224 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xv 



I do grudge Hardwicke very much having not only the pub- 

 lisher's but the author's profits. It so often happens that popular 

 lectures designed for a class and inspired by an attentive audi- 

 ence's sympathy are better than any writing in the closet for the 

 purpose of educating the many as readers, and of remunerating 

 the publisher and author. I would lose no time in considering 

 well what steps to take to rescue the copyright of the third 

 thousand. 



As for the value of the work thus done in support of 

 Darwin's theory, it is worth while quoting the words of Lord 

 Kelvin, when, as President of the Royal Society in 1894, it 

 fell to him to award Huxley the Darwin Medal : — 



To the world at large, perhaps, Mr. Huxley's share in mould- 

 ing the thesis of Natural Selection is less well known than is 

 his bold unwearied exposition and defence of it after it had 

 been made public. And, indeed, a speculative trifler, revelling 

 in the problems of the " might have been," would find a con- 

 genial theme in the inquiry how soon what we now call " Dar- 

 winism " would have met with the acceptance with which it has 

 met, and gained the power which it has gained, had it not been 

 for the brilliant advocacy with which in its early days it was 

 expounded to all classes of men. 



That advocacy had one striking mark: while it made or 

 strove to make clear how deep the new view went down, and 

 how far it reached, it never shrank from trying to make equally 

 clear the limit beyond which it could not go. 



