The Great Exhibition heralded the success of free trade and modern science in improving prosperity. There was a new appetite for liberal, progressive reforms. An alliance of thinkers began recasting nature as a competitive market-place. "The Westminster Review" recently acquired by John Chapman became their focus, and an early article by Herbert Spencer set out a Malthusian view that people who multiply beyond their means take "the high road to extinction", while "the select of their generation" remained to ensure progress. Spencer became a close friend and ally of Thomas Huxley, an ambitious naturalist who had returned from a long survey trip but lacked the family wealth or contacts to find a career. Huxley had sent papers to Darwin which began a correspondence, and Darwin sent him a copy of the first volume of "Barnacles" when it was printed. Huxley called it an exemplary work, all the more remarkable for coming from a distinguished geologist rather than an anatomist.