IV MODERN EVOLUTION 187 



Nevertheless, when all is said upon this subject 

 of personal disillusioning, and upon the inevitable 

 modifications which will be made in the Synthetic 

 Philosophy, it remains true that Spencer's work, in 

 its large results, will abide while the world stands : 

 the gates of prejudice, passion, and ignorance ' shall 

 not prevail against it/ 



3. Thomas Henry Huxley. 



THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY was born at Ealing, on 

 the fourth of May 1825. Montaigne tells us that he 

 was ' borne between eleven of the clock and noone/ 

 and, with like quaint precision, Huxley gives the 

 hour of his birth as ' about eight o'clock in the 

 morning/ Speaking of his first Christian name, he 

 humorously said that, by curious chance, his parents 

 chose that of the particular apostle with whom, as 

 the doubting member of the twelve, he had always 

 felt most sympathy. 



Concerning his father, who was ' one of the 

 masters in a large semi-public school ' (the father 

 of Herbert Spencer, it will be remembered, was 

 also a schoolmaster), Huxley has little to say in 

 the slight autobiographical sketch reprinted as an 

 introduction to the first volume of the Collected 

 Essays. On that side, he tells us, he could find 

 hardly any trace in himself, except a certain faculty 

 for drawing, and a certain hotness of temper. ' Phys- 

 ically and mentally/ he was the son of his mother, 

 ' a slender brunette, of an emotional and energetic 

 temperament/ His school training was brief and 

 profitless ; his tastes were mechanical^ and but for 



