1888 ' TRUTHFULNESS IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ' 93 



discuss the question more at length and deal with sundry 

 topics put forward in your letter. At present writing is 

 a burden to me. 



A letter to Professor Eay Lankester mixes grave 

 and gay in a little homily, edged by personal experi- 

 ence, on the virtues and vices of combativeness. 



10 SoTJTHCLiFF Terrace, Eastbourne, 

 Dec. 6, 1888. 



I think it would be a very good thing both for you 

 and for Oxford if you went there. Oxford science 

 certainly wants stirring up, and notwithstanding your 

 increase in years and wisdom, I think you would bear 

 just a little more stirring down, so that the conditions 

 for a transfer of energy are excellent ! 



Seriously, I wish you would let an old man, who has 

 had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like 

 hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. 

 Science might say to you as the Staffordshire collier's 

 wife said to her husband at the fair, " Get thee foighten 

 done and come whoam." You have a fair expectation of 

 ripe vigour for twenty years ; just think what may be 

 done with that capital 



No use to tu quoque me. Under the circumstances of 

 the time, warfare has been my business and duty. — Ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



Two more letters of the year refer to the South 

 Kensington examinations, for which Huxley was 

 still nominally responsible. As before, we see him 

 reluctant to sign the report upon papers which he 

 had not himself examined ; yet at the same time 

 doing all that lay in his power to assist by criticising 

 the questions and thinking out the scheme of teaching 



