Volume 52, Number 10 · June 9, 2005
He Almost Scooped Darwin
By Frank J. Sulloway
Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of 'Vestiges of the NaturalHistory of Creation'
by James A. Secord
University of Chicago Press, 624 pp., $35.00; $22.50 (paper)
In June 1860, Thomas Henry Huxley was planning to depart early from the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Scheduled for the next day at the Oxford meeting was a discussion of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which had appeared seven months earlier and was causing a stir in Britain and much of the rest of the Western world. While walking on the street, Huxley—who was one of the rising young stars of British biology—happened to meet Robert Chambers, a successful Edinburgh publisher. When Chambers learned that Huxley was not going to attend the expected showdown over Darwin's controversial theory, he 'broke out into vehement remonstrances' and accused Huxley of 'deserting' the Darwinians.[1] Moved by Chambers's ardent appeal, Huxley had a change of heart, and the Darwinian revolution took a dramatic turn.
Review, 4541 words
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