Charles Darwin Writes Thomas Huxley, Congratulating Him on His Landmark Publication on Paleontology, Which Drew Heavily on Evolutionary Subjects

“It is a wonderful condensed and original summary of Paleontology and I should think and hope will do much good.”

Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was one of the most important books of all time. When it was published in 1859, there was skepticism within (as well as without) the scientific community about the central premise, that species changed through time by a process Darwin labeled natural selection.  The idea that human beings evolved from other, previous species struck at the heart of the generally accepted belief that humans were different from other animals, and that species were fixed or immutable. Everyone had learned the story of creation from the Bible, and Darwin’s ideas presented a challenge to those who looked at the question through a literal, religious perspective. But Darwin hoped that scientists as well as others would be able to accommodate, adopt an essentially new view and accept evolution.  Yet, at the same time, he realized that many who had grown up in the previous scientific school would have a hard time doing so. It seemed that perhaps a new generation of scientists might have to rise before his work was generally accepted.

Darwin’s book was a watershed event in all the life sciences, especially paleontology. Fossils had played a role in the development of Darwin’s theory. In particular he had been impressed by fossils he had collected in South America during the voyage of the Beagle –  of giant armadillos, giant sloths, and what at the time he thought were giant llamas that seemed to be related to species still living on the continent in modern times. The scientific debate that started immediately after the publication of Origin led to a concerted effort to look for transitional fossils and other evidence of evolution in the fossil record. There were two areas where early success attracted considerable public attention, the transition between reptiles and birds, and the evolution of the modern single-toed horse.  In 1861 the first specimen of Archaeopteryx, an animal with both teeth and feathers and a mix of other reptilian and avian features, was discovered in a limestone quarry in Bavaria and described by Richard Owen. Another would be found in the late 1870s and put on display at a Museum in Berlin in 1881. Other primitive toothed birds were found by Othniel Marsh in Kansas in 1872. Marsh also discovered fossils of several primitive horses in the Western United States that helped trace the evolution of the horse from the small 5-toed Hyracotherium of the Eocene to the much larger single-toed modern horses of the genus Equus. Thomas Huxley made extensive use of both the horse and bird fossils in his advocacy of evolution. This resulted in acceptance of evolution in many scientific circles, but acceptance of Darwin’s proposed mechanism of natural selection as the driving force behind it was much less universal.

Thomas Henry Huxley was one of the first adherents to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, and did more than anyone else to advance its acceptance among scientists and the public alike.  Huxley was a passionate defender of Darwin’s theory – so passionate that he has been called “Darwin’s Bulldog.” But Huxley was not only the bulldog for Darwin’s theory, but was a great biologist in his own right, who did original research in zoology and paleontology.

Huxley’s most famous writing, published in 1863, is “Evidence on Man’s Place in Nature.” This book, published only five years after Darwin’s Origin of Species, was a comprehensive review of what was known at the time about primate and human paleontology and ethology. More than that, it was the first attempt to apply evolution explicitly to the human race. Darwin had avoided direct mention of human evolution, stating only that “light will be thrown on the origin of Man”; Huxley explicitly presented evidence for human evolution.

Setting the scene for this work, Huxley gave the 1862 annual Presidential Address at the Geological Society, in which he looked to debunk many of the old theories of Paleontology inconsistent with Darwin’s work.

Autograph letter signed, his home at Down, April 30, 1862.  “My dear Huxley, It is late at night and I have this instant finished your address to Geological Society and I must just thank you for sending it to me. I have read it with uncommon interest.  It is a wonderful condensed and original summary of Paleontology and I should think and hope will do much good.  I hope you are not killing yourself with too much work.  Good night. Yours sincerely, C. Darwin.”

Letters of Darwin to Huxley are very uncommon, this being just the third we can find having reached the market in four decades.