132 Annual Report of the Council. 



intellectual perception of his subject seemed so clear that 

 he had only to put it into words to make every point 

 obvious to his audience ; whilst his remarks were from 

 time to time lighted up by those flashes of humour without 

 which no popular address can be regarded as an unqualified 

 success. The discourse to working men on " A Piece of 

 Chalk " may be cited as a striking example of his powers 

 in this direction. "Have you understood the lecture?" 

 he asked one day of a student. " Yes, sir ; all except one 

 or two passages, when you happened to stand between me 

 and the blackboard." "Ah, well, you see, I do my best 

 to be clear, but I cannot be transparent," was the ready 

 answer. As an essayist Huxley was no less conspicuous 

 than as a lecturer, and the charm of his style would give 

 his writings a high position in English literature apart 

 altogether from the interest of the topics of which they 

 treat. When, however, it is remembered that his themes 

 were the great verities and mysteries of existence which 

 have occupied the minds of the greatest intellects as well 

 as of the average man ever since the human race had a 

 soul above its belly, the interest they have excited is 

 readily understood. Huxley traced his interest in philo- 

 sophy to two books which he read in his omnivorous 

 fashion, amongst others, treating of "all sorts of topics 

 from metaphysics to heraldry " — Guizot's " History of 

 Civilisation" and Sir William Hamilton's essay "On the 

 Philosophy of the Unconditioned," which he came upon 

 by chance in an odd volume of the Edinburgh Review. 

 Such studies not only " filled many lawful leisure hours 

 and still more sleepless ones with the repose of changed 

 mental occupation," but sometimes disputed his proper 

 work time with natural science. His position in regard 

 to these matters was simple and candid. " There is 

 a path that leads to truth so surely that anyone who 

 will follow it must needs reach the goal whether 



