and overwhelming array of evidence, was far greater than that of
previous discussions. With one or two reservations as to the logical
completeness of the theory, Huxley accepted it as a well-founded working
hypothesis, calculated to explain problems otherwise inexplicable.

Two extracts from the chapter he contributed to the "Life of Darwin"
show very clearly his attitude of mind when the "Origin of Species" was
first published:--]

Extract from "The Reception of the 'Origin of Species'" in "Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin" volume 2 pages 187-90 and 195-97.

I think I must have read the "Vestiges" before I left England in 1846;
but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon me, and I was
not brought into serious contact with the "Species" question until after
1850. At that time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony,
which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth,
with all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it had
cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was unbiassed in
respect of any doctrine which presented itself, if it professed to be
based on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning. It seemed to me
then (as it does now) that "creation," in the ordinary sense of the
word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that,
at some former period, this universe was not in existence; and that it
made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is
preferred), in consequence of the volition of some pre-existing Being.
Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against Theism; and,
given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me
to be devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then, and I have not
now, the smallest a priori objection to raise to the account of the