

 of the ' Origin of Species ; ' the first volume was fully 

 completed in October 1864. It is to Mr. Spencer that 

 we owe the pellucid expression ' survival of the fittest,' 

 which conveys even better than Darwin's own phrase, 

 ' natural selection,' the essential element added by the 

 1 Origin of Species ' to the pre-existing evolutionary 

 conception. 



The British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science held its big annual doctrinaire picnic the next 

 summer after the publication of Darwin's book, at 

 Oxford. The Oxford meeting was a stormy and a well- 

 remembered one. The ' Origin of Species ' was there 

 discussed and attacked before a biological section 

 strangely enough presided over by Darwin's old 

 Cambridge teacher, Professor Henslow. Though then 

 a beneficed parish priest, Henslow had the boldness 

 frankly to avow his own acceptance of his great pupil's 

 startling conclusions. Huxley followed in the same 

 path, as did also Lubbock and Hooker. On the whole, 

 the evolutionists were already in the ascendant ; the 

 fresh young intellects especially being quick to seize 



