Reactions to On the Origin of Species pro-evolution scientists and Unitarians with liberal churchmen, two of the authors were indicted for heresy and lost their jobs by 1862. In October 1860, John Phillips published "Life on the Earth, its origin and succession", reiterating points from his Rede Lecture and disputing Darwin's arguments. He sent a copy to Darwin, who thanked him, though "sorry, but not surprised, to see that you are dead against me". On 20 November, Darwin told Lyell of his revisions for a third edition of the "Origin", including removing his estimate of the time it took for the Weald to erode: "The confounded Wealden
On the Origin of Species included evidence that he had gathered on the "Beagle" expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation. Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy