428 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap. 



His one course went to the opposite extreme. In 

 teaching, where it was possible to let the facts speak for 

 themselves, he did not further urge their bearing upon wider 

 problems. He preferred to warn beginners against drawing 

 superficial inferences in favour of his own general theories, 

 from facts the real meaning of which was not immediately 

 apparent. Father Hahn (S.J.), who studied under him in 

 1876, writes :— 



One day when I was talking to him, our conversation turned 

 upon evolution. " There is one thing about you I cannot under- 

 stand," I said, " and I should like a word in explanation. For 

 several months now I have been attending your course, and I 

 have never heard you mention evolution, while in your public 

 lectures everywhere you openly proclaim yourself an evolu- 

 tionist." * 



Now it would be impossible to imagine a better opportunity 

 for insisting on evolution than his lectures on comparative anato- 

 my, when animals are set side by side in respect of the gradual 

 development of functions. But Huxley was so reserved on this 

 subject in his lectures that, speaking one day of a species form- 

 ing a transition between two others, he immediately added : — 



" When I speak of transition I do not in the least mean to 

 say that one species turned into a second to develop thereafter 

 into a third. What I mean is, that the characters of the second 

 are intermediate between those of the two others. It is as if I 

 were to say that such and such a cathedral, Canterbury, for ex- 

 ample, is a transition between York Minster arid Westminster 

 Abbey. No one would imagine, on hearing the word transition, 

 that a transmutation of these buildings actually took place from 

 one into another." 



But to return to his reply : — 



" Here in my teaching lectures (he said to me) I have time 

 to put the facts fully before a trained audience. In my public 

 lectures I am obliged to pass rapidly over the facts, and I put 

 forward my personal convictions. And it is for this that people 

 come to hear me." 



As to the question whether children should be brought 

 up in entire disregard to the beliefs rejected by himself, but 

 still current among the mass of his fellow-countrymen, he 



* Revue des Questions Scientifiques (Brussels), for October 1895. 



