172 Thomas Henry Huxley 



nature. A traveller set down in a foreign land will at 

 once get into difficulties unless he has provided him- 

 self with a guide to the geograph)-, the manners and 

 customs, and the regulations of the country in which 

 he finds himself. Huxley's aim was to provide a 

 .similar guide to nature ; an outline of elementary 

 knowledge of the world into which we all come as 

 strangers. He wrote of force and energy, of the forms 

 of water, of heat and cold, of the atmosphere, of winds 

 and tides and weather, and of the main features of the 

 lives of plants and animals. There was nothing new 

 in what he wrote ; he simply took from the chief 

 sciences their leading principles and elementary facts, 

 and set them forth in plain and simple language so 

 that all could read and miderstand. The novelty was 

 that an attempt should be made to bring the.se facts 

 within the reach of all. The idea proved extremely 

 infectious ; in Europe and America, in many languages 

 and by many authors, Huxley's main lines were fol- 

 lowed, with the result that a new branch of education, 

 and almost of science, was created. 



The bod}^ of man and the processes of life, in the 

 earlier part of the century, were almost as unknown 

 to most people as were the structure of the earth and 

 the great proce.s.ses of nature. What was known of 

 human anatomy and physiology was contained in 

 ponderous treatises, written in difficult and technical 

 language suitable only for students of medicine and 

 doctors. It was thought to be not only unnecessary 

 but slightly coarse for those not in the profession to 

 know anything of the viscera of digestion, circulation, 

 and so forth, Huxley laid low this great superstition 

 by his Elementary Lessons m Physiology, a little vol- 

 ume first published in 1S66, which ran through many 



