26 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



more than to any other we owe the gift of free 

 speech and free opinion in science, the man so 

 admirably described by Sir Eay Lankester at 

 the Linnean Celebration as * the great and beloved 

 teacher, the unequalled orator, the brilliant 

 essayist, the unconquerable champion and literary 

 swordsman Thomas Henry Huxley '. l 



Comparing the friendships to which Darwin 

 owed so much, Lyell was at first the teacher but 

 finally the pupil, unwilling and unconvinced at 

 the outset, in the end convinced although still 

 unwilling ; Hooker in England and Asa Gray in 

 America were the two intimate friends on whom 

 Darwin chiefly depended for help in writing the 

 Origin, and for support to its arguments ; Huxley 

 was the great general in the field where religious 

 convictions, expressed or unexpressed, were the 

 foundation of a fierce and bitter antagonism. 



THE ATTACKS OF RICHARD OWEN AND 

 ST. GEORGE MIVART 



An unnecessary bitterness was imported into 

 the early controversies in England, because of the 

 personality of the scientific leaders in the attacks 

 on the Origin. Of these the chief was the great 

 comparative anatomist, Sir Richard Owen. In 

 spite of his leading scientific position, this 

 remarkable man withdrew from contact with his 

 brother zoologists, living in a self-imposed isola- 



1 Darwin-Wallace Celebration of the Linnvan Society of London 

 (1908), 29. See also pp. 66-8 of the present work. 



