1884.] Professor Huxley's Darwinism. 71 
tion in a collection of essays. The notoriety of the review 
reposes on the assertion that concerning our Simian origin 
“ Mr. Darwin has had leisure to state his views more fully, 
though not more distinctly than in the ‘ Origin of Species,’ 
in the ‘ Descent of Man,’ ” and the repudiation with unqua- 
lified scorn of the allegation that Mr. Darwin had been 
reticent on the topic. 
. “ Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his 
history.” Is this the most distinct mode in which Mr. Darwin 
proclaimed our Simian origin ? Was it so monstrous a sup- 
position that the philosopher who required a Creator to 
breathe life into primeval forms might not also stand in need 
of a little supernatural aid to make a man ? Not reticent 
when, in the first edition of the “ Origin of Species,” it was 
announced that sexual selection had probably contributed to 
differentiate mankind, and when not a hint was given that it 
may also have assisted in originating our species? Not 
reticent when “ during many years I collected notes on the 
origin or descent of man, without any intention of publishing 
on the subject, but rather with the determination not to 
publish”? Not reticent when, — that his coward kin might 
inhale with lessened shock the breath which vivified the 
primordial one, or few, whose progeny were to be for count- 
less aeons of a yet-ccntinuing Time, “from the hour of their 
birth to that of their death,” subjects of a struggle in- 
volving scenes which to the “ imagination ” of him whom 
Prof. Huxley declares “ left untouched ” the question of 
the origin of life, it were “ far more satisfactory* to 
look at . . . not as specially” ordained, and evolving 
“ contrivances . . . abhorrent to our ideas of fitness,” — 
not reticent, I ask, when, to compromise with his victims, 
he first announced that natural selection, besides forming 
species, might affeCt “ even orders,” subsequently that classes 
might be involved, and that “ at the most remote geolo- 
gical period the earth may have been as well peopled with 
many species of many genera, families, orders, and classes, 
as at the present day,” till by-and-bye he conducted them to 
the “ four or five ” patriarchal animals (i., radiate patriarch ; 
ii., molluscan ditto ; iii., articulate ditto ; iv., vertebrate 
ditto ; v., Adam — why not ?) and the “ equal or less number 
of plants, when at length the “ probably deceitful guide ” 
Analogy broke the barrier between the two kingdoms, and 
apparently also between the living and the non-living, dis- 
closing the “ laws impressed on matter by the Creator ” and 
* This quotation is copied here from the “ Origin of Species.” 
