PREFACE 



When, after the death of the late Professor Huxley, the question 

 of the form of a memorial to him was being" discussed, among the 

 proposals made was one to republish in a collected form the many 

 papers which, during well nigh a half century of scientific activity, he 

 contributed to scientific societies and scientific periodicals. It was 

 felt that while his scientific treatises in the form of books, as well as 

 his more popular writings, might safely be entrusted to the usual 

 agencies of publication, there was a danger lest his exact scientific 

 writings, scattered among many journals, might be in part over- 

 looked or at least not gain that prominence in the eyes of students 

 of biological science in times to come which was their due. And 

 it was suggested that the financial responsibilities, by no means light 

 ones, of publishing in an adequate form these collected scientific 

 memoirs might be met out of the fund subscribed for a memorial. 

 The Messrs. Macmillan, however, who for many years had had close 

 relations as publishers with Professor Huxley, very generously, as a 

 contribution to the memorial, undertook all the financial responsi- 

 bilities of the republication, provided that we would be willing to 

 bear such editorial labours as might be necessary. This of course 

 we were delighted to do ; the reprinting and the reproduction 

 of the illustrations were at once begun, and we are now able to 

 offer the first volume, which will be followed as rapidly as possible 

 by the others. So far as we can judge, the work will be completed 

 in four volumes. 



The papers are arranged in chronological order, and the present 

 volume contains fifty memoirs originally published between 1847 and 

 i860. The list of papers which we propose to republish (and we 

 have done our best to make the list complete) contains about two 



