RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE. 363 



with long-continued daily communion, and be proved a faithful hus- 

 band, devoting himself with steadfast energy to her to whom he had 

 been joined, his heart went back again, and especially in the early days, 

 to the love which was not to be his. What he did for morphology may 

 perhaps give us a measure of what he might have done for physiology 

 had his early hopes been realized. As it was, he could show his lean- 

 ings chiefly by helping those who were following the career denied to 

 himself. Unable to put his own hand to the plow, he was ever ready 

 to help others whom fate had brought to that plow, especially us 

 younger ones, to keep the furrow straight. And if I venture to say 

 that the little which he who is now speaking to you has been able to do 

 is chiefly the result of Huxley's influence and help, it is because that 

 only illustrates what he was doing at many times and in many ways. 



His indirect influence was perhaps greater even than his direct. 



The man of science, conscious of his own strength, or rather of the 

 strength of that of which he is the instrument, is too often apt to under- 

 rate the weight and importance of xmblic opinion, of that which the 

 world at large thinks of his work and ways. Huxley, who had in him 

 the making of a sagacious statesman, never fell into this mistake. 

 Though he felt as keenly as any one the worthlessness of popular judg- 

 ment upon the value of any one scientific achievement, or as to the right 

 or wrong of any one scientific utterance, he recognized the importance 

 of securing toward science and scientific efforts in general a right atti- 

 tude of that popular opinion which is, after all, the ultimate appeal in 

 all mundane affairs. 



And much of his activity was directed to this end. The time which 

 seemed to some wasted, he looked upon as well spent, when it was used 

 for the purpose of making the people at large understand the worth 

 and reach of science. No part of science did he more constantly and 

 fervently preach to the common folk, than that part which we call 

 physiology. His little work on physiology was written with this view, 

 among others, that by helping to spread a sound knowledge of what 

 physiology was, among the young of all classes, he was preparing the 

 way for a just appreciation among the public of what were the aims of 

 physiology, and how necessary was the due encouragement of it. 



And if, as I believe to be the case, physiology stands far higher in 

 public opinion, and if its just ambitions are more clearly appreciated 

 than they were fifty years ago, that is in large measure due to Huxley's 

 words and acts. I have not forgotten that he was one of a commission 

 whose labors issued in the forging of those chains to which I have 

 referred ; but knowing something of commissions, and bearing in mind 

 what were the views of men of high influence and position at that time, 

 I tremble to think of what might have been the fate of physiology if a 

 wise hand had not made the best of adverse things. 



One aspect of Huxley's relations to science deserves, perhaps, special 

 comment. On nothing did he insist, perhaps, more strongly than on 



