156 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VI 



recommendations of the paragraph I have quoted might 

 be fully carried into effect without the performance of 

 even a solitary " vivisection." The assertion that I have 

 ever suggested or desired the introduction of vivisection 

 into the teaching of elementary physiology in schools is, 

 I repeat, contrary to fact 



On the next day (May 27) appeared a reply from 

 Lord Shaftesbury, in which his entire good faith is 

 equally conspicuous with his misapprehension of the 

 subject 



LORD SHAFTESBURY'S REPLY 



The letter from Professor Huxley in the Times of this 

 morning demands an immediate reply. 



The object that I supposed the learned professor had 

 in view was gathered from the prefaces to the several 

 editions of his work on Elementary Physiology. 



The preface to the first edition states that " the 

 following lessons in elementary physiology are, primarily, 

 intended to serve the purpose of a text-book for teachers 

 and learners in boys' and girls' schools." 



It was published, therefore, as a manual for the young, 

 as well as the old. 



Now, any reader of the preface to the first edition 

 would have come to the conclusion that teachers and 

 learners could acquire something solid, and worth having, 

 from the text-book before them. But the preface to the 

 second edition nearly destroys that expectation. Here is 

 the passage : " It will be well for those who attempt 

 to study elementary physiology to bear in mind the 

 important truth that the knowledge of science which is 

 attainable by mere reading, though infinitely better than 

 ignorance, is knowledge of a very different kind from 

 that which arises from direct contact with fact" 



