26 HUXLEY 



is to look for any elevation of the sensuous and vola- 

 tile black, charged as he is with animal instincts ac- 

 cumulated beneath the tropical suns of unnumbered 

 years. But he was for the North, because " slavery 

 means bad political economy, bad social morality, and 

 a bad influence upon free labour and freedom all over 

 the world." 1 Two years later, he joined the Jamaica 

 Committee, formed to prosecute Governor Eyre for 

 the execution of the negro Gordon, because " English 

 law does not permit good persons as such to strangle 

 bad persons, as such." 2 



He was in favour of the emancipation of women, 

 of the removal of every obstacle in the way of their 

 intellectual advancement and development. 3 Writing 

 to Miss Jex Blake about her difficulty in obtaining a 

 medical education, he said 



that he was at a loss to understand on what grounds 

 of justice or public policy, a career which is open to 

 the weakest and most foolish of the male sex should 

 be forcibly closed to women of vigour and capacity. 



They should, if they so pleased, 



become merchants, barristers, politicians. Let them 

 have a fair field, but let them understand, as the 

 necessary correlative, that they are to have no favour. 



1 1. 252. In like manner, Darwin, writing at this time to Asa 

 Gray, says : " Great God ! how I should like to see the greatest 

 curse on earth — slavery — abolished ! " — Life and Letters, ii. p. 375. 



■I. 28o. 3 1. 212. 



