366 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxi 



the theories of Weismann and others,* while actually plan- 

 ning out and reading for a series of " Working-Men's Lec- 

 tures on the Bible," in which he should present to the 

 unlearned the results of scientific study of the documents, 

 and do for theology what he had done for zoology thirty 

 years before. 



The scheme drawn out in his note-book runs as fol- 

 lows : — 



I. The subject and the method of treating it. 

 II. Physical conditions :— the place of Palestine in the 

 Old World. 



III. The Rise of Israel :— Judges, Samuel, Kings as far as 



Jeroboam II. 



IV. The Fall of Israel. 



V. The Rise and Progress of Judaism. Theocracy. 

 VI. The Final Dispersion. 

 VII. Prophetism. 

 VIII. Nazarenism. 

 IX. Christianity. 



X. Muhammedanism. 

 XI. and XII. The Mythologies. 



Although this scheme was never carried out, yet it was 

 constantly before Huxley's mind during the two years left 

 to him. If Death, who had come so near eight years before, 

 would go on seeming to forget him, he meant to use these 

 last days of his life in an effort to illuminate one more 

 portion of the field of knowledge for the world at large. 



As the physical strain of the Romanes Lecture and his 

 liability to loss of voice warned him against any future 

 attempt to deliver a course of lectures, he altered his design 

 and prepared to put the substance of these Lectures to 

 Working-Men intc a Bible History for young people. And 

 indeed, he had got so far with his preparation, that the 

 latter heading was down in his list of work for the last year 

 of his life, 1895. But nothing of it was ever written. Until 

 the work was actually begun, even the framework upon 

 which it was to be shaped remained in his mind, and the 



* See letter of September 28, to Romanes. 



