CHAPTEE XV 



1884 



FROM this time forward the burden of ill -health 

 grew slowly and steadily. Dyspepsia and the hypo- 

 chondriacal depression which follows in its train, 

 again attacked Huxley as they had attacked him 

 twelve years before, though this time the physical 

 misery was perhaps less. His energy was sapped ; 

 when his official work was over, he could hardly bring 

 himself to renew the investigations in which he had 

 always delighted. To stoop over the microscope was 

 a physical discomfort; he began to devote himself 

 more exclusively to the reading of philosophy and 

 critical theology. This was the time of which Sir M. 

 Foster writes that " there was something working in 

 him which made his hand, when turned to anatomical 

 science, so heavy that he could not lift it. Not even 

 that which was so strong within him, the duty of 

 fulfilling a promise, could bring him to the work." 



Up to the beginning of October, he went on with 

 his official work, the lectures at South Kensington, 

 the business as President of the Eoyal Society, and 

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