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