1893 CRITICISMS ON THE ROMANES LECTURE 38 1 



As for your criticisms, don't you know that I am become a 

 reactionary and secret friend of the clerics ? 



My lecture is really an effort to put the Christian doctrine 

 that Satan is the Prince of this world upon a scientific founda- 

 tion. 



Just consider it in this light, and you will understand why I 

 was so warmly welcomed in Oxford. (N.B. — The only time I 

 spoke before was in i860, when the great row with Samuel 

 came off!!) — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, July 15, 1893. 



My dear Skelton — I fear I must admit that even a Glad- 

 stonian paper occasionally tells the truth. They never mean to, 

 but we all have our lapses from the rule of life we have laid 

 down for ourselves, and must be charitable. 



The fact is, I got influenza in the spring, and have never 

 managed to shake right again, any tendency that way being well 

 counteracted by the Romanes lecture and its accompaniments. 



So we are off to the Maloja to-morrow. It mended up the 

 shaky old heart-pump five years ago, and I hope will again. 



I have been in Orkney, and believe in the air, but I cannot 

 say quite so much for the scenery. I thought it just a wee little 

 bit, shall I say, bare ? But then I have a passion for mountains. 



I shall be right glad to know what your H.O.M.* has to say 

 about Ethics and Evolution. You must remember that my lec- 

 ture was a kind of egg-dance. Good manners bound me over 

 to say nothing offensive to the Christians in the amphitheatre 

 (I was in the arena), and truthfulness, on the other hand, 

 bound me to say nothing that I did not fully mean. Under these 

 circumstances one has to leave a great many i's undotted and t's 

 uncrossed. 



Pray remember me very kindly to Mrs. Skelton, and believe 

 me — Yours ever, T. H. Huxley. 



And again on Oct. 17: — 



Ask your Old Man of Hoy to be so good as to suspend judg- 

 ment until the Lecture appears again with an appendix in that 

 collection of volumes the bulk of which appals me. 



Didn't I see somewhere that you had been made Poor Law 



* The "Old Man of Hoy,'' » pseudonym under which Sir J. Skel- 

 ton wrote. 



