the possibility of universal peace based on the brotherhood of man; and all that was best in philosophy and in political practice seemed bound up with a lofty view of the unit of mankind.  Carlyle himself, to whom many of the freest and noblest spirits in Europe were beginning to look as to an inspired prophet, could see in it nothing but a “monkey damnification of mankind.”  The dogmatic world saw in it nothing but a deliberate and malicious assault upon religion.  The Church of England in particular was beginning to recover from a long period of almost incredible supineness, and there was arising a large body of clergy full of faith and zeal and good works, but quite unacquainted with science, who frankly regarded Darwin as Antichrist, and Huxley and Tyndall as emissaries of the devil.  Against evolutionists there was left unused no weapon that ignorant prejudice could find, whether that prejudice was inspired by a lofty zeal for what it conceived to be the highest interests of humanity, or by a crafty policy which saw in the new doctrine a blow to the coming renewed supremacy of the Church.  To us, now, it may seem that Huxley had “sharpened his beak and claws” with the spirit of a gladiator rather than with that of the mere defender of a scientific doctrine; but a very short study of contemporary literature will convince anyone that for a time the defenders of evolution had to defend not only what they knew to be scientific truth, but their personal and private reputation.  The new doctrine, like perhaps all the great doctrines that have come into the world, brought not peace but a sword, and had to be defended by the sword.  Darwin had not the kind of disposition nor the particular faculties necessary for a deadly contest of this kind; he was interested indeed above all things in convincing a few leading naturalists of the truth of his opinions; but, that done, he would have been contented to continue his own work quietly, in absolute carelessness as to what the world in general thought of him.  Huxley, on the other hand, was incapable of restraining himself from propagating what he knew to be the truth; his reforming missionary spirit was not content simply with self-defence; it drove him to be a bishop in partibus infidelium.

By a curious and interesting accident, Huxley had the opportunity of beginning his propagandism by writing the first great review of The Origin of Species in the Times, at that period without question the leading journal in the world.  Huxley’s own account of this happy chance is given in Darwin’s Life and Letters, vol. ii.

“The Origin was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of the Times writers at that day, in what I suppose was the ordinary course of business.  Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, and at a later period editor of Once a Week, was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such