246 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



In regard to Huxley's purely scientific research it will 

 be sufficient to say here that a great deal of it was not 

 only valuable but epoch-making. He left his mark on 

 almost every important group of the animal kingdom, 

 and specialist workers with the most diverse interests 

 have built and will continue to build on the foundation 

 he laid. Or rather perhaps the ground-floor, for the 

 foundations were well and truly laid by his predecessors. 



Part of his scientific work, as we have seen, consisted in 

 important contributions to anthropology, a branch in 

 which he always took the keenest interest, from the time 

 when, as a young naval surgeon, he devised an impromptu 

 waltz with a native of New Guinea, the direction of this 

 saltatory effort being planned with a view to more detailed 

 knowledge of the domestic economy of an interesting 

 primitive people. And if Huxley's reputation depended 

 merely on his anthropological work, he would be a figure 

 of no small importance. Professor Tylor gives us an 

 interesting glimpse of the part he took in the contro- 

 versial side of this subject : — 



" Many who were present still remember with amusement a 

 scene at the British Association meeting at Exeter, in 1869, 

 when Anthropology, then represented by a sub-section of biology, 

 drew dense crowds assembled to hear the anthropologists have 

 it out with the parsons. A theologico-metaphysical attempt to 

 sweep away the development-theory before a gale of declamatory 

 appeal to orthodoxy, backed by the irrefutable combination of 

 intuition and the evidence of sensation, brought up Huxley. 

 With calm seriousness he performed the familiar experiment of 

 touching the tip of his nose with his crossed fingers, inviting his 

 delighted audience thus to satisfy themselves that each of them 

 had two noses, unless indeed they were willing to admit that the 

 systematic comparison of observations, which is called science, 

 had something to do with the formation of a reasonable judgment " 

 (" Professor Huxley as Anthropologist," Fortnightly Review, 

 New Ser., lviii, 1895, pp. 3 1 1-2). 



