"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's 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
suppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace paper 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 on 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 "Origin" provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.
Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the
dilemma--Refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to