THE COMING OF EVOLUTION 213 



Now that the conception of evolution has become 

 general property, it is difficult to realize how very 

 limited were the numbers of men who were in a position 

 really to judge of the value of the evidence laid before 

 them, evidence that depended on the detailed examina- 

 tion of living creatures and fossil remains, forms un- 

 familiar and for the greater part unknown to those who 

 felt compelled either to deny the validity of the conclu- 

 sion or to give up beliefs which had sustained long 

 generations of their forefathers. Before we condemn 

 them, let us ask ourselves honestly whether, in ignorance 

 of the intermediate stages, it is more obvious to postu- 

 late a common ancestor or a separate creation for the 

 frog and the peacock, the salmon and the humming- 

 bird, the elephant and the mouse ; or, to go back to 

 an earlier stage in the evolution of knowledge, let us 

 make a list of the number of persons in the circle of 

 our acquaintance who could immediately offer con- 

 vincing evidence of the three-century-old heliocentric 

 theory of the Universe. 



And even to some naturalists the new ideas were re- 

 pugnant. Owen, the great anatomist, wrote a strongly 

 adverse criticism in the Edinburgh Review, and most 

 systematists agreed with his opinion. But Hooker 

 gave in his adhesion at once, and was immediately 

 followed by Huxley, Asa Gray, Lubbock and W. B. 

 Carpenter, while Lyell announced his conversion at 

 the Royal Society Dinner in the autumn of 1864. 



From the first, Huxley was the protagonist of this 

 band of evolutionists " Darwin's bulldog/' as he 

 called himself. With magnificent courage, ability, 

 and clearness of exposition, he bore the chief brunt 

 of the attack made from all sides on Darwin's book, 



