154 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, ix 



It is rarely worth while to notice criticism, but when a good 

 chance of exposing one of these anonymous libellers who dis- 

 grace literature occurs, it is a public duty to avail oneself of it. 



Oddly enough, I have recently been performing a similar 

 " haute ceuvre." The most violent, base, and ignorant of all the 

 attacks on Darwin at the time of the publication of the " Origin 

 of Species " appeared in the Quarterly Review of that time ; and 

 I have built the reviewer a gibbet as high as Hainan's. 



All good men and true should combine to stop this system of 

 literary moonlighting. I am yours very faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



As for the incitement to answer Mr. Lilly, Mr. Spencer 

 writes from Brighton on November 3 : 



I have no doubt your combative instincts have been stirred 

 within you as you read Mr. Lilly's article, " Materialism and 

 Morality," in which you and I are dealt with after the ordinary 

 fashion popular with the theologians, who practically say, <! You 

 shall be materialists whether you like it or not." I should not be 

 sorry if you yielded to those promptings of your combative in- 

 stinct. Now that you are a man of leisure there is no reason 

 why you should not undertake any amount of fighting, providing 

 always that you can find foemen worthy of your steel. . . . 



I remember that last year you found intellectual warfare 

 good for your health, so I have no qualms of conscience in mak- 

 ing the suggestion. 



To this he replies on the 7th : 



Your stimulation of my combative instincts is downright 

 wicked. I will not look at the Fortnightly article lest I succumb 

 to temptation. At least not yet. The truth is that these cursed 

 irons of mine, that have always given me so much trouble, will 

 put themselves in the fire, when I am not thinking about them. 

 There are three or four already. 



On November 21 Mr. Spencer sends him more proofs 

 of his autobiography, dealing with his early life : 



See what it is to be known as an omnivorous reader you 

 get no mercy shown you. A man who is ready for anything, 

 from a fairy tale to a volume of metaphysics, is naturally one who 

 will make nothing of a fragment of a friend's autobiography ! 



To this he replies on the 25th : 



