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Life And Letters Of Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley

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PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The American edition of the "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley" calls for a few words by way of preface, for there existed a particular relationship between the English writer and his transatlantic readers. From the time that his "Lay Sermons" was published his essays found in the United States an eager audience, who appreciated above all things his directness and honesty of purpose and the unflinching spirit in which he pursued the truth. Whether or not, as some affirm, the American publi

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CHAPTER 1.1.

CHAPTER 1.1.

1825-1842. [In the year 1825 Ealing was as quiet a country village as could be found within a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Here stood a large semi-public school, which had risen to the front rank in numbers and reputation under Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford, who in 1791 became the son-in-law and successor of the previous master. The senior assistant-master in this school was George Huxley, a tall, dark, rather full-faced man, quick tempered, and distinguished, in his son's words, b

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CHAPTER 1.2.

CHAPTER 1.2.

1841-1846. [The migration to Rotherhithe, noted under date of January 9, 1841, was a fresh step in his career. In 1839 both his sisters married, and both married doctors. Dr. Cooke, the husband of the elder sister, who was settled in Coventry, had begun to give him some instruction in the principles of medicine as early as the preceding June. It was now arranged that he should go as assistant to Mr. Chandler, of Rotherhithe, a practical preliminary to walking the hospitals and obtaining a medica

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CHAPTER 1.3.

CHAPTER 1.3.

1846-1849. [It is a curious coincidence that, like two other leaders of science, Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, their close friend Huxley began his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was, however, to learn how little the British Government of that day, for all its professions, really cared for the advancement of knowledge. (The key to this attitude on the part of the Admiralty is to be found in the scathing description in Briggs' "Naval Administration from 1827 t

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CHAPTER 1.4.

CHAPTER 1.4.

1848-1850. [The whole cruise of the "Rattlesnake" lasted almost precisely four years, her stay in Australian waters nearly three. Of this time altogether eleven months were spent at Sydney, namely, July 16 to October 11, 1847; January 14 to February 2, and March 9 to April 29, 1848; January 24 to May 8, 1849; and February 14 to May 2, 1850. The three months of the first northern cruise were spent in the survey of the Inshore Passage—the passage, that is, within the Great Barrier Reef for ships p

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CHAPTER 1.5.

CHAPTER 1.5.

1850-1851. [In the Huxley Lecture for 1898 ("Times," October 4) Professor Virchow takes occasion to speak of the effect of Huxley's service in the "Rattlesnake" upon his intellectual development:— When Huxley himself left Charing Cross Hospital in 1846, he had enjoyed a rich measure of instruction in anatomy and physiology. Thus trained, he took the post of naval surgeon, and by the time that he returned, four years later, he had become a perfect zoologist and a keen-sighted ethnologist. How thi

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CHAPTER 1.6.

CHAPTER 1.6.

1851-1854. [The course pursued by the Government in the matter of Huxley's papers is curious and instructive. The Admiralty minute of 1849 had promised either money assistance for publishing or speedy promotion as an encouragement to scientific research in the Navy, especially by the medical officers. On leave to publish the scientific results of the expedition being asked for, the Department forestalled any request for monetary aid by an intimation that none would be given. Strong representatio

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CHAPTER 1.7.

CHAPTER 1.7.

1851-1853. [Several letters dating from 1851 to 1853 help to fill up the outlines of Huxley's life during those three years of struggle. There is a description of the British Association meeting at Ipswich in 1851] ("Forbes advises me to go down to the meeting of the British Association this year and make myself notorious somehow or other. Thank Heaven I have impudence enough to lecture the savans of Europe if necessary. Can you imagine me holding forth?" [June 6, 1851.]), with the traditional t

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CHAPTER 1.8.

CHAPTER 1.8.

1854. [The year 1854 marks the turning-point in Huxley's career. The desperate time of waiting came to an end. By the help of his lectures and his pen, he could at all events stand and wait independently of the Navy. He could not, of course, think of immediate marriage, nor of asking Miss Heathorn to join him in England; but it so happened that her father was already thinking of returning home, and finally this was determined upon just before Professor Forbes' translation to a chair at Edinburgh

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CHAPTER 1.9.

CHAPTER 1.9.

1855. Miss Heathorn and her parents reached England at the beginning of May 1855, and took up their abode at 8 Titchfield Terrace, not far from Huxley's own lodgings and his brothers' house. One thing, however, filled Huxley with dismay. Miss Heathorn's health had broken down utterly, and she looked at death's door. All through the preceding year she had been very ill; she had gone with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wise, to the newly opened mining-camp at Bathurst, and she and Mrs. Wise were indeed the

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CHAPTER 1.10.

CHAPTER 1.10.

1855-1858. Up to his appointment at the School of Mines, Huxley's work had been almost entirely morphological, dealing with the Invertebrates. His first investigations, moreover, had been directed not to species-hunting, but to working out the real affinities of little known orders, and thereby evolving a philosophical classification from the limbo of "Vermes" and "Radiata." He had continued the same work by tracing homologies of development in other classes of animals, such as the Cephalous Mol

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CHAPTER 1.11.

CHAPTER 1.11.

1857-1858. Throughout this period his health was greatly tried by the strain of his work and life in town. Headache! headache! is his repeated note in the early part of 1857, and in 1858 we find such entries as:—] "February 11.—Used up. Hypochondrical and bedevilled." "Ditto 12." "13.—Not good for much." "21.—Toothache, incapable all day." [And again:—] "March 30. Voiceless." "31.—Missed lecture." [And] "April 1.—Unable to go out." [He would come in thoroughly used up after lecturing twice on th

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CHAPTER 1.12.

CHAPTER 1.12.

1859-1860. [The programme laid down in 1857 was steadily carried out through a great part of 1859. Huxley published nine monographs, chiefly on fossil Reptilia, in the proceedings of the Geological Society and of the Geological Survey, one on the armour of crocodiles at the Linnean, and "Observations on the Development of some Parts of the Skeleton of Fishes," in the "Journal of Microscopical Science." Among the former was a paper on Stagonolepis, a creature from the Elgin beds, which had previo

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CHAPTER 1.13.

CHAPTER 1.13.

1859. [In November 1859 the "Origin of Species" was published, and a new direction was given to Huxley's activities. Ever since Darwin and Wallace had made their joint communication to the Linnean Society in the preceding July, expectation had been rife as to the forthcoming book. Huxley was one of the few privileged to learn Darwin's argument before it was given to the world; but the greatness of the book, mere instalment as it was of the long accumulated mass of notes, almost took him by surpr

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CHAPTER 1.14.

CHAPTER 1.14.

1859-1860. [The "Origin" appeared in November. As soon as he had read it, Huxley wrote the following letter to Darwin (already published in "Life of Darwin" volume 2 page 231):— Jermyn Street W., November 23, 1859. My dear Darwin, I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure. Since I read Von Baer's essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most hea

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CHAPTER 1.16.

CHAPTER 1.16.

1860-1861. [The letters given in the following chapters illustrate the occupations and interests of the years 1860 to 1863, apart from the struggle over the species question. One of the most important and most engrossing was the launching of a scientific quarterly to do more systematically and thoroughly what had been done since 1858 in the fortnightly scientific column of the "Saturday Review." Its genesis is explained in the following letter:—] July 17, 1860. My dear Hooker, Some time ago Dr.

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CHAPTER 1.17.

CHAPTER 1.17.

1861-1863. [It has been seen that the addition of journalistic work in science to the mass of original research and teaching work upon which Huxley was engaged, called forth a remonstrance from both Lyell and Darwin. To Hooker it seemed still more serious that he was dividing his allegiance, and going far afield in philosophy, instead of concentrating himself upon natural science. He writes:— I am sorry to hear that you are so poorly, and wish I could help you to sit down and work quietly at pur

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CHAPTER 1.18.

CHAPTER 1.18.

1864. [The year 1864 was much like 1863. The Hunterian Lectures were still part of his regular work. The Fishery Commission claimed a large portion of his time. from March 28 to April 2 he was in Cornwall; on May 7 at Shoreham; from July 24 to September 9 visiting the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The same pressure of work continued. He published four papers on paleontological or anatomical subjects in the "Natural History Review" (On "Cetacean Fossils termed Ziphius by Cuvier," in the "Transa

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CHAPTER 1.19.

CHAPTER 1.19.

1865. [The progress of the American civil war suggested to Huxley in 1865 the text for an article, "Emancipation, Black and White," the emancipation of the negro in America and the emancipation of women in England, which appeared in the "Reader" of May 20 ("Collected Essays" 3 66). His main argument for the emancipation of the negro was that already given in his letter to his sister; namely, that in accordance with the moral law that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another without g

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CHAPTER 1.20.

CHAPTER 1.20.

1866. [Besides his Fullerian lectures on Ethnology at the Royal Institution this year, Huxley published in February 1866 a paper in the "Natural History Review," on the "Prehistoric Remains of Caithness," based upon a quantity of remains found the previous autumn at Keiss. This, and the article on the "Neanderthal Skull" in the "Natural History Review" for 1864, attracted some notice among foreign anthropologists. Dr. H. Welcker writes about them; Dr. A. Ecker wants the "Prehistoric Remains" for

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CHAPTER 1.21.

CHAPTER 1.21.

1867. [It has already been noted that Huxley's ethnological work continued this year with a second series of lectures at the Royal Institution, while he enlarged his paper on "Two widely contrasted forms of Human Crania," and published it in the "Journal of Anatomy." One paleontological memoir of his appeared this year on Acanthopholis, a fossil from the chalk marl, an additional piece of work for which he excuses himself to Sir Charles Lyell (January 4, 1867):—] The new reptile advertised in "G

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CHAPTER 1.22.

CHAPTER 1.22.

1868. [In 1868 he published five scientific memoirs, amongst them his classification of birds and "Remarks upon Archaeopteryx Lithographica" ("Proceedings of the Royal Society" 16 1868 pages 243-248). This creature, a bird with reptilian characters, was a suggestive object from which to popularise some of the far-reaching results of his many years' labour upon the morphology of both birds and reptiles. Thus it led to a lecture at the Royal Institution, on February 7, "On the Animals which are mo

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CHAPTER 1.23.

CHAPTER 1.23.

1869. [In 1869 Huxley published five paleontological papers, chiefly upon the Dinosaurs (see letter above to Haeckel, January 21, 1868). His physiological researches upon the development of parts of the skull, are represented by a paper for the Zoological Society, while the "Introduction to the Classification of Animals" was a reprint this year of the substance of six lectures in the first part of the lectures on "Elementary Comparative Anatomy" (1864), which were out of print, but still in dema

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CHAPTER 2.1. 1870.

CHAPTER 2.1. 1870.

[With the year 1870 comes another turning-point in Huxley's career. From his return to England in 1850 till 1854 he had endured four years of hard struggle, of hope deferred; his reputation as a zoologist had been established before his arrival, and was more than confirmed by his personal energy and power. When at length settled in the professorship at Jermyn Street, he was so far from thinking himself more than a beginner who had learned to work in one corner of the field of knowledge, still ne

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CHAPTER 2.2.

CHAPTER 2.2.

1871. ["In 1871" (to quote Sir M. Foster), "the post of Secretary to the Royal Society became vacant through the resignation of William Sharpey, and the Fellows learned with glad surprise that Huxley, whom they looked to rather as a not distant President, was willing to undertake the duties of the office." This office, which he held until 1880, involved him for the next ten years in a quantity of anxious work, not only in the way of correspondence and administration, but the seeing through the p

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CHAPTER 2.3.

CHAPTER 2.3.

1872. [Dyspepsia, that most distressing of maladies, had laid firm hold upon him. He was compelled to take entire rest for a time. But his first holiday produced no lasting effect, and in the summer he was again very ill. Then the worry of a troublesome lawsuit in connection with the building of his new house intensified both bodily illness and mental depression. He had great fears of being saddled with heavy costs at the moment when he was least capable of meeting any new expense—hardly able ev

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CHAPTER 2.4.

CHAPTER 2.4.

1873. [The year opens with a letter to Tyndall, then on a lecturing tour in America:—] 4 Marlborough Place, Abbey Road, N.W., January 1, 1872 [1873]. My dear Tyndall, I cannot let this day go by without wishing you a happy New Year, and lamenting your absence from our customary dinner. But Hirst and Spencer and Michael Foster are coming, and they shall drink your health in champagne while I do the like in cold water, making up by the strength of my good wishes for the weakness of the beverage. Y

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CHAPTER 2.5.

CHAPTER 2.5.

1874. [My father's health continued fairly good in 1874, and while careful to avoid excessive strain he was able to undertake nearly as much as before his illness outside his regular work at South Kensington, the Royal Society, and on the Royal Commission. To this year belong three important essays, educational and philosophical. From February 25 to March 3 he was at Aberdeen, staying first with Professor Bain, afterwards with Mr. Webster, in fulfilment of his first duty as Lord Rector to delive

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CHAPTER 2.6.

CHAPTER 2.6.

1875-1876. [In the year 1875 the bitter agitation directed against experimental physiology came to a head. It had existed in England for several years. In 1870, when President of the British Association, Huxley had been violently attacked for speaking in defence of Brown Sequard, the French physiologist. The name of vivisection, indifferently applied to all experiments on animals, whether carried out by the use of the knife or not, had, as Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Smith put it, the opposite

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CHAPTER 2.7.

CHAPTER 2.7.

1875-1876. [Huxley only delivered one address outside his regular work in 1875, on "Some Results of the 'Challenger' Expedition," given at the Royal Institution on January 29. For all through the summer he was away from London, engaged upon the summer course of lectures on Natural History at Edinburgh. This was due to the fact that Professor (afterwards Sir) Wyville Thomson was still absent on the "Challenger" expedition, and Professor Victor Carus, who had acted as his substitute before, was no

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CHAPTER 2.8.

CHAPTER 2.8.

1876. [The year 1876 was again a busy one, almost as busy as any that went before. As in 1875, his London work was cut in two by a course of lectures in Edinburgh, and sittings of the Royal Commission on Scottish Universities, and furthermore, by a trip to America in his summer vacation. In the winter and early spring he gave his usual lectures at South Kensington; a course to working men "On the Evidence as to the Origin of Existing Vertebrated Animals," from February to April ("Nature" volumes

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CHAPTER 2.9.

CHAPTER 2.9.

1877. [In this year he delivered lectures and addresses on the "Geological History of Birds," at the Zoological Society's Gardens, June 7; on "Starfishes and their Allies," at the Royal Institution, March 7; at the London Institution, December 17, on "Belemnites" (a subject on which he had written in 1864, and which was doubtless suggested anew by his autumn holiday at Whitby, where the Lias cliffs are full of these fossils); at the Anthropological Conference, May 22, on "Elementary Instruction

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CHAPTER 2.10.

CHAPTER 2.10.

1878. [The year 1878 was the tercentenary of Harvey's birth, and Huxley was very busy with the life and work of that great physician. He spoke at the memorial meeting at the College of Physicians (July 18), he gave a lecture on Harvey at the Royal Institution on January 25, afterwards published in "Nature" and the "Fortnightly Review," and intended to write a book on him in a projected "English Men of Science" series. (See below.)] I am very glad you like "Harvey" [he writes to Professor Baynes

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CHAPTER 2.11.

CHAPTER 2.11.

1879. [Much of the work noted down for 1878 reappears in my father's list for 1879. He was still at work upon, or meditating his Crayfish, his Introduction to Psychology, the Spirula Memoir, and a new edition of the Elementary Physiology. Professor H.N. Martin writes about the changes necessary for adapting the "Practical Biology" to American needs; the article on Harvey was waiting to be put into permanent form. Besides giving an address at the Working Men's College, he lectured on Sensation an

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CHAPTER 2.12.

CHAPTER 2.12.

1881. [The last ten years had found Huxley gradually involved more and more in official duties. Now, with the beginning of 1881, he became yet more deeply engrossed in practical and administrative work, more completely cut off from his favourite investigations, by his appointment to an Inspectorship of Fisheries, in succession to the late Frank Buckland. It is almost pathetic to note how he snatched at any spare moments for biological research. No sooner was a long afternoon's work at the Home O

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CHAPTER 2.13.

CHAPTER 2.13.

1882. [The year 1882 was a dark year for English science. It was marked by the death of both Charles Darwin and of Francis Balfour, the young investigator, of whom Huxley once said,] "He is the only man who can carry out my work." [The one was the inevitable end of a great career, in the fulness of time; the other was one of those losses which are the more deplorable as they seem unnecessary, the result of a chance slip, in all the vigour of youth. I remember his coming to our house just before

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CHAPTER 2.14.

CHAPTER 2.14.

1883. [The pressure of official work, which had been constantly growing since 1880, reached its highest point in 1883. Only one scientific memoir was published by him this year, and then no more for the next four years. (Contributions to Morphology, Ichthyopsida, Number 2. On the Oviducts of Osmerus; with remarks on the relations of the Teleostean with the Ganoid Fishes "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" 1883 pages 132-139). The intervals of lecturing and examining were chiefly filled by fi

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CHAPTER 2.15.

CHAPTER 2.15.

1884. [From this time forward the burden of ill-health grew slowly and steadily. Dyspepsia and the hyperchondriacal depression which follows in its train, again attacked Huxley as they had attacked him twelve years before, though this time the physical misery was perhaps less. His energy was sapped; when his official work was over, he could hardly bring himself to renew the investigations in which he had always delighted. To stoop over the microscope was a physical discomfort; he began to devote

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CHAPTER 2.16.

CHAPTER 2.16.

1884-1885. [Towards the end of September he went to the West country to try to improve his health before the session began again in London. Thus he writes, on September 26, to Mr. W.F. Collier, who had invited him to Horrabridge, and on the 27th to Sir M. Foster:—] Fowey, September 26, 1884. Many thanks for the kind offer in your letter, which has followed me here. But I have not been on the track you might naturally have supposed I had followed. I have been trying to combine hygiene with busine

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CHAPTER 2.17.

CHAPTER 2.17.

1885. [On April 8, he landed at Folkestone, and stayed there a day or two before going to London. Writing to Sir J. Donnelly, he remarks with great satisfaction at getting home:—] We got here this afternoon after a rather shady passage from Boulogne, with a strong north wind in our teeth all the way, and rain galore. For all that, it is the pleasantest journey I have made for a long time—so pleasant to see one's own dear native mud again. There is no foreign mud to come near it. [And on the same

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CHAPTER 2.18.

CHAPTER 2.18.

1886. [The controversy with Mr. Gladstone indicates the nature of the subject that Huxley took up for the employment of his newly obtained leisure. Chequered as this leisure was all through the year by constant illness, which drove him again and again to the warmth of Bournemouth or the brisk airs of the Yorkshire moors in default of the sovereign medicine of the Alps, he managed to write two more controversial articles this year, besides a long account of the "Progress of Science," for Mr. T. H

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CHAPTER 2.19.

CHAPTER 2.19.

1886. [The earlier start was decided upon for the sake of one of his daughters; who had been ill. He went first to Evolena, but the place did not suit him, and four days after his arrival went on to Arolla, whence he writes on August 3:—] We reached Evolena on Thursday last…We had glorious weather Thursday and Friday, and the latter day (having both been told carefully to avoid over-exertion) the wife and I strolled, quite unintentionally, as far as the Glacier de Ferpecle and back again. Luckil

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CHAPTER 3.2.

CHAPTER 3.2.

1887. [On the last day of July he left England for Switzerland, and did not return till the end of September. A second visit to Arolla worked a great change in him. He renewed his Gentian studies also, with unflagging ardour. The following letters give some idea of his doings and interests:—] Hotel du Mont Collon, Arolla, Switzerland, August 28, 1887. My dear Foster, I know you will be glad to hear that I consider myself completely set up again. We went to the Maderaner Thal and stayed a week th

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CHAPTER 3.3.

CHAPTER 3.3.

1888. [Huxley had returned to town before Christmas, for the house in St. John's Wood was still the rallying-point for the family, although his elder children were now married and dispersed. But he did not stay long.] "Wife wonderfully better," [he writes to Sir M. Foster on January 8,] "self as melancholy as a pelican in the wilderness." [He meant to have left London on the 16th, but his depressed condition proved to be the beginning of a second attack of pleurisy, and he was unable to start fo

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CHAPTER 3.4.

CHAPTER 3.4.

1888. [It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up sufficiently by the doctors for him to start for the Engadine. His first stage was to Lugano; the second by Menaggio and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to the Maloja. The summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he could scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that it was a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their surprise was the greater when, after a couple of months, they saw him walking his ten miles and

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CHAPTER 3.5.

CHAPTER 3.5.

1889. [The events to be chronicled in this year are, as might be expected, either domestic or literary. The letters are full of allusions to his long controversy in defence of Agnosticism, mainly with Dr. Wace, who had declared the use of the name to be a "mere evasion" on the part of those who ought to be dubbed infidels (Apropos of this controversy, a letter may be cited which appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1884, in answer to certain inquiries from the editor as to the right definition

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CHAPTER 3.6.

CHAPTER 3.6.

1889-90. From the middle of June to the middle of September, Huxley was in Switzerland, first at Monte Generoso, then, when the weather became more settled, at the Maloja. Here, as his letters show, he "rejuvenated" to such an extent that Sir Henry Thompson, who was at the Maloja, scoffed at the idea of his ever having had dilated heart.] Monte Generoso, Tessin, Suisse, June 25, 1889. My dear Hooker, I am quite agreed with the proposed arrangements for the x, and hope I shall show better in the

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CHAPTER 3.7.

CHAPTER 3.7.

1890-1891. [Three letters of the first half of the year may conveniently be placed here. The first is to Tyndall, who had just been delivering an anti-Gladstonian speech at Belfast. The opening reference must be to some newspaper paragraph which I have not been able to trace, just as the second is to a paragraph in 1876, not long after Tyndall's marriage, which described Huxley as starting for America with his titled bride.] 3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 24, 1890. My dear Tyndall, Pu

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CHAPTER 3.8.

CHAPTER 3.8.

1890-1891. [The new house at Eastbourne has been several times referred to. As usually happens, the move was considerably delayed by the slowness of the workmen; it did not actually take place till the beginning of December. He writes to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, who also had just moved into a new house:—] You have all my sympathies on the buy, buy question. I never knew before that when you go into a new house money runs out at the heels of your boots. On former occasions, I have been too busy

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CHAPTER 3.9.

CHAPTER 3.9.

1892. The revival of part of the former controversy which he had had with Mr. Gladstone upon the story of creation, made a warlike beginning of an otherwise very peaceful year. Since the middle of December a great correspondence had been going on in the "Times", consequent upon the famous manifesto of the thirty-eight Anglican clergy touching the question of inspiration and the infallibility of the Bible. Criticism, whether "higher" or otherwise, defended on the one side, was unsparingly denounc

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CHAPTER 3.10.

CHAPTER 3.10.

1892. [Several letters of this year touch on educational subjects. The following advice as to the best training for a boy in science, was addressed to Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A.] Hodeslea, June 19, 1892. My dear Riviere, Touching the training of your boy who wants to go in for science, I expect you will have to make a compromise between that which is theoretically desirable and that which is practically most advantageous, things being as they are. Though I say it that shouldn't, I don't believe th

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CHAPTER 3.11.

CHAPTER 3.11.

1892. [The following letters are mainly of personal interest; some merely illustrate the humorous turn he would give to his more intimate correspondence; others strike a more serious note, especially those to friends whose powers were threatened by overwork or ill-health. With these may fitly come two other letters; one to a friend on his re-marriage, the other to his daughter, in reply to a birthday letter.] My wife and I send our warmest good wishes to your future wife and yourself. I cannot b

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CHAPTER 3.12.

CHAPTER 3.12.

1893. [The year 1893 was, save for the death of three old friends, Andrew Clark, Jowett, and Tyndall, one of the most tranquil and peaceful in Huxley's whole life. He entered upon no direct controversy; he published no magazine articles; to the general misapprehension of the drift of his Romanes Lecture he only replied in the comprehensive form of Prolegomena to a reprint of the lecture. He began to publish his scattered essays in a uniform series, writing an introduction to each volume. While c

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CHAPTER 3.13.

CHAPTER 3.13.

1894. [The completion early in 1894 of the ninth volume of "Collected Essays" was followed by a review of them in "Nature" (February 1), from the pen of Professor Ray Lankester, emphasising the way in which the writer's personality appears throughout the writing:— There is probably no lover of apt discourse, of keen criticism, or of scientific doctrine who will not welcome the issue of Professor Huxley's "Essays" in the present convenient shape. For my own part, I know of no writing which by its

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CHAPTER 3.14.

CHAPTER 3.14.

1895. Two months of almost continuous frost, during which the thermometer fell below zero, marked the winter of 1894-95. Tough, if not strong, as Huxley's constitution was, this exceptional cold, so lowering to the vitality of age, accentuated the severity of the illness which followed in the train of influenza, and at last undermined even his powers of resistance. But until the influenza seized him, he was more than usually vigorous and brilliant. He was fatigued, but not more so than he expect

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CHAPTER 3.15.

CHAPTER 3.15.

He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his life than that? [Such was Huxley's epitaph upon Henslow; it was the standard which he endeavoured to reach in his own life. It is the expression of that passion for veracity which was perhaps his strongest characteristic; an uncompromising passion for truth in thought, which would admit no particle of self-deception, no assertion beyond what could be verif

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CHAPTER 3.16.

CHAPTER 3.16.

1895. [I have often regretted that I did not regularly take notes of my father's conversation, which was striking, not so much for the manner of it—though that was at once copious and crisp,—as for the strength and substance of what he said. Yet the striking fact, the bit of philosophy, the closely knitted argument, were perfectly unstudied, and as in other most interesting talkers, dropped into the flow of conversation as naturally as would the more ordinary experiences of less richly stored mi

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APPENDIX 1.

APPENDIX 1.

As for this unfinished work, suggestive outlines left for others to fill in, Professor Howes writes to me in October 1899:— Concerning the papers at South Kensington, which, as part of the contents of your father's book-shelves, were given by him to the College, and now are arranged, numbered, and registered in order for use, there is evidence that in 1858 he, with his needles and eyeglass, had dissected and carefully figured the so-called pronephros of the Frog's tadpole, in a manner which as t

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APPENDIX 2.

APPENDIX 2.

His administrative work as an officer of the Royal Society is described in the following note by Sir Joseph Hooker:— Mr. Huxley was appointed Joint-Secretary of the Royal Society, November 30, 1871, in succession to Dr. Sharpey, Sir George Airy being President, and Professor (now Sir George) Stokes, Senior Secretary. He held the office till November 30, 1880. The duties of the office are manifold and heavy; they include attendance at all the meetings of the Fellows, and of the councils, committe

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ESSAYS.

ESSAYS.

"The Darwinian Hypothesis." ("Times" December 26, 1859.) "Collected Essays" 2. "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences." (An Address delivered at St. Martin's Hall, on July 22, 1854, and published as a pamphlet in that year.) "Lay Sermons"; "Collected Essays" 3. "Time and Life." ("Macmillan's Magazine" December 1859.) "The Origin of Species." (The "Westminster Review" April 1860.) "Lay Sermons"; "Collected Essays" 2. "A Lobster: or the Study of Zoology." (A Lecture delivered at

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BOOKS.

BOOKS.

"Kolliker's Manual of Human Histology". (Translated and edited by T.H. Huxley and G. Busk), 1853. "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," 1863. "Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy" (one volume only published), 1864. "Elementary Atlas of Comparative Osteology" (in 12 plates), 1864. "Lessons in Elementary Physiology." First edition printed 1866; second edition, 1868; reprinted 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872 (twice); third edition, 1872; reprinted 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1883

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SCIENTIFIC MEMOIRS.

SCIENTIFIC MEMOIRS.

"On a Hitherto Undescribed Structure in the Human Hair Sheath," "London Medical Gazette" 1 1340 (July 1845). "Examination of the Corpuscles of the Blood of Amphioxus Lanceolatus," "British Association Report" (1847), part 2 95; "Scientific Memoirs" 1. "Description of the Animal of Trigonia," "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" volume 17. (1849), 30-32; also in "Annals and Magazine of Natural History" 5 (1850), 141-143; "Scientific Memoirs" 1. "On the Anatomy and the Affinities of the Family

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APPENDIX 4.

APPENDIX 4.

HONOURS, DEGREES, SOCIETIES, ETC. (This list has been compiled from such diplomas and letters as I found in my father's possession.) Norwegian Order of the North Star, 1873. Oxford—Hon. D.C.L. 1885. Cambridge—Hon. LL.D. 1879. —Rede Lecturer, 1883. London—First M.B. and Gold Medal, 1845. —Examiner in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy; 1857. —Member of Senate, 1883. Edinburgh—Hon. LL.D. 1866. Aberdeen—Lord Rector, 1872. Dublin—Hon. LL.D. 1878. Breslau—Hon. Ph.D. and M.A. 1861. Wurzburg—Hon. M.D.

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SOCIETIES—PROVINCIAL, COLONIAL AND INDIAN:

SOCIETIES—PROVINCIAL, COLONIAL AND INDIAN:

Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Association; Corr. Member, 1859. Liverpool Literary and Philosophic Society, Hon. Memb. 1870. Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Hon. Memb. 1872. Odontological Society of Great Britain, 1862. Royal Irish Academy, Hon. Memb. 1874. Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Hon. Memb. 1875. Royal Society of Edinburgh, British Hon. Fellow, 1876. Glasgow Philosophical Society, Hon. Memb. 1876. Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth, Hon.

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FOREIGN SOCIETIES:

FOREIGN SOCIETIES:

International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archeology, Corr. Memb. 1867. International Geological Congress (Pres.) 1888. Academy of the Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Corr. Memb. 1859; Hayden Medal, 1888. Odontographic Society of Pennsylvania, Hon. Memb. 1865. American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 1869. Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Hon. Memb. 1873. New York Academy of Sciences, Hon. Memb. 1876. Boston Society of Natural History, Hon. Memb. 1877. National Academy

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ROYAL COMMISSIONS:

ROYAL COMMISSIONS:

T.H. Huxley served on the following Royal or other Commissions:— 1. Royal Commission on the Operation of Acts relating to Trawling for Herrings on the Coast of Scotland, 1862. 2. Royal Commission to inquire into the Sea Fisheries of the United Kingdom, 1864-65. 3. Commission on the Royal College of Science for Ireland, 1866. 4. Commission on Science and Art Instruction in Ireland, 1868. 5. Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1870-71. 6. Royal C

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