BIOGRAPHICAL (1854-1870) 21 



rest — not because fellows in black with white ties 

 tell them so, but because there are plain and patent 

 laws of Nature which they must obey under penalties." 

 About tliis time, also, he published some very im- 

 portant physiological papers, as well as one on the 

 theory of the vertebrate skull, which was practically 

 the challenge to the views held by Owen, with whom 

 Huxley was now in a somewhat antagonistic position. 



About this period (1851-1858) Huxley's health 

 was anything but good, and in his letters he com- 

 plained of frequent headache. The amount of energy 

 that he put into his lectures left him very exhausted. 

 Fortunately, however, his work for the Geological 

 Survey took him into the open air, and a walking 

 tour became his favourite method of recuperating. 



In 1856 and in 1857 he spent his holidays in 

 Smtzerland, in the latter year studying the glaciers 

 with Tyndall. Many honours came to him both at 

 home and abroad at this time. 



His first child, a son, was born on New Year's 

 Eve 1857, and there is a very touching entry in his 

 journal, written while he was waiting for the infant's 

 arrival. It is a resolution — a New Year's resolution 

 — and reads as follows : " To smite aU humbugs, 

 however big ; to set an example of abstinence from 

 petty personal controversies, and toleration for every- 

 tliing but lying ; to be indifferent as to whether the 

 work is recognised as mine or not, so long as it is 

 done. . . . Waiting for my child. I seem to fancy 

 it the pledge that all these things shall be." And then, 

 in afoot-note, an entry of four years later : " And the 

 same child, our first-born, after being for nearly four 

 years our delight and our joy, was carried off by scarlet 

 fever in forty-eight hours. . . . My boy is gone, but in 



