v'''. .''.i. - ', 't*-^. CJ-'„ ■?.-,-■ o>" ■ <^ "..t.^ 



CHAPTER XII 



CITIZEN, ORATOR, AND ESSAYIST 



Huxley's Activity in Public Affairs — Official iu Scientific So- 

 cieties — Royal Commissions — Vivisection — Characteris- 

 tics of his Public Speaking — His Method of Exposition — 

 His Essays — Vocabulary — Phrase-Making — His Style 

 Essentially one of Ideas. 



A GREAT body of fine work in science and litera- 

 ture has beeu'^rodticed bj^ persons who may be 

 described as typicall}^ academic. Such persons confine 

 their interest in life within the botindaries of their own 

 immediate purstiits ; they are absorbed so completely 

 by their avocations that the hurly-burl}- of the world 

 seems needlessly distracting and a little vulgar. No 

 doubt the thoughts of those who cry out most loudly 

 against disturbance by the intruding claims of the 

 world are, for the most part, hardly worth disturbing ; 

 the attitude to extrinsic things of those who are ab- 

 sorbed by their work is aped not infrequently by those 

 who are absorbed only in themselves. None the less it 

 is important to recognise that a genuine aversion from 

 affairs is characteristic of many fine original investi- 

 gators, and it is on stich persons that the idea of the 

 simple and childlike nature of philosophers, a simplicity 

 often reaching real incapacity for the affairs of life, is 



204 



