XV 



SINCERITY , 361 



Huxley was so reserved on this subject in his lectures 

 that, speaking one day of a species forming a transition 

 between two others, he immediately added : — 



" When I speak of transition I do not in the least 

 mean to say that one species turned into a second to 

 develop thereafter into a third. What I mean is, that the 

 characters of the second are intermediate between those of 

 the two others. It is as if I were to say that such a 

 Cathedral, Canterbury, for example, is a.transition between 

 York Minster and Westminster Abbey. No one would ima- 

 gine, on hearing the word transition, that a transmutation 

 of these buildings actually took place from one into other." ^ 



But to return to his reply : — 



" Here in my teaching lectures (he said to nie) I have 

 time to put the facts fully before a trained audience. In 

 my public lectures I am obliged to pass rapidly over the 

 facts, and I put forward my personal convictions. And 

 it is for this that people come to hear me." 



As to the question whether children should be 

 brought up in entire disregard to the beliefs rejected 

 by himself, but still current among the mass of his 

 fellow-countrymen, he was of opinion that they ought 

 to know " the mythology of their time and country," 

 otherwise one would at the best tend to make young 

 prigs of them ; but as they grew up their questions 

 should be answered frankly.^ 



The natural tendency to veracity, strengthened by 

 the observation of the opposite quality in one with 



^ Doubtless in connection with the familiar warniuc; that 

 intermediate types are not necessarily links in the direct line of 

 descent. 



^ The wording of a paragraph in Professor Mivart's " Reminis- 

 cences " (Nineteenth Century, December 1897, p. 993), tends, I 

 think, to leave a wrong impression on this point. 



