714 REMINISCENCES OF HUXLEY. 



Sonio such vague (•oiu'0])tion ^vas dcvolopod in th(^ mind of the *icn- 

 eral pii l)lie into divers droll niiseoneeptions. P^ven as Spencer's famous 

 phrase, "survival of the fittest," which he suggested as prefera))le to 

 "natural selection." is by many people ascri])ed to Dai'win.so we used 

 to hear wrathful allusions to Huxley's Belfast Address, and similar 

 absurdities. The climax was reached in 187t>, when Huxley and his 

 wife made a short \isit to the United States. Pearly in that year 

 Tvndall had married a daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, l)rother of 

 the I)uk(> of Abercorn. and one tine morning in August we were 

 gravely informed by the newspapers that "Huxley and his titled 

 bride " had just arrived in New York. For our visitors, who had left 

 at home in London seven goodly children, some of them approaching 

 maturity, this item of news was a source of nuu-h merriment. 



To return to my storj" It was not long before my notion of Huxley 

 came to be that of a very sharph' defined and powerful indi\iduality; 

 for such he appeared in his lectures on the Origin of Spinics and in his 

 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, ))oth published in l8t)o. Not 

 long afterwards, in reading the lay sermon on The Advisableness of 

 Improving Natural Knowledge. I felt that here Avas a poetic soul 

 whom one could not help loving. In those days I fell in with Youmans, 

 who had come back from England l)ubl)ling and brimming over with 

 racy anecdotes about the i)hiloso])hei's and men of science. Of course 

 the Soapy Sam incident was not forgotten, and Youmans's version of 

 it, which Avas purely from hearsay, could make no pretension to verbal 

 accuracy; nevertheless, it may be worth citing. Mr. Leonard Huxley 

 has carefully compared several versions from eye and car witnesses, 

 together with his father's own comments, and I do not know where one 

 could tind a more striking illustration of the dilliculty of attaining 

 absolute accuracy in writing even contemporary history. 



As I heard the antedote from Youmans: It w^as at the meeting of the 

 British Association at Oxford in is^JO, soon after the puldication of 

 Darwin's epoch-making book, and while people in general were wag- 

 ging their heads at it, that the subject came up for discussion before a 

 fashionable and hostile audience. Samuel Wilbcrforce, the plausible 

 and self-complacent Bishop of Oxford, commoidy known as "Soapy 

 Sam," launched out in a rash speech, conspicuous for its ignorant mis- 

 statements, and highU^ seasoned with appeals to the prejudices of the 

 audience, upon whose lack of intelligence the speaker relied. Near 

 him sat Huxley, already eminent as a man of science, and known to look 

 favorably upon Darwinism, but more or less youthful withal, only five 

 and thirt}', so that the bishop anticipated sport in badgering him. At 

 the close of his speech he suddenly turned upon Huxle}^ and begged 

 to be informed if the learned gentleman was really willing to be 

 regarded as the descendant of a monkev. Eager self-coulidence had 



