LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. HI 



In case we should miss one another to-day, let me say that 

 it is impossible for me to undertake the obituary in Nature. I 

 have a conglomeration of business of various kinds upon my 

 hands just now. I am sure it will be very safe in your hands. 

 Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



Pray do what you will with what I have written in Nature. 



4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE, May 9, 1882. 



MY DEAR ROMANES I feel it very difficult to offer any useful 

 criticism on what you have written about Darwin, because, 

 although it does not quite please me, I cannot exactly say how 

 I think it might be improved. My own way is to write and re- 

 write things, until by some sort of instinctive process they ac- 

 quire the condensation and symmetry which satisfies me. And 

 I really could not say how my original drafts are improved 

 until they somehow improve themselves. 



Two things however strike me. I think there is too much 

 of the letter about Henslow. I should be disposed to quote only 

 the most characteristic passages. 



The other point is that I think strength would be given to 

 your panegyric by a little pruning here and there. 



I am not likely to take a low view of Darwin's position in 

 the history of science, but I am disposed to think that Buffon 

 and Lamarck would run him hard in both genius and fertility. 

 In breadth of view and in extent of knowledge these two men 

 were giants, though we are apt to forget their services. Von 

 Bar was another man of the same stamp ; Cuvier, in a somewhat 

 lower rank, another; and J. Miiller another. 



" Colossal " does not seem to me to be the right epithet for 

 Darwin's intellect. He had a clear rapid intelligence, a great 

 memory, a vivid imagination, and what made his greatness was 

 the strict subordination of all these to his love of truth. 



But you will be tired of my carping, and you had much 

 better write what seems right and just to yourself. Ever yours 

 very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



Two scientific papers published this year were on sub- 

 jects connected with his work on the fisheries, one ' A 

 contribution to the Pathology of the Epidemic, known as 

 the ' Salmon Disease ' read before the Royal Society on 

 the occasion of the Prince of Wales being admitted a Fellow 

 (February 21; Proc. Roy. Soc. xxxiii. pp. 381-389); the 



