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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. HI. No. 5T. 



main purpose, althongh he never uses italics 

 or spaced letters, as many of our German 

 masters do to relieve the obscurity of their 

 sentences. We are carried along upon the 

 broad current of his reasoning witliout being 

 confnsed by his abundant side illustrations. 

 He gleaned from the literature of all time 

 until his mind was stocked with apt similes. 

 Who but Huxley would have selected the 

 title ' Lay Sermons ' for his first volume of 

 addresses ; or, in 1880, twentj'-one years 

 after Darwin's work appeared, would have 

 entitled his essay upon the influence of this 

 work : ' The Coming of Age of the Origin of 

 Species ? ' Or to whom else would it have 

 occurred to repeat over the grave of Balfour 

 the exquisitely appropriate lines : ' For 

 Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime.' Who 

 else could have inveighed thus against 

 modern specialization : " We are in the case 

 of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the 

 Roman citadel to the Sabines and was 

 crushed by the weight of the reward be- 

 stowed upon her. It has become impossible 

 for any man to keep pace with the progress 

 of the whole of any important branch of sci- 

 ence. It looks as if the scientific, like other 

 revolutions, meant to devour its own chil- 

 dren ; as if the growth of science tended to 

 overwhelm its votaries ; as if the man of 

 science of the future were condemned to di- 

 minish into a narrow specialist as time goes 

 on. It appears to me that the only defense 

 against this tendency to the degeneration of 

 scientific workers lies in the organization 

 and extension of scientific education in such 

 a manner as to secure breadth of culture 

 without superficiality ; and, on the other 

 hand, depth and precision of knowledge 

 without narrowness." 



Huxley's public addresses always gave 

 the impression of being largely impromptu, 

 but he once told me : "I always think out 

 carefully every word I am going to say. 

 There is no greater danger than the so- 

 called inspiration of the moment, which leads 



you to say something which is not exactly 

 true, or which you would regret afterward. 

 I sometimes envy your countrymen their 

 readiness and believe that a native Ameri- 

 can, if summoned out, of bed at midnight, 

 could step to his window and speak well 

 upon any subject." I told him I feared he 

 had been slightly misinformed; I feared 

 that many American impromptu speeches 

 were more distinguished by a flow of lan- 

 guage than of ideas. But Huxley was 

 sometimes very impressive when he did not 

 speak. In 1879 he was strongly advocating 

 the removal of the Royal School of Mines 

 from crowded Jermyn street to South Ken- 

 sington, a matter which is still being agi- 

 tated. At a public dinner given by the 

 alumni of the School, who were naturally 

 attached to the old buildings, the chairman 

 was indiscreet enough to make an attack 

 upon the policy of removal. He was vigor- 

 ously applauded, when, to every one's con- 

 sternation, Huxley, who was sitting at the 

 chairman's right, slowly rose, paused a mo- 

 ment, and then silently skirted the tables and 

 walked out of the hall. A solemn pall fell over 

 the remainder of the dinner and we were all 

 glad to find an excuse to leave early. 



In personal conversation Huxley was full 

 of humor and greatly enjoyed stories at his- 

 own expense. Such was the following: "In 

 my early period as a lecturer I had very 

 little confidence in my general powers, but 

 one thing I prided myself upon was clear- 

 ness. I was once talking of the brain be- 

 fore a large mixed audience and soon began 

 to feel that no one in the room understood 

 me. Finally I saw the thoroughly inter- 

 ested face of a woman auditor and took 

 consolation in delivering the remainder of 

 the lecture directly to her. At the close, 

 my feeling as to her interest was confirmed 

 when she came up and asked if she might 

 put one question upon a single point which 

 she had not quite understood. ' Certainly,' 

 I replied. ' Now, Professor,' she said, ' is- 



