CHAPTER XV 



PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY [1880-83]. 



Probably the most interesting lecture for 1880 was the 

 Friday Evening Discourse, " On the Coming of Age of 

 the Origin of Species," delivered at the Royal Institution 

 on March 19 (Nature, xxii, 1880, pp. I-4. Sci. Mem., 

 iv, XXIV, p. 395. Coll. Essays, ii, p. 227). — Here 

 Huxley tells us that, — 



"... having conceived a tender affection for a child of 

 what appeared to me to be of such remarkable promise, I acted 

 for some time in the capacity of a sort of under-nurse, and thus 

 came in for my share of the storms which threatened the life of 

 the young creature." 



Since those days the exactly opposite danger of accept- 

 ing the main doctrines without reflection had become 

 apparent, a tendency to be deprecated, — 



"... for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, 

 and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned 

 errors . . . the essence of the scientific spirit is criticism." 



The prophetic character of the Origin is pointed out, 

 and illustrated by the palaontological discoveries made 

 since its publication, as well as by Hofmeister's pioneer 

 work on vascular cryptogams, which helped to erase one 

 of the supposed sharp boundary lines in the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



Another address of the year " On the Method of 

 Zadig : Retrospective Prophecy as a Function of Science," 



156 



