

CHAPTER X 



1855-1858 



UP to his appointment at the School of Mines, 

 Huxley's work had been almost entirely morpho- 

 logical, dealing with the Invertebrates. His first 

 investigations, moreover, had been directed not to 

 species-hunting, but to working out the real affinities 

 of little known orders, and thereby evolving a philo- 

 sophical classification from the limbo of "Vermes" 

 and " Radiata." 



He had continued the same work by tracing 

 homologies of development in other classes of 

 animals, such as the Cephalous Mollusca, the Arti- 

 culata, and the Brachiopods. On these subjects, 

 also, he had a good deal of correspondence with 

 other investigators of the same cast of mind, and 

 even when he did not carry conviction, the impres- 

 sion made by his arguments may be judged from 

 the words of Dr. Allman, no mean authority, in a 

 letter of May 2, 1852 : 



I have thought over your arguments again and again, 

 and while I am the more convinced of their ingenuity, 

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