14 Selections from Huxley 



physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one 

 years, and a large part of my work has been paleonto- 

 logical. 



At that time I disliked public speaking, and had a firm 

 5 conviction that I should break down every time I opened 

 my mouth. I believe I had every fault a speaker could 

 have (except talking at random or indulging in rhetoric), 

 when I spoke to the first important audience I ever ad- 

 dressed, on a Friday evening at the Royal Institution, in 



10 1852. Yet, I must confess to having been guilty, malgre 

 moij of as much public speaking as most of my contempo- 

 raries, and for the last ten years it ceased to be so much 

 of a bugbear to me. I used to pity myself for having to 

 go through this training, but I am now more disposed to 



15 compassionate the unfortunate audiences, especially my 

 ever friendly hearers at the Royal Institution, who were 

 the subjects of my oratorical experiments. 



The last thing that it would be proper for me to do 

 would be to speak of the work of my life, or to say at 



20 the end of the day whether I think I have earned my wages 

 or not. Men are said to be partial judges of themselves. 

 Young men may be, I doubt if old men are. Life seems 

 terribly foreshortened as they look back and the mountain 

 they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a 



25 mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges when, by failing 

 breath, they reach the top. [But if_J may speak of__the_ 

 objfcts.J[ have had_more__pr Tess definitely^m view since 

 Ibegan__the ascent of_jnyJiilJock r -they_are__brjefly_ these ^ 

 To promote the increase of natural knowledge and to for- 



30 ward the application of scientific methods of investigation 

 to all the problems of life to the best of my ability, in 

 the conviction which has grown with my growth and 

 strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation 

 for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought 



