Annual Report of the Council. 127 



" about eight o'clock in the morning on the 4th of May, 

 1825, at Ealing, which was at that time as quiet a little 

 country village as could be found within half-a-dozen 

 miles of Hyde Park Corner. . . . My father," he 

 •continues, " was one of the masters in a large semi-public 

 school, which at one time had a high reputation. . . . 

 Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not know 

 but it is a curious chance that my parents should have 

 fixed for my usual denomination upon the name of that 

 particular Apostle with whom I have always felt most 

 sympathy." Almost the sole surviving tradition of the late 

 Professor's childhood is of his turning his pinafore wrong 

 side forwards, and preaching a sermon to his mother's 

 maids in the kitchen in imitation of the vicar, an instance 

 of the clerical affinities which, though insisted on by 

 Herbert Spencer, have escaped the notice of most ob- 

 servers in later years. His regular school training was 

 received at the Ealing School, and he shortly afterwards 

 entered Charing Cross Hospital as a medical student. 

 His natural inclination was always in the direction of 

 mechanics, and hence it is not surprising that he devoted 

 himself with special zeal to physiology. The habit of 

 regarding the animal body as a special form of machine 

 always remained with him, and he has not inaptly 

 •described himself among biologists as an apostle of me- 

 chanical philosophy in partibus infidelium. Mr. Wharton 

 Jones, the eminent oculist, was at that time lecturer in 

 physiology at Charing Cross, and from him the ardent 

 young student received much encouragement. The ex- 

 tent and precision of the teacher's knowledge, and the 

 severe exactness of his method of lecturing, were most 

 impressive, and Huxley worked hard to obtain his appro- 

 bation. Under his influence was published in the Medical 

 Gazette of 1845 his first investigation into the minute 

 structure of human hair, a part of the sheath of which, 



