

CHAPTEK I 

 1870 



WITH the year 1870 comes another turning-point in 

 Huxley's career. From his return to England in 

 1850 till 1854 he had endured four years of hard 

 struggle, of hope deferred ; his reputation as a 

 zoologist had been established before his arrival, and 

 was more than confirmed by his personal energy and 

 power. When at length settled in the professorship 

 at Jermyn Street, he was so far from thinking him- 

 self more than a beginner who had learned to work 

 in one corner of the field of knowledge, still needing 

 deep research into all kindred subjects in order to 

 know the true bearings of his own little portion, 

 that . he treated the next six years simply as years 

 of further apprenticeship. Under the suggestive 

 power of the Origin of Species all these scattered 

 studies fell suddenly into due rank and order ; the 

 philosophic unity he had so long been seeking inspired 

 his thought with tenfold vigour, and the battle at 



VOL. II B 



