154 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VI 



Elementary Physiology, urging that beginners should 

 be shown the structures under discussion, examples 

 for which could easily be provided from the domestic 

 animals, were put side by side with later passages in 

 the book, such, for instance, as statements of fact as 

 to the behaviour of severed nerves under irritation. 

 A sinister inference was drawn from this combination, 

 and published as fact without further verification. 

 Of this he remarks emphatically in his address ou 

 "Elementary Instruction in Physiology," 1877 

 (Collected Essays, iii. 300) : 



It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal con- 

 tradiction to the silly fiction, which is assiduously circu- 

 lated by the fanatics who not only ought to know, but do 

 know, that their assertions are untrue, that I have 

 advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline 

 which is absolutely indispensable to the professed physi- 

 ologist, into elementary teaching. 



Moreover, during the debates on the Vivisection 

 Bill in 1876, the late Lord Shaftesbury made use of 

 this story. Huxley was extremely indignant, and 

 wrote home : 



Did you see Lord Shaftesbury's speech in Tuesday's 

 Times ? I saw it by chance, 1 and have written a sharp 

 letter to the Times. 



This letter appeared on May 26, when he wrote 

 again : 



You will have had my note, and know all about Lord 

 Shaftesbury and his lies by this time. Surely you could 



1 Being in Edinburgh, he had been reading the Scotch papers, 

 and " the reports of the Scotch papers as to what takes place in 

 Parliament are meagre." 



