Note 231 — Chapter XIV · THE SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. 1861—1871.

In the Antiquity of Man, first edition, p. 480, Lyell criticised somewhat severely Owen's account of the difference between the Human and Simian brains. The number of the Athenæum here referred to (1863, p. 262) contains a reply by Professor Owen to Lyell's strictures. The surprise expressed by my father was at the revival of a controversy which every one believed to be closed. Professor Huxley (Medical Times, Oct. 25th, 1862, quoted in Man's Place in Nature, p. 117) spoke of the "two years during which this preposterous controversy has dragged its weary length." And this no doubt expressed a very general feeling.