34 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, n 



tership of University College was left vacant. Huxley, who 

 was so far connected with the college that he had examined 

 there for a science Fellowship, was asked if he would accept 

 it, but after careful consideration declined. He writes to 

 his son, who had heard rumours of the affair in Oxford : 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, Nov. 4, 1881. 



MY DEAR LENS There is truth in the rumour ; in so far as 

 this that I was asked if I would allow myself to be nominated 

 for the Mastership of University, that I took the question into 

 serious consideration and finally declined. 



But I was asked to consider the communication made to me 

 confidential, and I observed the condition strictly. The leakage 

 must have taken place among my Oxford friends, and is their 

 responsibility, but at the same time I would rather you did not 

 contribute to rumour on the subject. Of course I should have 

 told you if I had not been bound to reticence. 



I was greatly tempted for a short time by the prospect of 

 rest, but when I came to look into the matter closely there were 

 many disadvantages. I do not think I am cut out for a Don 

 nor your mother for a Donness we have had thirty years' free- 

 dom in London, and are too old to put in harness. 



Moreover, in a monetary sense I should have lost rather 

 than gained. 



My astonishment at the proposal was unfeigned, and I begin 

 to think I may yet be a Bishop. Ever your loving father, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



His other occupations this year were the Medical Acts 

 Commission, which sat until the following year, and the 

 International Medical Congress. 



The Congress detained him in London this summer later 

 than usual. It lasted from the 3rd to the Qth of August, 

 on which day he delivered a concluding address on " The 

 Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine " (Coll. 

 Ess. iii. p. 347). He showed how medicine was gradually 

 raised from mere empiricism and based upon true patho- 

 logical principles, through the independent growth of physi- 

 ological knowledge, and its correlation to chemistry and 

 physics. ' It is a peculiarity," he remarks, " of the physical 

 sciences that they are independent in proportion as they 

 are imperfect." Yet ' there could be no real science of 



