iday
Evening Discourse" in 1860 on "Species, Races, and their Origin," in
which Huxley, addressing a cultivated audience, laid the whole weight
of his brilliant scientific reputation on the side of evolution. Next,
in April, 1860, he published a long article in the _Westminster
Review_, then a leading organ of advanced opinion, on _The Origin of
Species_, some quotations from which article were made in the last
chapter. Apart from its strong support of the doctrine of evolution,
its whole-hearted praise of Darwin's achievements, and the clear way
in which, while it showed the value of natural selection as the only
satisfactory hypothesis in the field, it gave reasons for regarding it
strictly as an hypothesis, the review is specially interesting as a
contrast to reviews which appeared about the same time in the
_Edinburgh Review_ and in the _Quarterly_. Both these were not only
exceedingly unfavourable, but were written in a spirit of personal
abuse singularly unworthy of their authors and still more of their
subject. The review in the _Edinburgh_ had come as a particularly
great shock to Darwin, Huxley, and their friends. Sir Richard Owen, in
many ways, was at that time the most distinguished anatomist in
England. He had been an ardent follower of Cuvier, and in England had
carried on the palaeontological work of the great Frenchman. He was a
personal friend of the court, a well-known man in the best society,
and in many ways a worthy upholder of the best traditions of science.
In the particular matter of species, he was known to be by no means a
firm supporter of the orthodox views. When Darwin's paper was read at
the Linnaean Society, and afterwards when the _Origin_ was published,
the verdict of Owen was looked to with the greatest interest by the
general public. For a time he wavered, and even expressed himself of
the opinion that he had already in his published works included a
considerable portion of Darwin's views. But two things seemed to have
influenced him: First, Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, and Sedgwick
and Whewell, the two best-known men at Cambridge, urged him to stamp
once for all, as he only could do, upon this "new and pernicious
doctrine." Secondly, combined with his great abilities, he had the
keenest personal interest in his own position as the leader of English
science, and had no particular friendship for men or for views that
seemed likely to threaten his own supreme position. In a very shor