4 PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



valuable service. Such is the character of the present 

 volume. 



Prefixed to the English edition, is the following 

 note from Professor Huxley : " Mr. J. Aldous Mays, 

 who is taking shorthand notes of my ' Lectures to 

 Working Men,' has asked me to allow him, on his own 

 account, to print those notes for the use of my audience. 

 I willingly accede to this request, on the understanding 

 that a notice is prefixed to the effect that I have no 

 leisure to revise the Lectures, or to make alterations 

 in them, beyond the correction of any important error 

 in a matter of fact." 



The reader will not regret that the Lectures appear 

 in this form. Taken from the lips of the distinguished 

 naturalist, as he addressed an audience of ' Working 

 Men,' they have a clearness, a directness, and a sim- 

 plicity which belonged to the circumstances of their 

 delivery. In this respect, the following Lectures are 

 incomparable. Dealing w T ith the most abstruse and 

 fundamental questions of mind and organization, these 

 subjects are nevertheless presented in so lucid and at- 

 tractive a manner as to impress vividly the commonest 

 imagination. 



The gift of translating the high questions of science 

 into popular forms of expression, without sacrificing ac- 

 curacy and introducing error, is a very rare one among 

 scientific men, but Professor Huxley possesses it in an 

 eminent degree : his lectures are models of their class. 



