ology, and had seen how the body of a man begins as a LITTLE 

 single minute mass of protoplasm, without organs or JOURNEYS 

 dimensions jfc jfc 



Behind the ship was his drag-net and he worked con- 

 stantly recording the different specimens of animal and 

 vegetable life that he thus secured. The jellyfish at- 

 tracted him most. To the ship's naturalist, jellyfish 

 were jellyfish, but Huxley saw there were very many 

 kinds, distinct, separate, peculiar. He began to dissect 

 them and thus began his book on the jellyfish, just as 

 Darwin wrote his work on barnacles. 

 Huxley vowed to himself that before the " Rattle- 

 snake" got back to England he would know more 

 about jellyfish than any other living man. That his 

 ambition was realized no one now disputes. 

 Among his first discoveries it came to him with a 

 thrill, that a certain species of jellyfish bears a very 

 close resemblance to the human embryo at a certain 

 stage. And he remembered the dictum of Goethe, that 

 the growth of the individual mirrors the growth of the 

 race. And he paraphrased it thus, "The growth of the 

 individual mirrors the growth of the species." So filled 

 was he with the thought, that he could not sleep, so 

 he got up and paced the deck and tried to explain his 

 great thought to the second mate. He was getting 

 ready for " The Origin of Species," which he once said 

 to Darwin he would himself have written, if Darwin 

 had been a little more of a gentleman and held off for 

 a few years. It was on board the " Rattlesnake " that 

 Huxley wrote this : 



63 



