A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



not yet altogether ceased to echo after more than 

 forty years of reverberation. 



NEW CHAMPIONS 



To the Origin of Species, then, and to its author, 

 Charles Darwin, must always be ascribed chief credit 

 for that vast revolution in the fundamental beliefs of 

 our race which has come about since 1859, and which 

 made the second half of the century memorable. But 

 it must not be overlooked that no such sudden meta- 

 morphosis could have been effected had it not been for 

 the aid of a few notable lieutenants, who rallied to the 

 standards of the leader immediately after the publica- < 

 tion of the Origin. Darwin had all along felt the ut- 

 most confidence in the ultimate triumph of his ideas. 

 "Our posterity," he declared, in a letter to Hooker, 

 " will marvel as much about the current belief [in spe- 

 cial creation] as we do about fossil shells having been 

 thought to be created as we now see them." But he 

 fully realized that for the present success of his theory 

 of transmutation the championship of a few leaders of 

 science was all-essential. He felt that if he could make 

 converts of Hooker and Lyell and of Thomas Henry 

 Huxley at once, all would be well. 



His success in this regard, as in others, exceeded his 

 expectations. Hooker was an ardent disciple from 

 reading the proof-sheets before the book was published ; 

 Lyell renounced his former beliefs and fell into line a 

 few months later ; while Huxley, so soon as he had mas- 

 tered the central idea of natural selection, marvelled 

 that so simple yet all-potent a thought had escaped 

 him so long, and then rushed eagerly into the fray, 



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