262 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xv 



ever." This was to his mind one of those instances of wrong 

 thinking which lead to wrong acting the postulating a 

 general principle based upon insufficient data, and the de- 

 duction from it of many and far-reaching practical conse- 

 quences. This he had always strongly opposed. His essay 

 of 1871, ' Administrative Nihilism," was directed against 

 a priori individualism ; and now he proceeded to restate 

 the arguments against a priori political reasoning in gen- 

 eral, which seemed to have been forgotten or overlooked, 

 especially by the advocates of compulsory socialism. And 

 here it is possible to show in some detail the care he took, 

 as was his way, to refresh his knowledge and bring it up 

 to date, before writing on any special point. It is interest- 

 ing to see how thoroughly he went to work, even in a 

 subject with which he was already fairly acquainted. As 

 in the controversy of 1889 I find a list of near a score of 

 books consulted, so here one note-book contains an analysis 

 of the origin and early course of the French Revolution, 

 especially in relation to the speculations of the theorists ; 

 the declaration of the rights of man in 1789 is followed by 

 parallels from Mably's Droits ct Devoirs dit Citoyen and De 

 la Legislation, and by a full transcript of the 1793 Declara- 

 tion, with notes on Robespierre's speech at the Convention 

 a fortnight later. There are copious notes from Dunoyer, 

 who is quoted in the article, while the references to Roc- 

 quain's Esprit Rcvolutioniiiare led to an English translation 

 of the work being undertaken, to which he contributed 

 a short preface in 1891. 



It was the same with other studies. He loved to vis- 

 ualise his object clearly. The framework of what he wished 

 to say would always be drawn out first. In any historical 

 matter he always worked with a map. In natural history 

 he well knew the importance of studying distribution and 

 its bearing upon other problems ; in civil history he would 

 draw maps to illustrate either the conditions of a period or 

 the spread of a civilising nation. For instance, among 

 sketches of the sort which remain, I have one of the Hel- 

 lenic world, marked off in 25-mile circles from Delos as 

 centre ; and a similar one for the Phoenician world, starting 



