the series, and
it is only in accordance with what very generally obtains in the
animal kingdom, if, in their early condition, they approximate
towards the simplest forms of the group to which they belong."

Such words, written before 1849, only differ from those that would
have been written by a convinced evolutionist by a hair's breadth. But
Huxley was not an evolutionist then: it was Darwin's work, containing
a new exposition of evolution and the new principle of natural
selection, that convinced him, not of natural selection but of
evolution. At Oxford, in 1860, it was for evolution, and not for
natural selection, that he spoke; and throughout his life afterwards,
as he expressed it, it was this "ancient doctrine of evolution,
rehabilitated and placed upon a sound scientific foundation, since,
and in consequence of, the publication of _The Origin of Species_,"
that furnished him with the chief inspiration of his work. The clear
accuracy of his original judgment upon Darwin's work has been
abundantly justified by subsequent history. Since 1859 the case for
evolution has become stronger and stronger until it can no longer be
regarded as one of two possible hypotheses in the field, but as the
only view credible to those who have even a moderate acquaintance with
the facts. In 1894, thirty years after the famous meeting at Oxford,
the British Association again met in that historic town. The
President, Lord Salisbury, a devout Churchman and with a notably
critical intellect, declared of Darwin:

"He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the
immutability of species.... Few now are found to doubt that
animals separated by differences far exceeding those that
distinguish what we know as species have yet descended from
common ancestors."

Huxley, in replying to the address, used the following words:

"As he noted in the Presidential Address to which they had just
listened with such well deserved interest, he found it stated, on
what was then and at this time the highest authority for them,
that as a matter of fact the doctrine of the immutability of
species was disposed of and gone. He found that few were now
found to doubt that animals separated by differences far
exceeding those which they knew as species were yet descended
from a common ancestry. Those were their propositions; those were
the fundamental principles of