These quotations make plain the historical fact that Huxley was convinced of evolution because Darwin, by his theory of natural selection, brought forward an actual cause that could be seen in operation, and that was competent to produce new species.  As soon as the “flash of light” came, it revealed to Huxley the vast store of evidence that he had unconsciously accumulated, and it set him at once to work collecting more evidence.  If we bear in mind the distinction between evolution and natural selection, the well-known subsequent history of the relations between Huxley and what was known popularly as Darwinism becomes clear and intelligible.  From first to last he accepted evolution; from first to last he accepted natural selection as by far the most reasonable hypothesis that had been brought forward, and as infinitely more in accordance with the observed facts of nature than any theory of the immediate action of supernatural creative power.  As time went on, and the influence of Darwin’s theory made evolution acceptable to a wider and wider range of people, until it passed into the common knowledge of the world, that confusion of which we have spoken arose between evolution and Darwin’s particular theory.  And as knowledge grew, and the number of biologists increased in the striking fashion of this last half-century, while the evidence for evolution continued to increase with an unexpected rapidity, every detail of the purely Darwinian theory became more and more subjected to rigid scrutiny.  Most educated people, unless their education has been largely in an experimental science, find difficulty in understanding the relation in the minds of naturalists between “authority” and “knowledge.”  We do not know, for instance, that the structure of the Medusae consists essentially of two foundation-membranes, because Huxley, one of the greatest authorities in anatomy that the world has seen, told us that it was so.  We know it because, Huxley having told us that it was so, we are able at any time with a microscope and dissecting needles to observe the fact for ourselves.  It is true, that unless we are making a special study of the Medusae we do not repeat the observation in the case of so many different forms of Medusae as Huxley studied; but it is part of our training to observe for ourselves in a sufficient number of cases to test the correspondence between statement and fact before we accept the generalisation of any authority.  And we learn, or at least have the opportunity of learning, in the whole habit of our lives as naturalists, to distinguish carefully between knowledge of which personal observation is an essential part, and opinion or belief which may or may not be based upon authority, but which in any case is devoid of the corroboration of personal observation.  When a piece of new anatomical or physiological work is published in a technical journal, it is read by a large number of anatomists and physiologists, and if the work is apparently of