iSSy LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF RIPON 



put into half-a-dozen sentences, up to the level of your vigorous 

 English, a statement that shall be unassailable from the point of 

 view of a scientific fault-finder which shall be intelligible to 

 the general public and yet accurate. 



I have made several attempts and enclose the final result. 

 I think the substance is all right, and though the form might 

 certainly be improved, I leave that to you. When I get to a 

 certain point of tinkering my phrases I have to put them aside 

 for a day or two. 



Will you allow me to suggest that it might be better not to 

 name any living man? The temple of modern science has been 

 the work of many labourers not only in our own but in other 

 countries. Some have been more busy in shaping and laying the 

 stones, some in keeping off the Sanballats, some prophetwise in 

 indicating the course of the science of the future. It would be 

 hard to say who has done best service. As regards Dr. Joule, 

 for example, no doubt he did more than any one to give the doc- 

 trine of the conservation of energy precise expression, but 

 Mayer and others run him hard. 



Of deceased Englishmen who belong to the first half of the 

 Victorian epoch, I should say that Faraday, Lyell, and Darwin 

 had exerted the greatest influence, and all three were models 

 of the highest and best class of physical philosophers. 



As for me, in part from force of circumstance and in part 

 from a conviction I could be of most use in that way, I have 

 played the part of something between maid-of-all-work and 

 gladiator-general for Science, and deserve no such prominence 

 as your kindness has assigned to me. With our united kind 

 regards to Mrs. Carpenter and yourself, ever yours very faith- 



full y' T. H. HUXLEY. ! 



A brief note, also, to Lady Welby, dated July 25, is 

 characteristic of his attitude towards unverified speculation. 



I have looked through the paper you have sent me, but I 

 cannot undertake to give any judgment upon it. Speculations 

 such as you deal with are quite out of my way. I get lost the 

 moment I lose touch of valid fact and incontrovertible demon- 

 stration and find myself wandering among large propositions, 

 which may be quite true but which would involve me in months 

 of work if I were to set myself seriously to find out whether, 

 and in what sense, they are true. Moreover, at present, what 

 little energy I possess is mortgaged to quite other occupations. 



