ii2 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



Schwann {Mikroscopische Untersuchungen) embodying a 

 view of this pioneer worker to the effect, 



"... that every cell of the living body exerts an influence 

 on the matter which surrounds and permeates it, analogous to 

 that which the Torula [i.e. yeast plant] exerts on the saccharine 

 solution by which it is bathed. A wonderfully suggestive 

 thought, opening up views of the nature of the chemical pro- 

 cesses of the living body, which have hardly yet received all 

 the development of which they are capable." 



The doctrine of "internal secretions" would appear 

 to be the modern expression of this epoch-making idea. 

 The essay also dwells on the importance of the " germ 

 theory," with regard to infectious and contagious disease. 



An important article, entitled " Mr. Darwin's Critics," 

 was contributed to the Contemporary Review for 

 November (Coll. Essays, ii, p. 120). This deals with 

 Wallace's Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 

 Mivart's Genesis of Species, and a Quarterly Review notice 

 of Darwin's Descent of Man. Wallace denied that man 

 could have been evolved by natural selection, while 

 Mivart admitted its possibility for the bodily frame. 

 The Quarterly reviewer was long afterwards publicly 

 admitted to have been Bishop Wilberforce. 



Huxley's essay follows Darwinism to its logical 

 conclusion, and adopts the view that there has been a 

 gradual evolution of mind. Mivart asserted the teach- 

 ings of orthodox Catholic authorities to be evolutionary, 

 citing more particularly the Jesuit writer, Father Suarez. 

 Huxley definitely disproves this, for the authority in 

 question. Writing to Darwin on this point, he says 

 (Life, i, p. 364) :— 



" So I have come out in the new character of a defender of 

 Catholic orthodoxy, and upset Mivart out of the mouth of his 

 own prophet." 



