The Origin of Species

Abstract For support Darwin was now looking primarily to the rising London men of science rather than Cambridge clerics. In April 1856 he invited T. H. Huxley to Down for a weekend party of naturalists, during which he hoped to ensure that his theory could overcome Huxley’s objection to life’s progressive specialization. After this meeting Darwin began writing for publication. He was encouraged by Charles Lyell, who feared for Darwin’s priority after reading Alfred Russel Wallace’s ‘On the law which has regulated the introduction of new species’ in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 1855.