12 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



the features of the far-off horizon where the 

 known makes clouds out of the unknown; but to 

 him that beauty belonged to that far-off horizon 

 alone; in things within the focus of intellectual 

 vision beauty lay in clear and well-defined 

 images; whatever came before him with its out- 

 lines blurred by imperfect comprehension, loose 

 expression, and vague presentation, was to him 

 something ugly. It was this combination of 

 wide and varied knowledge with a love of exact 

 and rigorous thinking which gave to him, so it 

 seems to me, his worth and influence as a man of 

 science. Circumstances led him to find a sphere 

 for his scientific activity in that branch of science 

 which, under the name of Comparative Anatomy, 

 or Animal Morphology, deals with the multi- 

 farious forms of the living beings which we call 

 animals. His early wish had been to become an 

 engineer, busying himself with machines; turned 

 away from this by fate, he had wished to give 

 himself to the somewhat allied science of physi- 

 ology, which deals with animals as machines. 

 But this also was not to be; he was driven to 

 devote himself to a branch of science which was 

 not his first love, and for which he was in some 

 respects less fitted. Any lack of fitness, however, 

 which there might have been was soon lost sight 

 of amid the many and great products of his 

 labours. 



In each science progress appears as a series of 

 steps, each step being marked by the appearance 



