lS7S THE AFGHAN WAR 523 



deavour to free myself from what you regard as Bacon's charac- 

 teristic vice should have been the fruit of a desire to follow his 

 example, will seem strange to you, but it is fact. Perhaps you 

 will think it not less strange, but it is my real belief, that if your 

 own writings had been in existence and come in my way at the 

 same critical stage of my moral and mental development, they 

 would have taught me the same lesson and inspired me with the 

 same ambition; for in that particular (if I may say it without 

 offence) I look upon you both as eminent examples of the same 

 virtue. 



To the lecture he refers once more in a letter to Mr. 

 John Morley. The political situation touched on in this 

 and the next letter, is that of the end of the Russo-Turkish 

 war and the beginning of the Afghan war. 



Science Schools, South Kensington, 

 /W'. 7, 1878. 



My dear Morley — Many thanks for the cheque, and still 

 more for the good word for the article.* I knew it would 

 " draw " Hutton, and his ingenuity has as usual made the best 

 of the possibilities of attack. I am glad to find, however, that 

 he does not think it expedient to reiterate his old story about 

 the valuelessness of vivisection in the establishment of the doc- 

 trine of the circulation. 



I hear that that absurd creature R goes about declar- 

 ing that I have made all sorts of blunders. Could not somebody 

 be got to persuade him to put what he has to say in black and 

 white ? 



Controversy is as abhorrent to me as gin to a reclaimed 

 drunkard ; but oh dear ! it would be so nice to squelch that pomp- 

 ous impostor. 



I hope you admire the late aspects of the British Lion. His 

 tail goes up and down from the intercrural to the stiffly erect 

 attitude per telegram, while his head is sunk in the windbag of 

 the House of Commons. 



I am beginning to think that a war would be a good thing 

 if only for the inevitable clean sweep of all the present govern- 

 ing people which it would bring about. — Ever yours very faith- 

 fully, T. H. Huxley. 



* On Harvey. 



