INTRODUCTION 



The following remarkable discourse was originally delivered in Edin- 

 burgh, Nov. 18th, 1868, as the first of a series of Sunday evening addresses, 

 upon non-religious topics, instituted by the Rev. J. Cranbrook. It was 

 subsequently published in London as the leading article in the FortnigMly 

 Review, for February, 1869, and attracted so much attention that five edi- 

 tions of that number of the magazine have already been issued. It is now 

 re-printed in this country, in permanent form, for the first time, and will 

 doubtless prove of great interest to American readers. The author is 

 Thomas Henry Huxley, of London, Prof, of Natural History in the Royal 

 School of Mines, and of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal 

 College of Surgeons. He is also President of the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don. Although comparatively a young man, his numerous and valuable 

 contributions to Natural Science entitle him to be considered one of the 

 first of living Naturalists, especially in the departments of Geology and 

 Palaeontology, to which he has mainly devoted himself. He is un- 

 doubtedly the ablest English advocate of Darwin's theory of the Origin of 

 Species, particularly with reference to its application to the human race, 

 which he believes to be nearly related to the higher apes. It is, indeed, 

 through his discussion of this question that he is, perhaps, best known to 

 the general public, as his late work entitled " Man's Place in Nature," and 



