From T. H. Huxley to G. G. Stokes   8 December 1864

My dear Stokes

I have never imagined that the ‘we’ referred to anybody but the Council¹

I thought that Darwin was proposed by the medal for Busk & not as you say by Falconer, but that is a matter of no moment²

Most unquestionably I do not think that an assent of the proposer (whoever he was) to such word as “Then we are to understand that the work on the origin of Species is not included among the grounds of the award of the Copley Medal to Mr Darwin” from the President, affords a justification for the insertion in the address of the passage complained of or any allusion whatsoever to that work³

Even if the informal and general assent of Darwin’s proposer to such a proposition could be held to bind the Council and could be interpreted as the ‘general & collective’ determination of the whole body (a monstrous supposition) all that it could justify would be silence respecting the work

How can an agreement to say nothing about a book, justify one of the parties to that agreement in telling all the world that it “contains a mass of observations … unrivalled for interest, minuteness &c, see address ⁴

If that which you have mentioned occurred⁵—and I gladly take your authority for it—the case is worse than ever—in my apprehension

Ever yours faithfully | T. H. Huxley