VI PREFACE 



hundred titles, exclusive of the memoir on The Oceanic Hydrozoa, 

 published by the Ray Society in 1859, which, from its size and 

 character, we have considered as an independent publication. 



Huxley produced so great an effect on the world as an expositor 

 of the ways and needs of science in general, and of the claims of 

 Darwinism in particular, that some, dwelling on this, are apt to 

 overlook the immense value of his direct original contributions to 

 exact science. The present volume and its successors \\'ill, we trust, 

 serve to take away all excuse for such a mistaken view of Huxley's 

 place in the history of biological science. They show that quite 

 beyond and apart from the influence exerted by his popular writings, 

 the progress of biology during the present century was largely due 

 to labours of his of which the general public knew nothing, and that 

 he was in some respects the most original and most fertile in 

 discovery of all his fellow-workers in the same branch of science. 



Older naturalists will, we feel sure, welcome this complete and 

 convenient collection of writings which they have long known and 

 long treasured. To our younger brethren we offer it as a most 

 valuable mine in which searching they will find a most interesting 

 history of the birth and growth of general ideas which seem to them 

 now the most elementary truths of their science, while at the same 

 time they will be brought to know models of style, patterns of sin- 

 cerity and lucidity of exposition, which haply they ma}- set before 

 themselves as standards towards which they may strive. 



As a frontispiece to the present volume we present a photograph 

 of Huxley, taken in 1857, when he was thirty-two years of age, a 

 time corresponding to the middle of the period covered by the 

 memoirs contained in the volume. 



Our thanks are due to the Royal, the Medico-Chirurgical, and 

 other societies for the use made, for the purposes of reproduction, of 

 periodicals contained in their libraries. 



M. F. 

 E. R. L. 



January, 189S. 



