FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 29 



The same close intimacy and mutual help be- 

 gun in the preparation of the Origin was con- 

 tinued in Darwin's later botanical works. Thus 

 Darwin owed his Climbing Plants to the study 

 of a paper by Asa Gray, and he dedicated 

 his Forms of Flowers to the American botanist 

 " as a small tribute of respect and affection." 

 Concerning some of the researches which after- 

 ward appeared in this book, Darwin wrote : ^ " I 

 care more for your and Hooker's opinion than 

 that of all the rest of the world, and for Lyell's 

 on geological points." 



Another great name, that of Huxley, is espe- 

 cially associated in our minds with the defeat of 

 those who would have denied that the subject was 

 a proper one for scientific investigation. In the 

 strenuous and memorable years that followed the 

 appearance of the Origin the mighty warrior 

 stands out as the man to whom more than to any 

 other we owe the gift of free speech and free 

 opinion in science, — the man so admirably de- 

 scribed by Sir Ray Lankester at the Linnean 

 celebration, " the great and beloved teacher, the 

 unequaled orator, the brilliant essayist, the un- 

 conquerable champion and literary swordsman — 

 Thomas Henry Huxley." 



Comparing the friendships to which Darwin 

 owed so much, Lyell was at first the teacher but 

 finally the pupil, — unwilling and unconvinced at 

 the outset, in the end convinced although still 



" Life and Letters, III, p. 300. 



