Reactions to On the Origin of Species Reactions to On the Origin of Species The immediate reactions to "On the Origin of Species", the book in which Charles Darwin described evolution by natural selection, included international debate, though the heat of controversy was less than that over earlier works such as "Vestiges of Creation". Darwin monitored the debate closely, cheering on Thomas Henry Huxley's battles with Richard Owen to remove clerical domination of the scientific establishment. While Darwin's illness kept him away from the public debates, he read eagerly about them and mustered support through correspondence. Religious views were mixed, with the Church of England's scientific establishment
Reactions to On the Origin of Species of Selection". Darwin now worked on an "abstract" trimmed from his "Natural Selection" manuscript. The publisher John Murray agreed the title as "On the Origin of Species through Natural Selection" and the book went on sale to the trade on 22 November 1859. The stock of 1,250 copies was oversubscribed, and Darwin, still at Ilkley spa town, began corrections for a second edition. The novelist Charles Kingsley, a Christian socialist country rector, sent him a letter of praise: "It awes me...if you be right I must give up much that I have believed", it was "just as noble a conception