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
On the Origin of Species Haeckel would convince Huxley that comparative anatomy and palaeontology could be used to reconstruct evolutionary genealogies. The leading naturalist in Britain was the anatomist Richard Owen, an idealist who had shifted to the view in the 1850s that the history of life was the gradual unfolding of a divine plan. Owen's review of the "Origin" in the April 1860 "Edinburgh Review" bitterly attacked Huxley, Hooker and Darwin, but also signalled acceptance of a kind of evolution as a teleological plan in a continuous "ordained becoming", with new species appearing by natural birth. Others that rejected natural selection, but supported "creation