1894 RE\nEW OF 'COLLECTED ESSAYS ' 319 



unexpected apologies or protesting that he is of a modest 

 and peace-loving nature. At the same time, one becomes 

 accustomed to a rare and delightful phenomenon. Every- 

 thing which has entered the author's brain by eye or eai-, 

 whether of recondite philosophy, biological fact, or political 

 programme, comes out again to us • — clarified, sifted, 

 arranged, and vivified by its passage through the logical 

 machine of his strong individuality. 



Of the artist in him it continues : — 



He deals with form not only as a mechanical engineer 

 in partibus (Huxlej'^s own description of himself), but also 

 as an artist, a born lover of form, a character which others 

 recognise in him though he does not himself set it dowTi 

 in his analysis. 



The essay on " Animal Automatism " suggested a 

 reminiscence of Professor Lankester's as to the way 

 in which it was delivered, and this in turn led to 

 Huxley's own account of the incident in the letter 

 given in vol. ii. p. 134. 



About the same time there is a letter acknow- 

 ledging Mr. Bateson's book On Variation, which is 

 interesting as touching on the latter-day habit of 

 speculation apart from fact which had begun to 

 prevail in biology : — 



HoDESLEA, Feb. 20, 1894. 



My dear Mr. Bateson — I have put off thanking you 

 for the volume On Variation which you have been so 

 good as to send me in the hope that I should be able to 

 look into it before doing so. 



But as I find that impossible, beyond a hasty glance, 

 at present, I must content myself with saying how glad I 

 am to see from that glance that we are getting back from 

 the region of speculation into that of fact again. 



