The Teachings of Thomas Henry Huxley 



PAKT I. 



THE MAN. 



In the bestowal of her gifts Nature is often 

 accused of the most unequivocal partiality. 

 This, of course, on the part of those who 

 imagine themselves to have been slighted by 

 the gentle Benefactress, and who, in the absence 

 of any degree of success in their various call- 

 ings, choose to find a cause in the uncontroll- 

 able, rather than in those material affairs which 

 lie close at hand and for which Man is himself 

 directly responsible. I would not have it in- 

 ferred from this that Nature is not at all re- 

 sponsible for success in life as viewed by our 

 human sense or that "Every man is the arch- 

 itect of his own fortune," as the old debating 

 societies used to phrase it; nor do I believe the 

 equally unreasonable dictum of Rousseau that 

 "All men are created free and equal" — a doc- 

 trine so ably combated by the subject of this 

 sketch. There are, however, men of great at- 



