“Yet we ought by no means to undervalue the importance of the step which will have been made, should it hereafter become the generally received opinion of men of science (as I fully expect it will) that the past changes of the organic world have been brought about by the subordinate agency of such causes as Variation and Natural Selection.”
The words in parentheses had been added, and constituted Lyell’s first public expression of an opinion in favour of Darwin’s views.
About this time an article appeared in the Athenæum (March 28th, 1863), attacking the opinions in favour of evolution contained in Dr. Carpenter’s work on Foraminifera, and supporting spontaneous generation. This was one of the rare occasions on which Darwin entered into controversy, and he wrote attacking spontaneous generation, and pointing out the numerous classes of facts which are connected by an intelligible thread of reasoning by means of his theory. In this letter he quoted the altered sentence from the second edition of the “Antiquity.” Darwin’s letter was answered in an article (May 2nd) in which it was argued that any theory of descent would connect the various classes of facts equally well. To this Darwin replied in a characteristic letter. It was evident that he was most reluctant to continue the controversy, but thought it fair to admit publicly the force of his opponent’s arguments.
ACCESSION OF LYELL.
In 1864 the Copley Medal of the Royal Society was given to Darwin. At the anniversary dinner of the Society, after the meeting at which the medals are presented by the President, Sir Charles Lyell in his speech made a “confession of faith” as to the “Origin.” Darwin was prevented by illness from receiving the medal in person and from being present at the dinner.
The tenth edition of the “Principles” was published in 1867 and 1868, and in it Lyell clearly stated his belief in evolution. Sir Joseph Hooker, in his presidential address to the British Association at Norwich in 1868, eloquently spoke of the “new foundation” with which Lyell had under-pinned the edifice he had raised, and had thus rendered it “not only more secure, but more harmonious in its proportion than it was before.” Wallace, too, in an article in the Quarterly Review (April, 1869), spoke with equal eloquence and force of the significance of Lyell’s change of opinion.
Lyell’s death took place in 1875, eleven years after his definite acceptance of Darwin’s views. Darwin, in writing to Miss Arabella Buckley (now Mrs. Fisher, formerly secretary to Sir Charles Lyell), fully acknowledged the deep debt which he owed to Lyell’s teachings: “I never forget that almost everything which I have done in science I owe to the study of his great works.” Huxley says in his obituary of Charles Darwin (reprinted in “Darwiniana,” 1893, p. 268): “It is hardly too much to say that Darwin’s greatest work is the outcome of the unflinching application to Biology of the leading idea and the method applied in the ‘Principles’ to Geology.” Every biologist who realises—as who can help realising?—the boundless opportunities which Darwin’s work has opened for him, will feel that he too owes a deep personal debt to Darwin’s great teacher.
CHAPTER XVII.
INFLUENCE OF DARWIN UPON HOOKER AND ASA GRAY—NATURAL SELECTION AND DESIGN IN NATURE (1860–68).
Hooker wrote on November 21st, speaking of the “glorious book” in the warmest terms. Later on in the year he wrote again in the same spirit, but speaking of the difficulty he found in assimilating the immense mass of details: “It is the very hardest book to read, to full profits, that I ever tried—it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning.” Hooker must, however, have been familiar with the arguments and proofs, and for this reason did not attempt any detailed discussion. It is unnecessary to say more of Hooker’s reception of the “Origin.” During their long friendship Darwin had discussed the difficulties and the evidences of his theory more fully with him than with any other man; and, as “a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” the influence of Hooker was one of the most potent forces under which Darwin produced the greatest work of his life.