1863 'MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE' 293 



is a quarterly mischief, and will end in knocking 

 him up. 



A similar estimate appears from an earlier letter 

 of March 11, 1859 (Life and Letters, il 321), when he 

 quotes Huxley's opinion of Hansel's Bampton Lectures 

 on the Limits of Religious Thought ; 



A friend of mine, Huxley, who will soon take rank as 

 one of the first naturalists we have ever produced, begged 

 me to read these sermons as first rate, " although, regard- 

 ing the author as a churchman, you will probably 

 compare him, as I did, to the drunken fellow in Hogarth's 

 contested election, who is sawing through the signpost at 

 the other party's public-house, forgetting he is sitting at 

 the other end of it But read them as a piece of clear 

 and unanswerable reasoning." 



In the 1894 preface to the re-issue of Man's Place 

 in the Collected Essays, Huxley speaks as follows of 

 the warnings he received against publishing on so 

 dangerous a topic, of the storm which broke upon his 

 head, and the small result which, in the long run, it 

 produced * : 



Magna est veritas et prcevalebit ! Truth is great, 

 certainly, but considering her greatness, it is curious what 

 a long time she is apt to take about prevailing. When, 

 towards the end of 1862, I had finished writing Man's 

 Place in Nature, I could say with a good conscience that 

 my conclusions " had not been formed hastily or enunci- 

 ated crudely." I thought I had earned the right to 



1 In September 1887 he wrote to Mr. Edward Clodd "All the 

 propositions laid down in the wicked book, which was so well 

 anathematised a quarter of a century ago, are now taught in the 

 text-books. What a droll world it is ! " 



