348 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxiv 



the popular mind the leaven of new ideas upon nature and 

 education and the progress of thought, he was still con- 

 stantly at work on biological researches of his own, many 

 of which took shape in the Hunterian lectures at the College 

 of Surgeons from 1863-1870. But from 1870 onward, the 

 time he would spare to such research grew less and less. 

 For eight years he was continuously on one Royal Com- 

 mission after another. His administrative work on learned 

 societies continued to increase; in 1869-70 he held the 

 presidency of the Ethnological Society, with a view to 

 effecting the amalgamation with the Anthropological, " the 

 plan," as he calls it, " for uniting the Societies which occupy 

 themselves with man (that excludes " Society " which occu- 

 pies itself chiefly with woman)." He became president of 

 the Geological Society in 1872, and for nearly ten years, 

 from 1871 to 1880, he was secretary of the Royal Society, 

 an office which occupied no small portion of his time and 

 thought, " for he had formed a very high ideal of the duties 

 of the Society as the head of science in this country, and 

 was determined that it should not at least fall short through 

 any lack of exertion on his part " (Sir M. Foster, R. S. 

 Obit. Not.).* 



The, year 1870 itself was one of the busiest he had ever 

 known. He published one biological and four paleonto- 

 logical memoirs, and sat on two Royal Commissions) one 

 on the Contagious Diseases Acts, the other on Scientific 

 Instruction, which continued until 1875. 



The three addresses which he gave in the autumn, and 

 his election to the School Board will be spoken of later; in 

 the first part of the year he read two papers at the Ethno- 

 logical Society, of which he was president, on " The Geo- 

 graphical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Man- 

 kind," March 9 — and on " The Ethnology of Britain," May 

 10 — the substance of which appeared in the Contemporary 

 Review for July under the title of " Some Fixed Points in 

 British Ethnology " (Coll. Ess. vii. 253). As president also 

 of the Geological Society and of the British Association, 



* See Appendix II. 



