728 u?:minis('ences of ht^xley, 



Iliixlev, iiiid ho convincod thoiii. How sturdily Huxley fouj^ht Dar- 

 win's hattlcs is iiispirino- to reniciulier. Darwin rather shrank from 

 controvcr.s}', and. while he welcomed candid criticism, seldom took any 

 notice of ill-natured attacks. On one occasion, nevertheless, a some- 

 what Ui^ly assault moved Darwin to turn and rend the assailant, which 

 was easily and lu^atly done in two paues at the end of a scientific 

 paper, liefoie puhlishinm- the ])a])er. hoAvever, Darwin sent it to Hux- 

 ley, authorizino- him to omit the two ])a<:('s if he shoukl think it l)est. 

 Huxley promptly canceled them, and sent Darwin a delicious little 

 note, sayinj:" that th(^ retort was so excellent that if it had becji his own 

 he should hardly have had virtue enou*^h to sui)press it; but althou<>"h 

 it was well deserved, he thoii<iht it would l)e better to refrain. "If I 

 sa}' a savaji'c thinj^. it is only 'pretty Fanny's way;' hut if you do, it is 

 not likely to be forgotten." There was a friend worth havinii". 



There can be little doubt, I think, that, without a particle of lancor, 

 Huxley did keeidy feel the *^audium ceitaminis. He exclaimed amono- 

 the trumpets, Hal hal and was sure to be in the thickest of the tioht. 

 His family seemed to think that the ""Gladstonian dose" had a tonic 

 ertect u])on him. When he felt too ill for scientific work, he was 

 (|uite ready for a scrimmaiic with his friends, the bishops. Not car- 

 ing;- nuich for episco})()pha<iV (as Huxley once called it), and feeling 

 that controversy of that sort was ]>ut a slaying of the slain, 1 used to 

 grudu'e the time that was given to it, and taken from other things. In 

 1S7'.» he showed mi' the synopsis of a i)rojected book on The Dog, 

 which was to be an (triginal c()nti"il)ution to the phylogenetic history 

 of the ordei- C'arni\<)ra. The icadei' who recalls his book on The 

 C'raytish may realize what such ;i l)0()k about dogs would have been. 

 It was interrupted and deferred and finally jmshed aside V)y the thou- 

 sand and one duties and cares that were thrust upon him — work on 

 govenuuent conunissions, ediu-ational work, parish work, everything 

 that a self-sacrificing and public-spirited man could b(» loaded with. 

 In the later ye:irs, whenever I opened a magazine and found one of 

 the controversial articles I read it with pleasure, ))ut sighed for the 

 dog book. 



I daresay, though, it was all for the l)est. "To smite all humVmgs, 

 however big; to give a nobler tone to science; to set an example of 

 abstinence tioni petty personal controversies, and of toleration for 

 evei-ything Imt lying; to l)e inditterent as to whether the work is rec- 

 ognized as mine or not. so \o\m as it is done'" — such were Huxlev's 

 aims in life. And for these things, in the words of good Ben Jonson, 

 "I loved the man, and do honor to his memory, on this side idolatry, 

 as much as any." 



