214 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xv 



an association meeting the other day. We all missed you, but 

 I think it was as well you did not come, for though I am pretty 

 tough, as you know, I found the pace rather killing. Nothing 

 could exceed the hospitality and kindness of the University 

 people — and that, together with a great deal of speaking on the 

 top of a very bad cold, which I contrived to catch just before 

 going down, has somewhat used me up. 



Owen came down with the obvious intention of attacking me 

 on all points. Each of his papers was an attack, and he went so 

 far as to offer stupid and unnecessary opposition to proposals of 

 mine in my own committee. However, he got himself sold at all 

 points. . . . The Polypterus paper and the Aye-Aye paper fell 

 flat. The latter was meant to raise a discussion on your views, 

 but it was all a stale hash, and I only made some half sarcastic 

 remarks which stopped any further attempts at discussion. . . . 



I took my book to Scotland but did nothing. I shall ask 

 leave to send you a bit or two as I get on. — Ever yours, 



T. H. Huxley. 



A " Society for the propagation of common honesty in all 

 parts of the world " was established at Cambridge. I want you 

 to belong to it, but I will say more about it by and by. 



This admirable society, which was also to " search for 

 scientific truth, especially in biology," seems to have been 

 but short lived. At all events, I can find only two refer- 

 ences to subsequent meetings, on October 7 and December 

 ig in this year. 



A few days later a final blow was struck in the battle 

 over the ape question. He writes on October 15 how he 

 has written a letter to the Medical Times — his last word 

 on the subject, summing up in most emphatic terms : — 



I have written the letter with the greatest care, and there is 

 nothing coarse or violent in it. But it shall put an end to all the 

 humbug that has been going on. . . . RoUeston will come out 

 with his letter in the same number, and the smash will be awful, 

 but most thoroughly merited. 



These several pieces of work, struck out at different 

 times in response to various impulses, were now combined 

 and re-shaped into Man's Place in Nature, the first book 

 which was published by him. Thus he writes to Sir Charles 

 Lyell on May 5, 1862 : — 



