IlS LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, vn 



may be induced to defer the " happy dispatch " for, say at least 

 ten years, when the subject may again come up for considera- 

 tion. For your petitioners are respectfully inclined to think that 

 if your sixtyship may be induced so far to become an apostle as 

 to give up the fishery business, and be led to leave the Black 

 Board at S.K. to others, the t'other side sixty years, may after 

 all be the best years of your life. In any case they would desire 

 to bring under your notice the fact that they feel they want you 

 as much as ever they did. Ever thine, M. F. 



Reference has been made to the fact that the honorary 

 degree of D.C.L. was conferred this May upon Huxley by 

 the University of Oxford. The Universities of the sister 

 kingdoms had been the first thus to recognise his work; 

 and after Aberdeen and Dublin, Cambridge, where natural 

 science had earlier established a firm foothold, showed the 

 way to Oxford. Indeed, it was not until his regular scien- 

 tific career was at an end, that the University of Oxford 

 opened its portals to him. So, as he wrote to Professor 

 Bartholomew Price on May 20, in answer to the invitation, 

 * It will be a sort of apotheosis coincident with my official 

 death, which is imminent. In fact, I am dead already, only 

 the Treasury Charon has not yet settled the conditions upon 

 which I am to be ferried over to the other side." 



Before leaving the subject of his connection with the 

 Royal Society, it may be worth while to give a last exam- 

 ple of the straightforward way in which he dealt with a 

 delicate point whether to vote or not to vote for his friend 

 Sir Andrew Clark who had been proposed for election to 

 the Society. It occurred just after his return from abroad ; 

 he explains his action to Sir Joseph Hooker, who had urged 

 caution on hearing a partial account of the proceedings. 



SOUTH KENSINGTON, April 25, 1885. 



MY DEAR HOOKER I don't see very well how I could have 

 been more cautious than I have been. I knew nothing of Clark's 

 candidature until I saw his name in the list; and if he or his 

 proposer had consulted me, I should have advised delay, because 



I knew very well there would be a great push made for : this 



year. 



Being there, however, it seemed to me only just to say that 



