CHAPTER VII 



HOW OTHERS SAW HIM 



It is no easy thing to form an estimate of the value 

 of a life such as Huxley's, lived as it was at a period 

 when England was very rich in men of great attain- 

 ment, and touching closely, as it did, bo many varied 

 aspects and subjects. For a man to be remembered 

 at all in the scientific world, who was contemporary 

 with Darwin, Tyndall, Wallace, Owen, and so many 

 others, was no mean achievement. To have reached 

 a foremost place amongst the men of his time proves 

 Huxley one of the giants of the nineteenth century. 

 Well may Henri Bergson say, " What scientific 

 question, what philosophical problem is there which 

 did not interest that luminous intellect — one of the 

 broadest ajid most comprehensive that nineteenth- 

 century England produced, fertile in great intellects 

 as it was ? " 



The very facfe that Huxley's crowded life was 

 closely connected with so many different activities 

 makes it the harder to form an opinion as to his out- 

 standing qualities and value. And, doubtless, such 

 a critical estimate would vary considerably, according 

 to the persona] interests of the critic. To the general 

 public, at any rate for years after his death, his 

 name was best remembered as that of the man who, 



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