276 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xvi 



Parliament when I was a child. Really you Radicals are of 

 some use after all ! 



Poor old Smyth's * death is just what I expected, though 1 

 did not think the catastrophe was so imminent. 



Peace be with him; he never did justice to his very consid- 

 erable abilities, but he was a good fellow and a fine old crusted 

 Conservative. 



I suppose it will be necessary to declare the vacancy and 

 put somebody in his place before long. 



I learned before I started that Smyth was to be buried in 

 Cornwall, so there is no question of attending at his funeral. 



I am the last of the original Jermyn Street gang left in the 

 school now— Ultimus Romanorum !— Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



This trip was taken by way of a holiday after the 

 writing of an article, which appeared in the Nineteenth 

 Century for July 1890. It was called " The Lights of the 

 Church and the Light of Science," and may be considered 

 as written in fulfilment of the plan spoken of in the letter 

 to Mr. Clodd (p. 245). Its subject was the necessary de- 

 pendence of Christian theology upon the historical accuracy 

 of the Old Testament; its occasion, the publication of a 

 sermon in which, as a counterblast to Lux Mundi, Canon 

 Liddon declared that accuracy to be sanctioned by the use 

 made of the Old Testament by Jesus Christ, and bade 

 his hearers close their ears against any suggestions impair- 

 ing the credit of those Jewish Scriptures which have re- 

 ceived the stamp of his Divine authority. 



Pointing out that, as in other branches of history, so 

 here the historical accuracy of early tradition was aban- 

 doned even by conservative critics, who at all understood 

 the nature of the problems involved, Huxley proceeded to 

 examine the story of the Flood, and to show that the 

 difficulties were little less in treating it— like the recon- 

 cilers — as a partial than as a universal deluge. Then he 



* Warington Wilkinson Smyth (1817-1890), the geologist and min- 

 eralogist. In 1851 he was appointed Lecturer on Mining and Min- 

 eralogy at the Royal School of Mines. After the lectureships were 

 separated in 1881, he retained the former until his death. He was 

 knighted in 1887. 



