MODERN EVOLUTION. 205 



in 1 85 1 to the fellowship of the society whose presi- 

 dential chair he was in after years to adorn. He 

 would seem to have won the blue ribbon of science 

 per saltum. Probably, so far as their biological value 

 is concerned, nothing that he did subsequently has 

 surpassed his contributions to scientific literature at 

 that period; but if his services to knowledge had 

 been limited to the class of work which they repre- 

 sent, he would have remained only a distinguished 

 specialist. Further recognition of his well-won posi- 

 tion came in the award of the society's royal medal. 

 But fellowships and medals keep no wolf from the 

 door, and Huxley was a poor man. After vain at- 

 tempts to obtain, first, a professorship of physiology 

 in England, and then a chair of natural history at 

 Toronto (Tyndall was at the same time an unsuc- 

 cessful candidate for the chair of physics in the same 

 university), a settled position was secured by Sir 

 Henry de la Beche's ofifer of the professorship of 

 palaeontology and of the lectureship on natural his- 

 tory in the Royal School of Mines, vacated by Ed- 

 ward Forbes. That was in 1854. Between that date 

 and the time of his return Huxley had contributed 

 a number of valuable papers on the structure of the 

 invertebrates, and on histology, or the science of 

 tissues. But these, while adding to his established 

 qualifications for a scientific appointment, demand 

 no detailed reference here. With both chairs there 

 was united the curatorship of the fossil collections 

 in the Museum of Practical Geology, and these, with 



