PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 



The American edition of the Life and Letters of Thomas 

 Henry Huxley calls for a few words by way of preface, for 

 there existed a particular relationship between the English 

 writer and his transatlantic readers. 



From the time that his Lay Sermons was published his 

 essays found in the United States an eager audience, who 

 appreciated above all things his directness and honesty of 

 purpose and the unflinching spirit in which he pursued 

 the truth. Whether or not, as some affirm, the American 

 public " discovered " Mr. Herbert Spencer, they responded 

 at once to the influence of the younger evolutionary writer, 

 whose wide and exact knowledge of nature was but a 

 stepping-stone to his interest in human life and its prob- 

 lems. And when, a few years later, after more than one 

 invitation, he came to lecture in the United States and made 

 himself personally known to his many readers, it was this 

 widespread response to his influence which made his wel- 

 come comparable, as was said at the time, to a royal 

 progress. 



His own interest in the present problems of the country 

 and the possibilities of its future was always keen, not 

 merely as touching the development of a vast political 

 force — one of the dominant factors of the near future — but 

 far more as touching the character of its approaching great- 

 ness. Huge territories and vast resources were of small 

 interest to him in comparison with the use to which they 

 should be put. None felt more vividly than he that the 

 true greatness of a nation would depend upon the spirit 

 of the principles it adopted, upon the character of the indi- 

 viduals who make up the nation and shape the channels 

 in which the currents of its being will hereafter flow. 



