THE INTERPRETER IOO, 



articles expository of the doctrine of natural selec- 

 tion, which had appeared in serials or were based 

 upon popular lectures. They were needed, since 

 " exposition was not Darwin's forte, and his English 

 is sometimes wonderful." l 



The Origin of Species is not easy reading. Thirty 

 years after its publication, when Huxley, of all men, 

 might have been expected to have mastered it from 

 title to colophon, he said in a letter to Hooker, " It is 

 one of the hardest books to understand thoroughly 

 that I know of." 2 



Darwin, recluse by temperament and frail health, 

 content, in the quiet of his Kentish home, to continue 

 his work of collecting and verifying, was no con- 

 troversialist. Hence the preaching of the new doc- 

 trine and the fighting for it fell to " my general 

 agent," 3 as he called Huxley ; to " Darwin's bull- 

 dog," as Huxley called himself. 4 Not returning rail- 

 ing for railing, but fact-supported argument for 

 epithet ; albeit sometimes answering " a fool accord- 

 ing to his folly," Huxley made it his chief business to 

 enlarge to the full the hint which, at the end of the 

 Origin of Species, Darwin threw out in a brief sen- 

 tence : " Much light will be thrown on the origin of 

 man and his history." Darwin's desire not to unduly 



'II- 190- 2 II. 192. 



3 Darwin's Life and Letters , ii. p. 251. 4 I, 363. 



