i8 9 3 THE ROMANES LECTURE 375 



Press to be a subsidiary request to which he gladly assented. 

 However, a satisfactory arrangement was speedily arrived 

 at with the publishers ; Huxley remarking : 



" All I have to say is, do not let the University be in any way 

 a loser by the change. If the V.-C. thinks there is any risk of 

 this, I will gladly add to what Macmillan pays. That matter 

 can be settled between us." 



However, he had not forgotten the limitation of his sub- 

 ject in respect of religion and politics, and he repeatedly 

 refers to his careful avoidance of these topics as an " egg- 

 dance." And wishing to reassure Mr. Romanes on this 

 head, he writes on April 22 : 



There is no allusion to politics in my lecture, nor to any 

 religion except Buddhism, and only to the speculative and ethical 

 side of that. If people apply anything I say about these matters 

 to modern philosophies, except evolutionary speculation, and 

 religions, that is not my affair. To be honest, however, unless 

 I thought they would, I should never have taken all the pains I 

 have bestowed on these 36 pages. 



But these words conjured up terrible possibilities, and 

 Mr. Romanes wrote back in great alarm to ask the exact 

 state of the case. The two following letters show that the 

 alarm was groundless : 



HODESLEA, April 26, 1893. 



MY DEAR ROMANES I fear, or rather hope, that I have given 

 you a very unnecessary scare. 



You may be quite sure, I think, that, while I should have 

 refused to give the lecture if any pledge of a special character 

 had been proposed to me, I have felt very strongly bound to 

 you to take the utmost care that no shadow of a just cause for 

 offence should be given, even to the most orthodox of Dons. 



It seems to me that the best thing I can do is to send you the 

 lecture as it stands, notes and all. But please return it within 

 two days at furthest, and consider it strictly confidential between 

 us two (I am not excluding Mrs. Romanes, if she cares to look 

 at the paper). No consideration would induce me to give any 

 ground for the notion that I had submitted the lecture to anyone 

 but yourself. 



If there is any phrase in the lecture which you think likely 

 to get you into trouble, out it shall come or be modified in form. 



