104 HUXLEY 



favourable variations, is held to be all-sufficient for 

 the production of new species ; but, in June, 1886, 

 Huxley wrote to Mr. Spencer as follows : — 



Mind, I have no a priori objection to the transmis- 

 sion of functional modifications whatever. In fact, 

 as I told you, I should rather like it to be true. 



But I argued against the assumption (with Dar- 

 win, as I do with you) of the operation of a factor 

 which, if you will forgive me for saying so, seems as 

 far off support by trustworthy evidence now as ever 

 it was. 1 



To Mr. Piatt Ball he wrote in 1890 : — 



I absolutely disbelieve in use-inheritance as the 

 evidence stands. Spencer is bound to it a priori — his 

 psychology goes to pieces without it. 2 



Huxley's researches in palaeontology and embry- 

 ology strengthened his conviction that " if all the 

 conceptions promulgated in the Origin of Species which 

 are peculiarly Darwinian were swept away, the theory 

 of evolution of plants and animals would not be in 

 the slightest degree shaken." 3 For him the im- 

 portance of that book lay in its influence beyond the 

 limits of its theory, which dealt only with living 

 things. This is put with his usual clearness and 

 vigour in his chapter on its reception in Darwin's 

 Life and Letters, and explains his place as foremost 

 champion : — 



1 II. 133. 2 II. 268. 3 Nature, 1st Nov., 1894. 



