PREFACE 



THIS volume is in no sense an intimate or author- 

 ised biography of Huxle)-. It is simply an out- 

 line of the external features of his life and an account 

 of his contributions to biology, to educational and 

 social problems, and to philosophy and metaphysics. 

 In preparing it, I have been indebted to his own 

 Autobiography, to the obituary notice written by Sir 

 Michael Foster for the Royal Society of London, to a 

 sketch of him by Professor Howes, his successor at the 

 Royal College of Science, and to his published works. 

 The latter consist of many well-known separate vol- 

 umes which are familiar to all zoologists, and of a vast 

 number of memoirs and essays scattered in various 

 scientific and general publications. The general Essays 

 were collected into nine volumes, revised by himself 

 in the later years of his life, and published by Messrs. 

 Macmillan. The Scientific Memoirs, thanks to the 

 generous enterprise of the same publishing firm, with 

 which he was so long associated, and to the pious 

 labours of Sir Michael Foster and Professor Ray 

 Lankester, are in process of reissue in the form of four 

 volumes, two of which have now appeared. These will 

 contain all his important contributions to science, with 

 the exception of a large separate treatise on the Oceanic 



