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CHAP. XI - The Influence of Drawin's Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

John W. Judd
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Summary

In two essays ‘On the Coming of Age of the Origin of Species,’ and ‘On the Reception of the Origin of Species,’ published in 1880 and 1887 respectively, Huxley has discussed the course of events following the publication of Darwin's great work, he having the advantage of being one of the chief actors in those events. There is a striking parallelism between the manner that the Principles of Geology had been received thirty years earlier, and the way that the Origin of Species was met, both by Darwin's scientific contemporaries and the reading public.

At the outset, as we have already intimated, Lyell and Darwin were equally fortunate, in that each found a critic, in one of the chief organs of public opinion, who was at the same time both competent and sympathetic. The story of the lucky accident by which this came about in Darwin's case has been told by Huxley himself.

‘The Origin was sent to Mr Lucas, one of the staff of the Times writers at that time, in what was I suppose the ordinary course of business. Mr Lucas, though an excellent journalist,… was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and bewailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book. Whereupon, he was recommended to ask me to get him out of the difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, that it would be necessary for him formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write, by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own.’

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The Coming of Evolution
The Story of a Great Revolution in Science
 , pp. 136 - 148
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1910

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