1859.
[In November 1859 the "Origin of Species" was published, and a new
direction was given to Huxley's activities. Ever since Darwin and
Wallace had made their joint communication to the Linnean Society in the
preceding July, expectation had been rife as to the forthcoming book.
Huxley was one of the few privileged to learn Darwin's argument before
it was given to the world; but the greatness of the book, mere
instalment as it was of the long accumulated mass of notes, almost took
him by surprise. Before this time, he had taken up a thoroughly agnostic
attitude with regard to the species question, for he could not accept
the creational theory, yet sought in vain among the transmutationists
for any cause adequate to produce transmutation. He had had many talks
with Darwin, and though ready enough to accept the main point,
maintained such a critical attitude on many others, that Darwin was not
by any means certain of the effect the published book would produce upon
him. Indeed, in his 1857 notebook, I find jotted down under the head of
his paper on Pygocephalus (read at the Geological Society),]
"anti-progressive confession of faith." [Darwin was the more anxious,
as, when he first put pen to paper, he had fixed in his mind three
judges, by whose decision he determined mentally to abide. These three
were Lyell, Hooker, and Huxley. If these three came round, partly
through the book, partly through their own reflections, he could feel
that the subject was safe. "No one," writes Darwin on November 13, "has
read it, except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker
thinks him a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to
me; but is evidently deeply interested in the subject." And again: "I
think I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can
convert Huxley I shall be content." ("Life" volume 2 page 221.)
On all three, the effect of the book itself, with its detailed arguments
and overwhelming array of evidence, was far greater than that of
previous discussions. With one or two reservations as to the logical
completeness of the theory, Huxley accepted it as a well-founded working
hypothesis, calculated to explain problems otherwise inexplicable.
Two extracts from the chapter he contributed to the "Life of Darwin"
show very clearly his attitude of mind when the "Origin of Species" was
first published:--]
Extract from "The Reception of the 'Origin of Species'" in "Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin" volume 2 pages 187-90 and 195-97.
I think I must have read the "Vestiges" before I left England in 1846;
but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon me, and I was
not brought into serious contact with the "Species" question until after
1850. At that time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony,
which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth,
with all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it had
cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was unbiassed in
respect of any doctrine which presented itself, if it professed to be
based on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning. It seemed to me
then (as it does now) that "creation," in the ordinary sense of the
word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that,
at some former period, this universe was not in existence; and that it
made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is
preferred), in consequence of the volition of some pre-existing Being.
Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against Theism; and,
given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me
to be devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then, and I have not
now, the smallest a priori objection to raise to the account of the
creation of animals and plants given in "Paradise Lost," in which Milton
so vividly embodies the natural sense of Genesis. Far be it from me to
say that it is untrue because it is impossible. I confine myself to what
must be regarded as a modest and reasonable request for some particle of
evidence that the existing species of animals and plants did originate
in that way, as a condition of my belief in a statement which appears to
me to be highly improbable.
And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same answer to
give to the evolutionists of 1851-8. Within the ranks of the biologists,
at that time, I met with nobody, except Dr. Grant of University College,
who had a word to say for Evolution--and his advocacy was not calculated
to advance the cause. Outside these ranks, the only person known to me
whose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and who was, at the same
time, a thorough-going evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose
acquaintance I made, I think, in 1852, and then entered into the bonds
of a friendship which, I am happy to think, has known no interruption.
Many and prolonged were the battles we fought on this topic. But even my
friend's rare dialectic skill and copiousness of apt illustration could
not drive me from my agnostic position. I took my stand upon two
grounds:--Firstly, that up to that time, the evidence in favour of
transmutation was wholly insufficient; and secondly, that no suggestion
respecting the causes of transmutation assumed, which had been made, was
in any way adequate to explain the phenomena. Looking back at the state
of knowledge at that time, I really do not see that any other conclusion
was justifiable.
In those days I had never even heard of Treviranus' "Biologie." However,
I had studied Lamarck attentively and I had read the "Vestiges" with due
care; but neither of them afforded me any good ground for changing my
negative and critical attitude. As for the "Vestiges," I confess that
the book simply irritated me by the prodigious ignorance and thoroughly
unscientific habit of mind manifested by the writer. If it had any
influence on me at all, it set me against Evolution; and the only review
I ever have qualms of conscience about, on the ground of needless
savagery, is one I wrote on the "Vestiges" while under that influence...
But, by a curious irony of fate, the same influence which led me to put
as little faith in modern speculations on this subject as in the
venerable traditions recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis, was
perhaps more potent than any other in keeping alive a sort of pious
conviction that Evolution, after all, would turn out true. I have
recently read afresh the first edition of the "Principles of Geology";
and when I consider that this remarkable book had been nearly thirty
years in everybody's hands, and that it brings home to any reader of
ordinary intelligence a great principle and a great fact,--the principle
that the past must be explained by the present, unless good cause be
shown to the contrary; and the fact that so far as our knowledge of the
past history of life on our globe goes, no such cause can be shown--I
cannot but believe that Lyell, for others, as for myself, was the chief
agent in smoothing the road for Darwin. For consistent uniformitarianism
postulates Evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world.
The origin of a new species by other than ordinary agencies would be a
vastly greater "catastrophe" than any of those which Lyell successfully
eliminated from sober geological speculation.
Thus, looking back into the past, it seems to me that my own position of
critical expectancy was just and reasonable, and must have been taken
up, on the same grounds, by many other persons. If Agassiz told me that
the forms of life which have successively tenanted the globe were the
incarnations of successive thoughts of the Deity; and that he had wiped
out one set of these embodiments by an appalling geological catastrophe
as soon as His ideas took a more advanced shape, I found myself not only
unable to admit the accuracy of the deductions from the facts of
paleontology, upon which this astounding hypothesis was founded, but I
had to confess my want of any means of testing the correctness of his
explanation of them. And besides that, I could by no means see what the
explanation explained. Neither did it help me to be told by an eminent
anatomist that species had succeeded one another in time, in virtue of
"a continuously operative creational law." That seemed to me to be no
more than saying that species had succeeded one another in the form of a
vote-catching resolution, with "law" to catch the man of science, and
"creational" to draw the orthodox. So I took refuge in that "thatige
Skepsis" which Goethe has so well defined; and, reversing the apostolic
precept to be all things to all men, I usually defended the tenability
of the received doctrines when I had to do with the transmutationist;
and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the
orthodox--thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite
undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness.
I remember, in the course of my first interview with Mr. Darwin,
expressing my belief in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation
between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with
all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at
that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the
species-question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle
answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled
me. But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me
to understand what it meant; for Lyell, writing to Sir Charles Bunbury
(under date of April 30, 1856), says:--
"When Huxley, Hooker, and Wollaston were at Darwin's last week they (all
four of them) ran a tilt against species--further, I believe, than they
are prepared to go."
I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact of meeting Mr. Wollaston;
and except for Sir Charles's distinct assurance as to "all four," I
should have thought my outrecuidance was probably a counterblast to
Wollaston's conservatism. With regard to Hooker, he was already, like
Voltaire's Habbakuk, capable du tout in the way of advocating Evolution.
As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my
contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter, were very much in
my own state of mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists and
Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" and disposed to turn
aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion, to
labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact. And I may therefore
suppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace paper in 1858,
and still more that of the "Origin" in 1859, had the effect upon them of
the flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself on a dark night,
suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or
not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could
not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms
which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to
be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any
other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions
which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity
tested. The "Origin" provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.
Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the
dilemma--Refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to
propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857 I had no
answer ready, and I do not think that anyone else had. A year later we
reproached ourselves with dulness for being perplexed with such an
inquiry. My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central
idea of the "Origin" was, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of
that!" I suppose that Columbus' companions said much the same when he
made the egg stand on end. The facts of variability, of the struggle for
existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none
of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem
lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and
the beacon-fire of the "Origin" guided the benighted.
Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of Evolution, as applied
to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or
not, was to me a matter of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of
the "Origin" I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was
insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced
varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains
up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my
sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained
incomparably more probable than the creation hypothesis. And if we had
none of us been able to discern the paramount significance of some of
the most patent and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to
speak, thrust under our noses, what force remained in the
dilemma--creation or nothing? It was obvious that hereafter the
probability would be immensely greater, that the links of natural
causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than that natural
causation should be incompetent to produce all the phenomena of nature.
The only rational course for those who had no other object than the
attainment of truth was to accept "Darwinism" as a working hypothesis
and see what could be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to
elucidate the facts of organic life, or it would break down under the
strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense; and, for once,
common sense carried the day.
[Even before the "Origin" actually came out, Huxley had begun to act as
what Darwin afterwards called his "general agent." He began to prepare
the way for the acceptance of the theory of evolution by discussing, for
instance, one of the most obvious difficulties, namely, How is it that
if evolution is ever progressive, progress is not universal? It was a
point with respect to which Darwin himself wrote soon after the
publication of the "Origin":--"Judging from letters...and from remarks,
the most serious omission in my book was not explaining how it is, as I
believe, that all forms do not necessarily advance, how there can now be
SIMPLE organisms existing." (May 22, 1860.)
Huxley's idea, then, was to call attention to the persistence of many
types without appreciable progression during geological time; to show
that this fact was not explicable on any other hypothesis than that put
forward by Darwin; and by paleontological arguments, to pave the way for
consideration of the imperfection of the geological record.
Such were the lines on which he delivered his Friday evening lecture on
"Persistent Types" at the Royal Institution on June 3,1859.
However, the chief part which he took at this time in extending the
doctrines of evolution was in applying them to his own subjects,
Development and Vertebrate Anatomy, and more particularly to the
question of the origin of mankind.
Of all the burning questions connected with the Origin of Species, this
was the most heated--the most surrounded by prejudice and passion. To
touch it was to court attack; to be exposed to endless scorn, ridicule,
misrepresentation, abuse--almost to social ostracism. But the facts were
there; the structural likenesses between the apes and man had already
been shown; and as Huxley warned Darwin,] "I will stop at no point so
long as clear reasoning will carry me further."
[Now two years before the "Origin" appeared, the denial of these facts
by a leading anatomist led Huxley, as was his wont, to re-investigate
the question for himself and satisfy himself one way or the other. He
found that the previous investigators were not mistaken. Without going
out of his way to refute the mis-statement as publicly as it was made,
he simply embodied his results in his regular teaching. But the
opportunity came unsought. Fortified by his own researches, he openly
challenged these assertions when repeated at the Oxford meeting of the
British Association in 1860, and promised to made good his challenge in
the proper place.
We also find him combating some of the difficulties in the way of
accepting the theory laid before him by Sir Charles Lyell. The veteran
geologist had been Darwin's confidant from almost the beginning of his
speculations; he had really paved the way for the evolutionary doctrine
by his own proof of geological uniformity, but he shrank from accepting
it, for its inevitable extension to the descent of man was repugnant to
his feelings. Nevertheless, he would not allow sentiment to stand in the
way of truth, and after the publication of the "Origin" it could be said
of him:--]
Lyell, up to that time a pillar of the anti-transmutationists (who
regarded him, ever afterwards, as Pallas Athene may have looked at Dian,
after the Endymion affair), declared himself a Darwinian, though not
without putting in a serious caveat. Nevertheless, he was a tower of
strength, and his courageous stand for truth as against consistency did
him infinite honour. (T.H. Huxley in "Life of Darwin" volume 2 page
231.)
[To Sir Charles Lyell.]
June 25, 1859.
My dear Sir Charles,
I have endeavoured to meet your objections in the enclosed.
Ever yours, very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
The fixity and definite limitation of species, genera, and larger groups
appear to me to be perfectly consistent with the theory of
transmutation. In other words, I think TRANSMUTATION may take place
without transition.
Suppose that external conditions acting on species A give rise to a new
species, B; the difference between the two species is a certain
definable amount which may be called A-B. Now I know of no evidence to
show that the interval between the two species must NECESSARILY be
bridged over by a series of forms, each of which shall occupy, as it
occurs, a fraction of the distance between A and B. On the contrary, in
the history of the Ancon sheep, and of the six-fingered Maltese family,
given by Reaumur, it appears that the new form appeared at once in full
perfection.
I may illustrate what I mean by a chemical example. In an organic
compound, having a precise and definite composition, you may effect all
sorts of transmutations by substituting an atom of one element for an
atom of another element. You may in this way produce a vast series of
modifications--but each modification is definite in its composition, and
there are no transitional or intermediate steps between one definite
compound and another. I have a sort of notion that similar laws of
definite combination rule over the modifications of organic bodies, and
that in passing from species to species "Natura fecit saltum."
All my studies lead me to believe more and more in the absence of any
real transitions between natural groups, great and small--but with what
we know of the physiology of conditions [?] this opinion seems to me to
be quite consistent with transmutation.
When I say that no evidence, or hardly any, would justify one in
believing in the view of a new species of Elephant, e.g. out of the
earth, I mean that such an occurrence would be so diametrically contrary
to all experience, so opposed to those beliefs which are the most
constantly verified by experience, that one would be justified in
believing either that one's senses were deluded, or that one had not
really got to the bottom of the phenomenon. Of course, if one could vary
the conditions, if one could take a little silex, and by a little
hocus-pocus a la crosse, galvanise a baby out of it as often as one
pleased, all the philosopher could do would be to hold up his hands and
cry, "God is great." But short of evidence of this kind, I don't mean to
believe anything of the kind.
How much evidence would you require to believe that there was a time
when stones fell upwards, or granite made itself by a spontaneous
rearrangement of the elementary particles of clay and sand? And yet the
difficulties in the way of these beliefs are as nothing compared to
those which you would have to overcome in believing that complex organic
beings made themselves (for that is what creation comes to in scientific
language) out of inorganic matter.
I know it will be said that even on the transmutation theory, the first
organic being must have made itself. But there is as much difference
between supposing the passage of inorganic matter into an AMOEBA, e.g.,
and into an ELEPHANT, as there is between supposing that Portland stone
might have built itself up into St. Paul's, and believing that the
Giant's Causeway may have come about by natural causes.
True, one must believe in a beginning somewhere, but science consists in
not believing the having reached that beginning before one is forced to
do so.
It is wholly impossible to prove that any phenomenon whatsoever is not
produced by the interposition of some unknown cause. But philosophy has
prospered exactly as it has disregarded such possibilities, and has
endeavoured to resolve every event by ordinary reasoning.
I do not exactly see the force of your argument that we are bound to
find fossil forms intermediate between men and monkeys in the Rocks.
Crocodiles are the highest reptiles as men are the highest mammals, but
we find nothing intermediate between CROCODILIA and LACERTILIA in the
whole range of the Mesozoic rocks. How do we know that Man is not a
persistent type? And as for implements, at this day, and as, I suppose,
for the last two or three thousand years at least, the savages of
Australia have made their weapons of nothing but bone and wood. Why
should HOMO EOCENUS or OOLITICUS, the fellows who waddied the
AMPHITHERIUM and speared the PHASCOLOTHERIUM as the Australian niggers
treat their congeners, have been more advanced?
I by no means suppose that the transmutation hypothesis is proven or
anything like it. But I view it as a powerful instrument of research.
Follow it out, and it will lead us somewhere; while the other notion is
like all the modifications of "final causation," a barren virgin.
And I would very strongly urge upon you that it is the logical
development of Uniformitarianism, and that its adoption would harmonise
the spirit of Paleontology with that of Physical Geology.