298 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XV 



notion I find a great many people entertain that the 

 address is dead against your views. The fact being, as 

 they will by and by wake up [to] see that yours is the 

 only hypothesis which is not negatived by the facts, one 

 of its great merits being that it allows not only of in- 

 definite standing still, but of indefinite retrogression. 



I am going to try to work the whole argument into an 

 intelligible form for the general public as a chapter of my 

 forthcoming " Evidence " l (one-half of which I am happy 

 to say is now written), so I shall be very glad of any criti- 

 cisms or hints. 



Since I saw you indeed, from the following Tuesday 

 onwards I have amused myself by spending ten days 

 or so in bed. I had an unaccountable prostration of 

 strength which they called influenza, but which, I believe 

 was nothing but some obstruction in the liver. 



Of course I can't persuade people of this, and they 

 will have it that it is overwork. I have come to the 

 conviction, however, that steady work hurts nobody, the 

 real destroyer of hard-working men being not their work, 

 but dinners, late hours, and the universal humbug and 

 excitement of society. 



I mean to get out of all that and keep out of it. Ever 

 yours faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



The other contribution to the general question 

 was his Working Men's Lectures for 1862. As he 

 writes to Darwin on October 10 "I can't find any- 

 thing to talk to the working men about this year but 

 your book. I mean to give them a commentary ct, la 

 Coke upon Lyttleton." 



The lectures to working men here referred to, six 

 in number, were duly delivered once a week from 

 November 10 onwards, and published in the form of 

 1 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. 



