"When Huxley, Hooker, and Wollaston were at Darwin's last week
they (all four of them) ran a tilt against species--further, I
believe, than they are prepared to go."

I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact of meeting Mr.
Wollaston; and except for Sir Charles' distinct assurance as to
"all four," I should have thought my "outrecuidance" was probably
a counterblast to Wollaston's conservatism. With regard to
Hooker, he was already, like Voltaire's Habbakuk, "capable du
tout" in the way of advocating Evolution.

As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my
contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter, were very
much in my own state of mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists
and Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" and disposed
to turn aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless
discussion, to labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable
fact. And I may, therefore, further suppose that the publication
of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of
the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of
light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night,
suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home
or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for,
and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of
known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but
such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not
to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get
hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought
face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The