

4 PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



valuable service. Such is the character of the present 

 volume. 



Prefixed to the English edition, is the following 

 note from Professor Huxley : " Mr. J. Aldous Mays, 

 who is taking shorthand notes of my 'Lectures to 

 Working Men,' has asked me to allow him, on his own 

 account, to print those notes for the use of my audience. 

 I willingly accede to this request, on the understanding 

 that a notice is prefixed to the effect that I have no 

 leisure to revise the Lectures, or to make alterations 

 in them, beyond the correction of any important error 

 in a matter of fact." 



The reader will not regret that the Lectures appear 

 in this form. Taken from the lips of the distinguished 

 naturalist, as he addressed an audience of ' Working 

 Men,' they have a clearness, a directness, and a sim- 

 plicity which belonged to the circumstances of their 

 delivery. In this respect, the following Lectures are 

 incomparable. Dealing with the most abstruse and 

 fundamental questions of mind and organization, these 

 subjects are nevertheless presented in so lucid and at- 

 tractive a manner as to impress vividly the commonest 

 imagination. 



The gift of translating the high questions of science 

 into popular forms of expression, without sacrificing ac- 

 curacy and introducing error, is a very rare one among 

 scientific men, but Professor Huxley possesses it in an 

 eminent degree : his lectures are models of their class. 



