284 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XV 



physical basis, and to stand on as firm ground as any 

 physiological theory whatever. 



It was impossible for me, in the time I had, to lay 

 all this down to my Edinburgli audience, and in default 

 of full explanation it was far better to seem to do scanty 

 justice to you. I am constitutionally slow of adopting 

 any theory that I must needs stick by when I have 

 once gone in for it ; but for these two years I have 

 been gravitating towards your doctrines, and since the 

 publication of your primula paper with accelerated 

 velocity. By about this time next year I expect to 

 have shot past you, and to find you pitching into me 

 for being more Darwinian than yourself. However, you 

 have set me going, and must just take the consequences, 

 for I warn you I will stop at no point so long as clear 

 reasoning will carry me further. 



My wife and I were very grieved to hear you had 

 had such a sick house, but I hope the change in the 

 weather has done you all good. Anything is better 

 than the damp warmth we had. 



I will take great care of the three " Barriers." l I 

 wanted to cut it up in the Saturday, but how I am to 

 fulfil my benevolent intentions with five lectures a 

 week a lecture at the Eoyal Institution and heaps 

 of other things on my hands, I don't know. Ever 

 yours faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



I am very glad to hear about Brown "Sequard ; he is 

 a thoroughly good man, and told me it was worth while to 

 come all the way to Oxford to hear the Bishop pummelled. 



In the above-mentioned letter to the Scotsman of 

 January 24 he expresses his unfeigned satisfaction 



1 A paiuphlet called "The Three Barriers, by G. R., being 

 notes on Mr. Darwin's Origin of Species, 1861, 8vo." Habitat, 

 structure, and procreative power are given as these three barriers 

 to Darwinism, against which natural theology takes its stand on 

 Final Causes. 



