1876 CONTROVERSY WITH LORD SHAITESBURY 157 



" Direct contact with fact ! " What can that mean 

 (so, at least, very many ask) but a declaration, on high 

 authority, to teachers and learners that vivisection alone 

 can give them any real and effective instruction ? 



But the subsequent passage is still stronger, for it 

 states " that the worth of the pursuit of science, as an 

 intellectual discipline, is almost lost by those who only 

 seek it in books." 



Is not language like this calculated to touch the zeal 

 and vanity of teachers and learners at the very quick, 

 and urge them to improve their own minds and stand 

 well in the eyes of the profession and the public by 

 positive progress in experimental physiology ? Ordinary 

 readers, most people would think, could come to no other 

 conclusion. 



But a disclaimer from Professor Huxley is enough ; I 

 am sorry to have misunderstood him ; and I must ask his 

 pardon. I sincerely rejoice to have received such an 

 assurance that his great name shall never be used for 

 such a project as that which excited our fears. 



On this he wrote : 



You will have seen Lord Shaftesbury's reply to my 

 letter. I thought it frank and straightforward, and I 

 have written a private letter 1 to the old boy of a placable 

 and proper character. 



In 1874 he had also had a small passage of arms 

 with the late Mr. W. E. Forster, then Vice-President 

 of the Council, upon the same subject Mr. Forster 

 was about to leave office, and when he gave his 

 official authorisation for summer courses of lectures 



1 " Huxley, the Professor, has written me a very civil, nay kind, 

 letter. I replied in the same spirit." (Lord Shaftesbnry, Life 

 and Work, iii. 373, June 3, 1876.) 



