1859 PUBLICATION OF THE ' ORIGIN ' 245 



youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at 

 that time, that he had then been many years brooding 

 over the species-question ; and the humorous smile which 

 accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not 

 altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me. But 

 it would seem that four or five years' hard work had 

 enabled me to understand what it meant ; for Lyell, 

 writing to Sir Charles Bunbury (under date of April 30, 

 1856), says : 



u When Huxley, Hooker and Wollaston were at 

 Darwin's last week, they (all four of them) ran a tilt 

 against species further, I believe, than they are prepared 

 to go." 



I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact of meeting 

 Mr. Wollaston ; and except for Sir Charles's I distinct 

 assurance as to "all four," I should have thought my 

 outrecuidance was probably a counterblast to Wollaston's 

 conservatism. With regard to Hooker, he was already, 

 like Voltaire's Habbakuk, capable de tout in the way of 

 advocating Evolution. 



As I have already said, I imagine that most of those 

 of my contemporaries who thought seriously about the 

 matter were very much in my own state of mind 

 inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a 

 plague on both your houses ! " and disposed to turn aside 

 from an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion, 

 to labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact. And 

 I may therefore suppose that the publication of the 

 Darwin and Wallace paper in 1858, and still more that 

 of the "Origin" in 1859, had the effect upon them of 

 the flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself 

 on a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether 

 it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. 

 That which we were looking for, and could not find, was 

 a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms 

 which assumed the operation of no causes but such as 

 could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not 



