Darwiniana : essays / by Thomas H. Huxley.

  • Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Darwiniana : essays / by Thomas H. Huxley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    prejudice, to the fair and thoughtful essay of the candid student of Nature, have appeared, that it seems an almost hopeless task to attempt to say anything new upon the question. But it may be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of prejudged scientific opponents, and the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders, have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the great controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly likely to be seen by this generation ; so that, at this eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that which is true, and to put the funda- mental positions advocated by Mr. Darwin in such a form that they may be grasped by those whose special studies lie in other directions. And the adoption of this course may be the more advisable, because, notwithstanding its great deserts, and indeed partly on account of them, the Origin of Species is by no means an easy book to read—if by reading is implied the full comprehension of an author's meaning. We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr. Darwin's misfortune to know more about the question he has taken up than any man living. Personally and practically exercised in zoology, iu minute anatomy, in geology ; a student of geogra- phical distribution, not on maps and in museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection ; having largely advanced each of these branches of
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