252 PIONEERS OF £ VOL UTION. 



verse. Of course it starts with the assumption of dif- 

 ferences in things, else it would be superfluous. But 

 it equally starts with the assumption of resemblances, 

 and in every case it has brought out the fact that 

 the differences are superficial, and that the resem- 

 blances are fundamental. 



All this bears closely on Huxley's work. The 

 impulse thereto has come largely from the evidence 

 focussed in Man's Place in Nature, evidence of which 

 the material of the writings of his later years is the 

 expansion. The cultivation of intellect and character 

 had always been a favourite theme with him, and 

 the interest was widened when the passing of Mr. 

 Forster's Elementary Education Act in 1870 brought 

 the problem of popular culture to the front. The 

 wave of enthusiasm carried a group of distinguished 

 liberal candidates to the polls, and Huxley was 

 elected a member of the School Board for London. 

 Then, although in not so acute a form as now, the 

 religious difficulty was the sole cause of any serious 

 division, and Huxley's attitude therein puzzled a 

 good many people because he advocated the reten- 

 tion of the Bible in the schools. Those who should 

 have known him better thought that he was (to 

 quote from one of his letters to the writer) " a hypo- 

 crite, or simply a fool." " But," he adds, " my mean- 

 ing was that the mass of the people should not be 

 deprived of the one great literature which is open 

 to them, nor shut out from the perception of its 

 place in the whole past history of civilised mankind." 



