...With respect to Huxley, I was on the point of speaking to Crawford and
Strezlecki (who will be on Committee of the Athenaeum) when I bethought me
of how Owen would look and what he would say. Cannot you fancy him, with
slow and gentle voice, asking "Will Mr. Crawford tell me what Mr. Huxley
has done, deserving this honour; I only know that he differs from, and
disputes the authority of Cuvier, Ehrenberg, and Agassiz as of no weight at
all." And when I began to tell Mr. Crawford what to say, I was puzzled,
and could refer him only to some excellent papers in the "Phil. Trans." for
which the medal had been awarded. But I doubt, with an opposing faction,
whether this would be considered enough, for I believe real scientific
merit is not thought enough, without the person is generally well known.
Now I want to hear what you deliberately think on this head: it would be
bad to get him proposed and then rejected; and Owen is very powerful.


LETTER 46. TO J.D. HOOKER.
Down [1856].

I have got the Lectures, and have read them. (46/1. The reference is
presumably to the Royal Institution Lectures given in 1854-56. Those which
we have seen--namely, those reprinted in the "Scientific Memoirs," Volume
I.--"On the Common Plan of Animal Form," page 281; "On certain Zoological
Arguments, etc." page 300; "On Natural History as Knowledge, Discipline,
and Power," page 305, do not seem to us to contain anything likely to
offend; but Falconer's attack in the "Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist." June
1856, on the last-named lecture, shows strong feeling. A reply by Mr.
Huxley appeared in the July number of the same Journal. The most heretical
discussion from a modern standpoint is at page 311, where he asks how it is
conceivable that the bright colours of butterflies and shells or the
elegant forms of Foraminifera can possibly be of service to their