Royal Commissions 205 



based. There was no trace of this natural isolation in 

 the character of Huxley. He was not only a serious 

 student of science but a keen and zealous citizen, 

 eagerly conscious of the great social and political move- 

 ments around him, with the full sense that he was a 

 man living in society with other men and that there 

 was a business of life as well as a business of the labor- 

 atory. We have seen with what zeal he brought his 

 trained intelligence to bear not only on his own province 

 of scientific education, but on the wider problems of 

 general education, and yet the time he gave to these 

 was only a small part of that which he spared from ab- 

 stract science for affairs. In scientific institutions as 

 in others, there is always a considerable amount of 

 business, involving the management of men and the 

 management of money, and Huxley's readiness and 

 aptitude led to his being largely occupied with these. 

 For many years he was Dean of the Royal College of 

 Science at South Kensington, and for a considerable 

 time he served the Geological Society and the Royal 

 Society as secretary. In all these posts, Huxley dis- 

 played great capacity as a leader of men and as a man- 

 ager of affairs, and contributed largely to the successful 

 working of the institutions which he served. 



In England, when troublesome questions press and 

 seem to call for new legislation, it frequently happens 

 that the collection and sifting of evidence preliminary 

 to legislation is a task for which the methods and rou- 

 tine of Parliament are unsuitable. The Queen, acting 

 through her responsible advisers, appoints a Royal 

 Commission, consisting of a small body of men, to 

 which is entrusted the preliminary task of collecting 

 and weighing evidence, or of making recommendations 

 on evidence already collected. To such honourable 



