374 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxi 



part of nature, but would be dissolved by a return to the 

 natural state of simple warfare among individuals. It fol- 

 lows that ethical systems based on the principles of cosmic 

 evolution are not logically sound. A study of the essays of 

 the foregoing ten years will show that he had more than 

 once enunciated this thesis, and it had been one of the 

 grounds of his long-standing criticism of Mr. Spencer's 

 system. 



Nevertheless, the doctrine seemed to take almost every- 

 body by surprise. The drift of the lecture was equally mis- 

 understood by critics of opposite camps. Huxley was popu- 

 larly supposed to hold the same views as Mr. Spencer — 

 for were they not both Evolutionists ? On general attention 

 being called to the existing difference between their views, 

 some jumped to the conclusion that Huxley was offering a 

 general recantation of evolution, others that he had dis- 

 carded his former theories of ethics. On the one hand he 

 was branded as a deserter from free thought ; on the other, 

 hailed almost as a convert to orthodoxy. It was irritating, 

 but little more than he had expected. The conditions of the 

 lecture forbade any reference to politics or religion ; hence 

 much had to be left unsaid, which was supplied next year 

 in the Prolegomena prefacing the re-issue of the lecture. 



After all possible, trimming and compression, he still 

 feared the lecture would be too long, and would take more 

 than an hour to deliver, especially if the audience was likely 

 to be large, for the numbers must be considered in refer- 

 ence to the speed of speaking. But he had taken even more 

 pains than usual with it. " The Lecture," he writes to Pro- 

 fessor Romanes on April 19, " has been in type for weeks, 

 if not months, as I have been taking an immensity of trouble 

 over it. And I can judge of nothing till it is in type.'' But 

 this very precaution led to unexpected complications. When 

 the proposition to lecture was first made to him, he was not 

 sent a copy of the statute ordering that publication in the 

 first instance should lie with the University Press ; and in 

 view of the proviso that " the Lecturer is free to publish on 

 his own behalf in any other form he may like," he had taken 

 Prof. Romanes' original reference to publication by the 



