36 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



ledge, but gave rise to teachings which might be, 

 and often were, in direct contradiction to the 

 teachings of natural knowledge. He further 

 found that when such contradiction came to hand 

 the Church demanded that natural knowledge 

 should give way. This was the origin of the 

 active opposition of which I am speaking. Quite 

 early in his career, while his name was as yet but 

 little known outside the narrow circle of men of 

 science, he was brought face to face with this atti- 

 tude of the Church by the way in which so many 

 voices of the Church received the views put for- 

 ward by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species. 

 The reception which that book met with entered 

 like iron into Huxley's soul ; he never forgot it. 

 Stirred up by it, he was swept away from the 

 quiet retirement of scientific inquiry, the results 

 of which could not reach the larger world until 

 after many days and then mainly through the 

 mouths of divers interpreters; he was carried 

 forth into the market-place to speak directly to 

 the people and become before them the untiring, 

 fearless champion of the claims of natural know- 

 ledge. It shaped the whole of the rest of his life. 

 Henceforward he to a large extent deserted 

 scientific research and forsook the joys which it 

 might bring to himself, in order that he might 

 secure for others that full freedom of inquiry 

 which is the necessary condition for the advance 

 of natural knowledge. Here was a book which, 

 with a quietness born of the consciousness of 



