DOING BATTLE WITH THE CLERICALS 



249 



The risk is great and the £300 a year is not worth it. Foster 

 knows all about the place; ask him if I am not right. 



Many thanks for the suggestion about Spirula. But the 

 matter is in a state in which no one can be of any use but my- 

 self. At present I am at the end of my tether and I mean to 

 be off to the Engadine a fortnight hence — most likely not to 

 return before October. 



Not even the sweet voice of will lure me from my re- 

 tirement. The Academy dinner knocked me up for three days, 

 though I drank no wine, ate very little, and vanished after the 

 Prince of Wales' speech. The truth is I have very little margin 

 of strength to go upon even now, though I am marvellously 

 better than I was. 



I am very glad that you see the importance of doing battle 

 with the clericals. I am astounded at the narrowness of view 

 of many of our colleagues on this point. They shut their eyes 

 to the obstacles which clericalism raises in every direction 

 against scientific ways of thinking, which are even more impor- 

 tant than scientific discoveries. 



I desire that the next generation may be less fettered by the 

 gross and stupid superstitions of orthodoxy than mine has been. 

 And I shall be well satisfied if I can succeed to however small 

 an extent in bringing about that result. — I am, yours very faith- 

 fully, T. H. Huxley. 



4 Marlborough Place, May 25, i83g. 



My dear Lankester — I cannot attend the Council meeting 

 on the 29th. I have a meeting of the Trustees of the British 

 Museum to-day, and to be examined by a Committee on Monday, 

 and as the sudden heat half kills me I shall be fit for nothing but 

 to slink off to Eastbourne again. 



However, I do hope the Council will be very careful what 

 they say or do about the immature fish question. The thing has 

 been discussed over and over again ad nauseam, and I doubt if 

 there is anything to be added to the evidence in the blue-books. 



The idee fixe of the British public, fishermen, M.P.'s and 

 ignorant persons generally is that all small fish, if you do not 

 catch them, grow up into big fish. They cannot be got to under- 

 stand that the wholesale destruction of the immature is the 

 necessary part of the general order of things, from codfish to 

 men. 



You seem to have some very interesting things to talk about 

 at the Royal Institution. 



