Reactions to On the Origin of Species Owen's pre-eminence. To him, new species appeared at birth, not through natural selection. As well as attacking Darwin's "disciples" Hooker and Huxley, he thought that the book symbolised the sort of "abuse of science to which a neighbouring nation, some seventy years since, owed its temporary degradation." Darwin had Huxley and Hooker staying with him when he read it, and he wrote telling Lyell that it was "extremely malignant, clever & I fear will be very damaging. He is atrociously severe on Huxley's lecture, & very bitter against Hooker. So we three enjoyed it together: not that I really enjoyed
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection of science on which they bear". Years later, Darwin could only recall one review; Professor Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old." Despite illness, Darwin pressed on with writing the "abstract" of his "big book" on "Natural Selection"; this condensed version was published in November 1859 as "On the Origin of Species". In a largely overlooked passage from Wallace's essay, he says of the evolutionary principle: The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any