CHAPTER VII 



THE DEFENCE OF DARWIN [1860]. 



The year i860 was destined to prove of great impor- 

 tance for the progress of the new theory. During that 

 year Huxley expounded and championed Darwin's views 

 to audiences of two kinds, i.e., to his familiar auditory 

 at the Royal Institution, and before the British Associa- 

 tion at Oxford. 



On Friday, February 10, he delivered a Friday 

 Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution " On Species 

 and Races, and their Origin " (Proc. Roy. Inst., iii, 1858- 

 62, pp. 195-200 ; Annals and Mag. Nat, Hist., v, i860, 

 pp. 344-6. Sci. Mem., ii, xviii, p. 388). — After a lucid 

 exposition of the nature of the Darwinian hypothesis, and 

 some of the main facts upon which it is founded, the 

 lecture ends with an eloquent appeal for fair treatment, 

 without any shirking of the logical consequences of 

 such arguments as may be regarded valid : — 



" Another, and unfortunately a large class of persons take 

 fright at the logical consequences of such a doctrine as that put 

 forth by Mr. Darwin. If all species have arisen in this way, say 

 they — Man himself must have done so ; and he and all the ani- 

 mated world must have had a common origin. Most assuredly. 

 No question of it. 



" But I would ask, does this logical necessity add one single 

 difficulty of importance to those which already confront us on 

 all sides whenever we contemplate our relations to the surround- 

 ing universe ? I think not. Let man's mistaken vanity, his 

 foolish contempt for the material world, impel him to struggle 



SO 



