214 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XI 



Catalogue and Positive Histology ; on the other, the 

 Literature of the Drift, a review of the present state 

 of philosophical anatomy, and a scheme for arranging 

 the Explanatory Catalogue to serve as an introductory 

 text-book to the Jermyn Street lectures and the 

 paleontological demonstrations. Here, too, would 

 fall a proposed " Letter on the Study of Comparative 

 Anatomy," to do for those subjects what Henslow had 

 done in his "Letter" for Botany. 



In addition to the fact of his being forced to take 

 up Paleontology, it was perhaps the philosophic 

 breadth of view with which he regarded his subject 

 at any time, and the desire of getting to the bottom 

 of each subsidiary problem arising from it, that made 

 him for many years seem constantly to spring aside 

 from his own subject, to fly off at a tangent from the 

 line in which he was assured of unrivalled success did 

 he but devote to it his undivided powers. But he 

 was prepared to endure the charge of desultoriness 

 with equanimity. In part, he was still studying the 

 whole field of biological science before he would claim 

 to be a master in one department ; in part, he could 

 not yet tell to what post he might succeed when he 

 left as he fully expected to leave the professorship 

 at Jermyn Street 



One characteristic of his early papers should not 

 pass unnoticed. This was his familiarity with the 

 best that had been written on his subjects abroad as 

 well as in England. Thoroughness in this respect 

 was rendered easier by the fact that he read French 



