338 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



president of the Eoyal Society, and Tyndall. It was started in 1864, 

 and nearly nineteen years passed before we had a single loss — that of 

 Spottiswoode; and Hooker, Spencer and I are now, alas! the only re- 

 maining members. We used to dine together once a month, except in 

 July, August and September. There were no papers or formal discus- 

 sions, but the idea was to secure more frequent meetings of a few friends 

 who were bound together by common interests and aims, and strong 

 feelings of personal affection. It has never been formally dissolved, but 

 the last meeting was in 1893. 



In 1869 the Metaphysical Society, of which I shall have something 

 more to say later on, was started. 



From 1870 to 1875 I was sitting with Huxley on the late Duke of 

 Devonshire's Commission on Scientific Instruction; we had innumerable 

 meetings, and we made many recommendations which are being by 

 degrees adopted. 



I had also the pleasure of spending some delightful holidays with 

 him in Switzerland, in Brittany and in various parts of England. 

 Lastly, I sat by his side in the Sheldonian Theater at the British Asso- 

 ciation meeting at Oxford, during Lord Salisbury's address, to which 

 I listened with all the more interest knowing that he was to second 

 the vote of thanks, and wondering how he would do it. At one passage 

 we looked at one another, and he whispered to me, "Oh, my dear Lub- 

 bock, how I wish we were going to discuss the address in Section D in- 

 stead of here!" Not, indeed, that he would have omitted any part of 

 his speech, but there were other portions of the address which he would 

 have been glad to have criticised. I was, therefore, for many years 

 in close and intimate association with him. 



Huxley showed from early youth a determination, in the words of 

 Jean Paul Eichter, 'to make the most that was possible out of the stuff/ 

 and this was a great deal, for the material was excellent. He took the 

 wise advice to consume more oil than wine, and, what is better even 

 than midnight oil, he made the most of the sweet morning air. 



In his youth he was a voracious reader and devoured everything he 

 could lay his hand on, from the Bible to Hamilton's 'Essay on the Phi- 

 losophy of the Unconditioned.' He tells us of himself that when he 

 was a mere boy he had a perverse tendency to think when he ought to 

 have been playing. 



Considering how preeminent he was as a naturalist, it is rather sur- 

 prising to hear, as he has himself told us, that his own desire was to be a 

 mechanical engineer. "The only part," he said, "of my professional 

 course which really and deeply interested me was physiology, which is 

 the mechanical engineering of living machines; and, notwithstanding 

 that natural science has been my proper business, I am afraid there is 

 very little of the genuine naturalist in me; I never collected anything, 



