BIOGRAPHICAL (1870-1896) 45 



were damned for advocating thirty-four years ago 

 at Oxford, enunciated as matters of course — disputed 

 by no reasonable man — in the Sheldonian theatre 

 by the Chancellor." ..." Doctrines for which 

 the Bishop of Oxford coarsely anathematised us 

 thirty-four years earlier." Towards the end of this 

 year (1894) Huxley received the Darwin Medal from 

 fee Royal Society, thus following the award to 

 Wallace and Hooker — a remarkably happy instance 

 of the fitness of things, considering that these three 

 men were perhaps those who had done more than 

 any others to explain and familiarise the world with 

 Darwin's ideas. One could hardly imagine a more 

 suitable conclusion to Huxley's public life than this 

 of being awa.rded the Darwin Medal. 



The winter of 1895 was an extremely severe one, 

 and it seemed to try Huxley considerably. Never- 

 theless, it was only a subsequent attack of influenza 

 which really broke him down. In the meantime, 

 Mr. Balfour had published his Foundations of Bdief, 

 and tliis drew forth from Huxley a reply to the 

 attack upon agnosticism in that work. 



After his attack of influenza he had an att-ack of 

 bronchitis and serious lung trouble, and for the next 

 few months his life wa-s a painful struggle against 

 disease, borne, his son tells us, with a patience and 

 gentleness which was rare, even in the long experience 

 of the nurses who attended him. He recovered by 

 May, well enough to walk a little in his garden, but 

 the lung trouble had left his heart seriously affected, 

 and kidney trouble followed this. We find him as 

 late as the 26th of June writing to his old friend 

 Hooker to relieve him of anxiety about his own 

 condition, but, nevertheless, three days afterwards 



