762 HUXLEY AND HIS WORK. 



course of development of species was appreciated by Darwin and Wal- 

 lace, and soon applied to a wide range of facts in the former's Origin 

 of Species by means of Natural Selection. 



Darwin's work at once aroused great popular interest, but it was too 

 diffuse and the intellectual pabulum it contained was too strong and 

 indigestible for ordinary readers, and it is probable that the general 

 acceptance of the Darwinian form of evolution would have been delayed 

 much longer than it was had it not been for the excursions from the 

 scientific fold into the popular arena by one having the confidence of 

 the former and the ear of the latter, as did Huxley. 



Scarcely had Darwin's work come from the press when Huxley com- 

 menced his missionary work. Almost exceptional among numerous 

 reviews, remarkable chiefly lor crudity, ignorance, and arrogance, was 

 one that appeared in the great daily organ of English opinion, The 

 Times, marked by superior knowledge, acuteness of argumentation, and 

 terse and vigorous style. This review, which attracted general atten- 

 tion, was acknowledged later by Huxley. Lectures and addresses 

 before popular audiences, and even to those distinctively claiming to 

 be "workingmen," followed, and these were published or supplemented 

 by publication in various forms. Answers, critiques, and other articles 

 in reply came out in rapid succession, and loud clamor was made that 

 Huxley was an infidel and a very bad man, and that he falsified and 

 misrepresented in a most villainous manner. 



A memorable occasion was the meeting of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science in the year 1860, following the publication 

 of the Origin of Species. A discussion of the subject was precipitated 

 by the presentation of a communication by our own Draper, "On the 

 intellectual development of Europe with reference to the views of Mr. 

 Darwin and others that the progression of organisms is determined by 

 law." The reverend Mr Cresswell and the reverend Dr Wilberforce, 

 Bishop of Oxford, followed in opposition, and they were answered by 

 Huxley. The scene has lately been redescribed by a great physiologist 

 and friend of Huxle}^, who is one of the few witnesses who now remain. 

 "The room was crowded, though it was Saturday, and the meeting was 

 excited. The bishop had spoken ; cheered loudly from time to time 

 during his speech, he sat down amid rapturous applause, ladies waving 

 their handkerchiefs with great euthusiasm ; and in almost dead silence, 

 broken merely by greetings which, coming only from the few who knew, 

 seemed' as nothing, Huxley, then well-nigh unknown outside the narrow 

 circle of scientific workers, began his reply. A cheer, chiefly from a 

 knot of young men in the audience, hearty but seeming scant through 

 the fewness of those who gave it, and almost angrily resented by some, 

 welcomed the first point made. Then as, slowly and measuredly at 

 first, more quickly and with more vigor later, stroke followed stroke, 

 the circle of cheers grew wider and yet wider, until the speaker's last 

 words were crowned with an applause falling not far short of, indeed 



