The Selections xxi 



day spent on Mount Vesuvius, his magnanimous estimate 

 of Pasteur's services, the sturdy common sense of his ad- 

 vice to a young man all these supplement the Auto- 

 biography at vital points. The style of these letters is 

 notable, too, for its freedom and flexibility, and for a 

 certain rapidity of thought which Huxley said he owed to 

 his mother. 



3. ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL 

 KNOWLEDGE. This lay sermon was delivered in St. Mar- 

 tin's Hall, London, January 7, 1866. It was published 

 in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1870), and 

 republished in the first volume of Collected Essays. Hux- 

 ley had spoken in St. Martin's Hall twelve years before 

 on The Educational Value of the Natural History Sci- 

 ences. The earlier address marked the beginning of 

 Huxley's persistent endeavor to secure for science its 

 rightful place in the educational system of England. The 

 two addresses are strikingly alike. Of the first (now 

 published in the third volume of Collected Essays) Huxley 

 said : " It contains some crudities, which I repudiated when 

 the lecture was first reprinted, more than twenty years 

 ago ; but it will be seen that much of what I have had to 

 say, later on in life, is merely a development of the 

 propositions enunciated in this early and sadly imperfect 

 piece of work." One passage, at least, in the earlier 

 essay deserves reproduction : " So far as I can arrive at 

 any clear comprehension of the matter, science is not, 

 as many would seem to suppose, a modification of the 

 black art, suited to the tastes of the nineteenth century, 

 and flourishing mainly in consequence of the decay of the 

 Inquisition. Science is, I believe, nothing but trained 

 and organized common sense, differing from the latter 

 only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit." 



The address here reproduced might be called The 



