28 HUXLEY 



intemperance are sore evils, and starvation is hard to 

 bear, or even to know of; but the prostitution of the 

 mind, the soddening of the conscience, the dwarfing 

 of manhood, are worse calamities. * 



By the time that Evidence as to Man's Place in 

 Nature was written, Huxley had command of a style 

 which, in the judgment of Sir Spencer Walpole, — a 

 judgment with which few will be found to disagree, 

 — " made him the greatest master of prose of his 

 time." 2 Apt in application to him is Caxton's 

 tribute to Chaucer, " for he writeth no void words, 

 but all his matter is full of high and quick sentence." 

 Yet with a great price bought he this freedom of 

 ready speech and pen. Those who heard, and, hear- 

 ing, can never forget, his wonderful discourse On the 

 Coming of Age of the Origin of Species^ at the Royal 

 Institution in 1880, when, without notes, he told the 

 story of that epoch-making book in clear and force- 

 ful English which held his audience spellbound, may 

 learn with surprise that his early essays upon the plat- 

 form boded ill for his success. But he, who all the 

 days of his life was at school, profited by criticism of 

 the kind which came from a local institute, begging 

 " not to have that young man again " ; from working 

 men ; and from members of the Royal Institution. 

 As a writer, he had served a useful apprenticeship in 



1 Coll. Essays, ix. p. 244. 2 H. 25. 



