CHAPTER XXIII 



1895 



Two months of almost continuous frost, during which 

 the thermometer fell below zero, marked the winter of 1894- 

 95. Tough, if not strong, as Huxley's constitution was, 

 this exceptional cold, so lowering to the vitality of age, 

 accentuated the severity of the illness which followed in the 

 train of influenza, and at last undermined even his powers 

 of resistance. 



But until the influenza seized him, he was more than 

 usually vigorous and brilliant. He was fatigued, but not 

 more so than he expected, by attending a deputation to the 

 Prime Minister in the depth of January, and delivering a 

 speech on the London University question ; and in February 

 he was induced to write a reply to the attack upon agnosti- 

 cism contained in Mr. Arthur Balfour's Foundations of 

 Belief. Into this he threw himself with great energy, all 

 the more because the notices in the daily press were likely 

 to give the reading public a wrong impression as to its 

 polemic against his own position. Mr. Wilfrid Ward gives 

 an account of a conversation with him on this subject : — 



Some one had sent me Mr. A. J. Balfour's book on the 

 Foundations of Belief early in February 1895. We were very 

 full of it, and it was the theme of discussion on the 17th of 

 February, when two friends were lunching with us. Not long 

 after luncheon, Huxley came in, and seemed in extraordinary 

 spirits. He began talking of Erasmus and Luther, expressing 

 a great preference for Erasmus, who would, he said, have im- 

 pregnated the Church with culture, and brought it abreast of the 

 thought of the times, while Luther concentrated attention on 

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