THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS*

by Thomas H. Huxley




[footnote] *'Times', December 26th, 1850.

DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

THERE is a growing immensity in the speculations of science to which no
human thing or thought at this day is comparable. Apart from the
results which science brings us home and securely harvests, there is an
expansive force and latitude in its tentative efforts, which lifts us
out of ourselves and transfigures our mortality. We may have a
preference for moral themes, like the Homeric sage, who had seen and
known much:--

"Cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments";

yet we must end by confession that

"The windy ways of men
Are but dust which rises up
And is lightly laid again,"

in comparison with the work of nature, to which science testifies, but
which has no boundaries in time or space to which science can