INTRODUCTION v 



Of his life after the completion of his medical course, 

 of his search for work, of his appointment as assistant 

 surgeon on board the Rattlesnake, and of his search 

 scientific work during the four years' cruise, forwort 

 Huxley gives a vivid description in the autobiography. As 

 a result of his investigations on this voyage, he published 

 various essays which quickly secured for him a position in 

 the scientific world as a naturalist of the first rank. A 

 testimony of the value of this work was his election to 

 membership in the Royal Society. 



Although Huxley had now, at the age of twenty-six, 

 won distinction in science, he soon discovered that it was 

 not so easy to earn bread thereby. Nevertheless, to earn 

 a living was most important if he were to accomplish the 

 two objects which he had in view. He wished, in the first 

 place, to marry Miss Henrietta Heathorn of Sydney, to 

 whom he had become engaged when on the cruise with the 

 Rattlesnake ; his second object was to follow science as a 

 profession. The struggle to find something connected with 

 science which would pay was long and bitter ; and only 

 a resolute determination to win kept Huxley from aban- 

 doning it altogether. Uniform ill-luck met him everywhere. 

 He has told in his autobiography of his troubles with the 

 Admiralty in the endeavor to get his papers published, 

 and of his failure there. He applied for a position to teach 

 science in Toronto ; being unsuccessful in this attempt, 

 he applied successively for various professorships in the 

 United Kingdom, and in this he was likewise unsuccessful. 

 Some of his friends urged him to hold out, but others 

 thought the fight an unequal one, and advised him to emi- 

 grate to Australia. He himself was tempted to practice 

 medicine in Sydney ; but to give up his purpose seemed to 

 him like cowardice. On the other hand, to prolong the 

 struggle indefinitely when he might quickly earn a living 

 in other ways seemed like selfishness and an injustice to 

 the woman to whom he had been for a long time engaged. 

 Miss Heathorn, however, upheld him in his determination 

 to pursue science ; and his sister also, he writes, cheered him 

 by her advice and encouragement to persist in the struggle. 



