Notes and Comment 129 



III, January 13, 1800. Its purpose was to facilitate, by lec- 

 tures and experiments, the application of science to the com- 

 mon needs of daily life. Huxley's experience on this eventful 

 Friday evening is thus told to his sister (Life and Letters, I, 

 106-107) : 



" It was the first lecture I had ever given in my life, and to 

 what is considered the best audience in London. As nothing ever 

 works up my energies but a high flight, I had chosen a very diffi- 

 cult abstract point, in my view of which I stand almost alone. 

 When I took a glimpse into the theater and saw it full of faces, 

 I did feel most amazingly uncomfortable. I can now quite 

 understand what it is to be going to be hanged, and nothing 

 but the necessity of the case prevented me from running away. 



" However, when the hour struck, in I marched, and began to 

 deliver my discourse. For ten minutes I did not quite know 

 where I was, but by degrees I got used to it, and gradually 

 gained perfect command of myself and of my subject. I be- 

 lieve I contrived to interest my audience, and upon the whole 

 I think I may say that this essay was successful. 



" Thank Heaven I can say so, for though it is no great matter 

 succeeding, failing would have been a bitter annoyance to me. 

 It has put me comfortably at my ease with regard to all 

 future lecturings. After the Royal Institution there is no 

 audience I shall ever fear." 



14, lo-n. Malgre moi: "in spite of myself." 



15, 7. Popularization of science. Huxley's influence in 

 popularizing Darwin's work was recognized by Lord Kelvin, 

 when he presented Huxley with the Darwin Medal in 1894, in 

 these words: 



" To the world at large, perhaps, Mr. Huxley's share in 

 molding the thesis of Natural Selection is less well known than 

 is his bold, unwearied exposition and defense of it after it 

 had been made public. And, indeed, a speculative trifler, revel- 

 ing in the problems of the ' might have been,' would find a 

 congenial theme in the inquiry how soon what we now call 

 ' Darwinism ' would have met with the acceptance with which 

 it has met, and gained the power which it has gained, had it 

 not been for the brilliant advocacy with which in its early days it 

 was expounded to all classes of men. 



"That advocacy had one striking mark: while it made or 

 strove to make clear how deep the new view went down, and 



