1895.] Obituary notice of Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley. 1 95 



ten years ago. This was not however, his only scientific post. He was 

 twice Fullerian Professor of Physiology to the Royal Institution ; and 

 in the same year in which this honour first fell to him, was appointed 

 Examiner in Physiology and Anatomy to the University of London. 

 Four years later, in 1858, he delivered the Croonian Lecture of the 

 Royal Society, choosing for his subject the " Theory of the Vertebrate 

 Skull." For six years he was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College 

 of Surgeons, and twice he presided at the British Association, first 

 in 1862 over the Biological Section at the Cambridge meeting, and 

 eight years later, at the Liverpool meeting, over tlie Association as a 

 whole. In 1869 and 1870, he was President of the Geological and 

 Ethnological Societies, and for three years he was Lord Rector of 

 Aberdeen University. Elected Secretary of the Royal Society in 1873, 

 he was called ten years later to the highest honour of English Science, the 

 presidency of that body. He occupied the place of Sir Wyville Thomson 

 as Professor of Natural History of Edinburgh, during that naturalist's 

 absence with the Challenger, and for four years acted as Inspector of 

 Salmon Fisheries. All his official posts, howevei', as above stated, 

 were resigned by him in 1885, after which he retired to Eastbourne ; 

 but more than six years after his retirement, he received the dignity 

 of Privy Councillor. His honorary degrees and memberships are 

 too numerous to ment'on, though it must here be remarked that he 

 was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal 

 as early as 1872. After his retirement, Huxley lived a quiet but by no 

 means inactive life, but latterly his health failed, and after more than a 

 year's illness, he died on June 29th, 1895. His work lay in more depart- 

 ments than one, and in each of these he occupies an exceptional position. 

 As Biologist, whatever his rank will in the future be decided to be, he 

 will at any rate be reckoned as one of the foremost of the century. Of 

 wide interests, he undertook research in many Invertebrate and Verte- 

 brate groups, and shed enlightenment on all. Most noteworthy, perhaps, 

 was his work on the Comparative Anatomy and classification of 

 the Vertebrata, to which he paid particular attention. In the second 

 place, as a philosophic thinker, Huxley is universally acknowledged 

 to have held a high position. On many questions he has profoundly 

 influenced modern thought, and in none so much as in that relating to 

 the theory of Evolution. Of the views of Darwin and Wallace he was, if 

 not the earliest, certainly far the most brilliant supporter. As early as 

 1863 his lectures to working men, begun in 1860 at the Jermyn Street 

 Museum, were published under the title " Evidence as to Man's place 

 in Nature," and excited great interest both at home and abroad. Not 

 only did he advance the Darwinian principles in this and other works, 

 but himself worked out many important developments thereof. 



