388 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



who know this distinguished man of science so remarkable 

 for his intellectual vigor only from his writings, the im- 

 pression would be gleaned that he was one of the most inde- 

 pendent of thinkers, and that his utterances on all sub- 

 jects were absolutely personal and entirely unmodified by 

 suggestion or criticism from any quarter. 



How far this view is from being correct is found in the 

 statement by his son that his father "invariably submitted 

 his writings to the criticism of his wife before they were 

 seen by any other eye. To her judgment was due the 

 toning down of many a passage which erred by excess of 

 vigor, and the clearing up of phrases which would be ob- 

 scure to the public. In fact, if any essay met with her 

 approval, he felt sure it would not fail of its effect when 

 published." 1 She was not only his "help and stay for 

 forty years ; in his struggles ready to counsel, in adversity 

 to comfort/ ' but, over and above this, she was "the critic 

 whose judgment he valued above almost any, and whose 

 praise he cared most to win" the other self who made 

 his life work possible. 2 



An intelligent, sympathetic pair of this kind and this, 

 as we have seen, is but one of a multitude which illumi- 

 nates and beautifies the history of science are competent 

 to achieve wonders. They are like "the two-celled heart 

 beating with one full stroke" 



"Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 

 Of science, and the secrets of the mind." 



The woman is then truly, as De Lamennais in Scriptural 

 phrases has it, * * Man 's companion, man 's assistant, bone of 

 his bone and flesh of his flesh," and, in her sublime and 

 endearing character so complete in every relation of life, 



iLife and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, by his son Leonard 

 Huxley, Vol. I, p. 324, New York, 1900. 

 2 Ibid., p. 39, Vol. II, p. 458. 



