100 HUXLEY 



letters. " I am intensely curious to hear Huxley's 

 opinion of my book." " If I can convert Huxley I 

 shall be content." " I long to hear what Huxley 

 thinks." x Ten days after this, in a letter dated 23d 

 November, 1859, Huxley, to whom an advance copy 

 had been sent, tells Darwin that he is " prepared to 

 go to the stake, if requisite," for the doctrine of 

 natural selection, and, scenting the battle from afar, 

 adds : " I am sharpening up my claws and beak in 

 readiness for defense of the c noble book.' " Darwin 

 was made happy. He had converted the chief of 

 doubters, to whom he replied : " Like a good 

 Catholic who has received extreme unction, I can 

 now sing ' Nunc dimittis.' I should have been more 

 than contented with one quarter of what you have 

 said." 2 * 



Huxley was satisfied that Darwin " had demon- 

 strated a true cause for the production of species." 

 In a course of lectures to working men delivered in 

 1863, he said : 



I really believe that the alternative is either Dar- 

 winism or nothing, for I do not know of any rational 

 conception or theory of the organic universe which 

 has any scientific position at all beside Mr. Darwin's, 



1 Life and Letters, ii. pp. 176, 221, 225. What Huxley did 

 think, after mastering the central idea of the book, was, " How 

 extremely stupid not to have thought of that ! " — Lb., p. 197. 



2 Lb., p. 232. 



