SCIENCE AND CULTURE 157 



was given at the Working Men's College (Coll. Essays, iv, 

 p. l). Zadig is the hero of a little romance written by 

 Voltaire, where he figures as a sort of Babylonian Sher- 

 lock Holmes. Cuvier alludes to Zadig in his great work 

 on Ossemens Fossiles. The object of Huxley's address is 

 to show that scientific method as practised by Cuvier 

 and scientists in general is no other than the method of 

 common sense applied by Zadig to matters unscientific. 



He also delivered the opening address for the Josiah 

 Mason Science College at Birmingham, on October i. 

 It was entitled ''Science and Culture" (Coll. Essays, iii, 

 p. 134). Priestley, as a Birmingham celebrity (whose 

 statue Huxley had unveiled in 1874, cf. p. 120), is 

 naturally mentioned at the beginning of the address. 

 Fame was not his chief desire, for the study of his life 

 leaves no doubt that he, — - 



"... set a much higher value upon advancement of know- 

 ledge, and the promotion of that freedom of thought which is 

 at once the cause and the consequence of intellectual progress." 



The foundation of Mason's College is regarded as an 

 important recognition of the claims of physical science, 

 and with special reference to the technical needs of 

 Birmingham, it is asserted that, — 



"... the diffusion of thorough scientific education is an 

 absolutely essential condition of industrial progress, and that the 

 College which has been opened to-day will confer an inestimable 

 boon upon those whose livelihood is to be gained by the practice 

 of the arts and manufactures of the district." 



The conditions of the endowment excluded party 

 politics, theology and " mere literary instruction and 

 education." Huxley expresses sympathy with the last 

 restriction, in so far as it means, — 



" The ordinary classical course of our schools and universities. 



