iS5>) THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES j-rg 



Hooker thinks him a complete convert, but he does not 

 seem so in his letters to me ; but is evidently deeply inter- 

 ested in the subject." And again : " I think I told you 

 before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can con- 

 vert Huxley I shall be content." {Life, vol. ii. p. 221.) 



On all three, the effect of the book itself, with its de- 

 tailed arguments and overwhelming array of evidence, was 

 far greater than that of previous discussions. With one or 

 two reservations as to the logical completeness of the theory, 

 Huxley accepted it as a well-founded working hypothesis, 

 calculated to explain problems otherwise inexplicable. 



Two extracts from the chapter he contributed to the 

 Life of Dar-L^'iii show very clearly his attitude of mind when 

 the Origin of Speeies was first published: — 



Extract from " The Reception of the ' Origin of Species ' " in 

 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. ii. pp. 187-90 and 

 195-97- 



I think I must have read the Vestiges before I left England 

 in 1846; but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon 

 me, and I was not brought into serious contact with the 

 " Species " question until after 1850. At that time, I 'had long 

 done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony, which had been im- 

 pressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth, with 

 all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it 

 had cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was 

 unbiassed in respect of any doctrine which presented itself, if it 

 professed to be based on purely philosophical and scientific rea- 

 soning. It seemed to me then (as it does now) that " creation," 

 in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I 

 find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this 

 universe was not in existence ; and that it made its appearance 

 in six days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in conse- 

 quence of the volition of some pre-existing Being. Then, as 

 now, the so-called a priori arguments against Theism, and, given 

 a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me 

 to be devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then, and I 

 have not now, the smallest a priori objection to raise to the 

 account of the creation of animals and plants given in Paradise 

 Lost, in which Milton so vividly embodies the natural sense of 

 Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is untrue because it 



