110 HUXLEY 



prejudice the minds of readers to whom his theory- 

 was wholly new by too plain an indication of its 

 bearing, and his anxiety to advance no statement with- 

 out complete investment of fact, explain his reticence. 

 But it needed no great acuteness on the part of a 

 critical reader to see that the subject could not be 

 thus selvedged. The Descent of Man was the logical 

 supplement to the Origin of Species ; but it was not 

 published until 187 1. Explaining in 1894 the posi- 

 tion which he took up in i860, Huxley says : — 



Among the many problems which came under my 

 consideration, the position of the human species in 

 zoological classification was one of the most serious. 

 Indeed, at that time it was a burning question, in the 

 sense that those who touched it were almost certain 

 to burn their fingers severely. . . . Even among 

 those who considered man from the point of view, 

 not of vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay 

 poles asunder. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier 

 another ; and among my senior contemporaries, men 

 like Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of the 

 deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything which 

 tended to break down the barrier between man and 

 the rest of the animal world. 



Huxley then refers to his own hesitation upon the 

 matter, until Owen's assertion as to certain funda- 

 mental differences of structure in the brain of man 

 and ape l led him to reinvestigate the subject, with 

 the result that he was satisfied as to the structures in 



1 Ante, p. 18. 



