1 54 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, ix 



It is rarely worth while to notice criticism, but when a good 

 chance of exposing one of these anonymous libellers who dis- 

 grace literature occurs, it is a public duty to avail oneself of it. 



Oddly enough, I have recently been performing a similar 

 " haute ceuvre." The most violent, base, and ignorant of all the 

 attacks on Darwin at the time of the publication of the " Origin 

 of Species " appeared in the Quarterly Review of that time ; and 

 I have built the reviewer a gibbet as high as Haman's. 



All good men and true should combine to stop this system of 

 literary moonlighting. — I am yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



As for the incitement to answer Mr. Lilly, Mr. Spencer 

 writes from Brighton on November 3 : — 



I have no doubt your combative instincts have been stirred 

 within you as you read Mr. Lilly's article, " Materialism and 

 Morality," in which you and I are dealt with after the ordinary 

 fashion popular with the theologians, who practically say, " You 

 shall be materialists whether you like it or not." I should not be 

 sorry if you yielded to those promptings of your combative in- 

 stinct. Now that you are a man of leisure there is no reason 

 why you should not undertake any amount of fighting, providing 

 always that you can find foemen worthy of your steel. . . . 



I remember that last year you found intellectual warfare 

 good for your health, so I have no qualms of conscience in mak- 

 ing the suggestion. 



To this he replies on the 7th : — 



Your stimulation of my combative instincts is downright 

 wicked. I will not look at the Fortnightly article lest I succumb 

 to temptation. At least not yet. The truth -is that these cursed 

 irons of mine, that have always given me so much trouble, will 

 put themselves in the fire, when I am not thinking about them. 

 There are three or four already. 



On November 21 Mr. Spencer sends him more proofs 

 of his autobiography, dealing with his early life : — 



See what it is to be known as an omnivorous reader — you 

 get no mercy shown you. A man who is ready for anything, 

 from a fairy tale to a volume of metaphysics, is naturally one who 

 will make nothing of a fragment of a friend's autobiography ! 



To this he replies on the 25th : — 



