viii INTRODUCTION 



seeing Carlyle on the other side of the street, a broken, 

 pathetic figure, walked over and spoke to him. The old 

 man merely remarked, " You 're Huxley, are n't you ? the 

 man that says we are all descended from monkeys," and 

 passed on. Huxley, however, saw nothing degrading to 

 man's dignity in the theory of evolution. In a wonderfully 

 fine sentence he gives his own estimate of the theory as it 

 affects man's future on earth. " Thoughtful men once es- 

 caped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudices, 

 will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung the 

 best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will 

 discover, in his long progress through the past, a reasonable 

 ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future." As 

 a result of all these controversies on The Origin of Species 

 and of investigations to uphold Darwin's theory, Huxley 

 wrote his first book, already mentioned, Man's Place in 

 Nature. 



To read a list of the various kinds of work which Hux- 

 ley was doing from 1870 to 1875 is to be convinced of his 

 Establiali. abundant energy and many interests. At about 

 xnent oi this time Huxley executed the plan which he 

 toriM. had had in mind for a long time, the establish- 



ment of laboratories for the use of students. His object 

 was to furnish a more exact preliminary training. He com- 

 plains that the student who enters the medical school is 

 ' ' so habituated to learn only from books, or oral teaching, 

 that the attempt to learn from things and to get his know- 

 ledge at first hand is something new and strange." To 

 make this method of teaching successful in the schools, 

 Huxley gave practical instruction in laboratory work to 

 school-masters. 



" If I am to be remembered at all," Huxley once wrote, 

 " I would rather it should be as a man who did his best 

 to help the people than by any other title." Certainly as 

 much of his time as could be spared from his regular work 

 was given to help others. His lectures to workingmen 

 and school-masters have already been mentioned. In addi- 

 tion, he lectured to women on physiology and to children 

 on elementary science. In order to be of greater service to 



