May 3, 1900] 



NA TURE 



celebration would have been no less dear to Huxley's fellow- 

 worker and friend, the late director of this museum, Sir William 

 Flower, who unhappily is no longer with us to witness the com- 

 pletion of the memorial statue which he, especially, desired to 

 see placed in this hall. 



A few months after Prof. Huxley's death in 1895, a committee 

 was formed for the purpose of establishing a memorial of the 

 great naturalist and teacher. At a meeting of that committee, 

 held on November 27, 1895, at which 250 members were pre- 

 sent, and at which his Grace the Duke of Devonshire presided, 

 the following resolution was carried : — 



'* That the memorial do take the form of a statue, to be 

 placed in the Museum of Natural History, and a medal 

 m connection with the Royal College of Science ; and 

 that the surplus be devoted to the furtherance of bio- 

 logical science in some manner to be hereafter deter- 

 mined by the committee, dependent upon the amount 

 collected." 



From all parts of the world, besides our own country, from 

 every State of Europe, from India and the remotest Colonies, and 

 from the United States of America, subscriptions have been re- 

 ceived for the Huxley memorial, amounting in all to more than 

 3380/. 



Three years ago the committee commissioned and obtained the 

 execution of a medal bearing the portrait of Huxley, and has 

 established its presentation as a distinguished reward in the Royal 

 College of Science. The re-pubiication of the complete series 

 of Huxley's scientific memoirs, which was proposed as one of 

 the memorials to be carried out by the committee, has been 

 undertaken by Messrs. Macmillan, without assistance from the 

 committee. I am glad to be able to state that two large volumes 

 of these richly illustrated contributions to science have been 

 already published. 



Whilst these other memorials were in progress under the 

 auspices of the executive committee, they secured the services 

 of Mr. Onslow Ford, R.A. , to execute the statue which it had 

 been decided by the general committee to regard as the chief 

 object of the subscriptions entrusted to them. On the com- 

 pletion of the statue, the trustees of the British Museum agreed 

 to receive it and to place it in the great hall where we are now 

 assembled. 



On behalf of the vast body of subscribers to the memorial, 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, Huxley's oldest and closest friend, himself 

 the survivor of that distinguished group of naturalists, including 

 Charles Lyell, Richard Owen and Charles Darwin, who shed 

 so much lustre on English science in the Victorian age, will 

 hand over the statue of Huxley to the trustees of the British 

 Museum. Your Royal Highness has been graciously pleased, as 

 one of the trustees, to represent them on the present occasion, 

 and to receive the statue on their behalf. The memorial statue 

 of Huxley is the expression of the admiration, not only of the 

 English people, but of the whole civilised world, for one who as 

 discoverer, teacher, writer and man, must be reckoned among 

 the greatest figures in the records of our age. 



Sir Joseph Hooker then stepped forward from among the 

 committee, and presented the statue in the following words : — 



May fr Please Your Royal Highness, — I have the honour 

 of being deputed, by the subscribers to the statue of my friend 

 the late Prof. Huxley, to offer it to your Royal Highness, 

 n behalf of the trustees of the British Museum, with the intent 

 that it should be retained in this noble hall as a companion to 

 the statues of Prof. Huxley's distinguished predecessors, Sir 

 Joseph Banks, Mr. Darwin and Sir Richard Owen. It would be 

 a work of supererogation, even were I competent to do so, to 

 Iwell upon Prof. Huxley's claims to so great an honour, whether 

 as a profound scientific investigator of the first rank, as a teacher, 

 or as a public servant ; but I may be allowed to indicate a 

 parallelism between his career and those of two of the eminent 

 naturalists to whom I have alluded, which appears to me to afford 

 an additional argument in favourof retaining hisstatue in proximity 

 to theirs. Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Darwin and Prof. Huxley all 

 entered upon their eff"ective scientific careers by embarking on 

 voyages of circumnavigation for the purpose of discovery and 

 research under the flag of the Royal Navy. Sir Joseph Banks 

 and Prof. Huxley were both Presidents of the Royal Society, were 

 both trustees of the British Museum ; and, what is more notable 

 by far, so highly were their scientific .services estimated by the 

 Crown and their country, that they both attained to the rare 

 honour of being called to seats in the Privy Councils of their 

 respective Sovereigns. 



NO. 1592. V^OL. 62] 



With these few words I would ask your Royal Highness 

 graciously to accede to the prayer of the subscribers to this 

 statue, and receive it on behalf of the trustees of the British 

 Museum. 



He was followed by Sir Michael Foster, who pronounced the 

 following ^loge on Huxley's work and influence : — 



May it Please Your Royal Highness, — Before you 

 unveil this statue it is my duty and privilege to add a few words 

 to those which have just been spoken by the beloved Nestor of 

 biological science. Sir Joseph D. Hooker, born before Huxley 

 was born, a sworn comrade of his in the battle of science, 

 standing by him and helping him like a brother all through his 

 strenuous life, may perhaps be allowed to shrink from saying 

 what he thinks of the great work which Huxley did. 



We of the younger generations, Huxley's children in science, 

 who know full well that anything we may have been able to do 

 springs from what he did for us, cannot on this great occasion 

 be wholly silent. 



Some of us have at times thought that Huxley gave up for 

 mankind much which was meant for the narrower sphere of 

 science ; but if science may seem to have been thereby the 

 loser, mankind was certainly the gainer : and indeed it was a 

 gain to science itself to be taught that her interests were not 

 hers alone, and that not by one tie or by two, but by many 

 was her welfare bound up with the common good of all. 



To many perhaps the great man whose memory we are here 

 met to honour was known chiefly as the brilliant expositor of 

 the far-reaching views of that other great man who through his 

 statue is nosv looking down upon us. Your Royal Highness is 

 doubtless at this moment thinking of that interesting occasion, 

 fifteen years ago, when you unveiled that statue of Darwin, and 

 you are calling to mind the weighty words then spoken by him 

 whose own statue brings us here to-day. 



Huxley it is true fought for Darwin, and indeed "he was 

 ever a fighter." But he fought not that Darwin might prevail ; 

 he fought for this alone— that the views which Darwin had 

 brought forward might be examined solely by the clear light of 

 truth, untroubled by the passion of party or by the prejudice o 

 preconceived opinion. As he never claimed for those views the 

 infallibility of a new gospel, so he always demanded that they 

 should not be peremptorily set aside as already proved to be 

 wrong. 



Huxley worked for his fellow men in many ways other than 

 the way of quiet scientific research. Had we not known this 

 we should have thought that his whole life had been given up 

 to original scientific investigation, so much has the progress of 

 biologic science, since he put his hand to it, been due to his 

 labours. On the sands of many a track of biologic inquiry he 

 has left his footprint, and his footprint has ever been to those 

 coming after him a token to press on vvith courage and with 

 hope. The truths with which he enriched science are made 

 known in his written works ; but that is a part only of what he 

 did for science. No younger man, coming to him for help and 

 guidance, ever went empty away ; and we all — anatomists, 

 zoologists, geologists, physiologists, botanists, and anthropolo- 

 gists—came to him. The biologists of to-day, all of us, not of 

 this country alone, but of the whole world of science, forming, 

 as it were, a scattered fleeting monument of this great man, are 

 proud at the unveiling of this visible lasting statue here. 



In conclusion. Sir M. Foster, facing the Prince, added the 

 words : — May I crave your Royal Highness's permission to seize 

 this opportunity to assure you incidentally, but none the less 

 from the bottom of our hearts, on the part of men of science 

 that we, in common with all Her Majesty's subjects, are rejoicing 

 that you escaped the dreadful peril to which a few days back 

 you were exposed, and to express to you our continued esteem 

 and respect ? 



On Sir M. Foster's return to his seat among the committee, 

 the Duke of Devonshire, speaking from in front of the veiled 

 statue, said he had the honour nearly five years ago of presiding 

 over the committee formed for the purpose of establishing a 

 memorial to Prof. Huxley. He had now to report to his 

 Royal Highness that the labours of that committee had ter- 

 minated, and to say that the committee desired to present the 

 statue to his Royal Highness on behalf of the trustees of the 

 British Museum. They felt, however, that the real memorial 

 to the deceased man of science was to be found in the writings 

 which had already been referred to, and still more in the 

 scientific work he accomplished or helped to promote, and in 

 the influence he exercised and was still exercising upon the 



