AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13 



the place for me, and hence I have steadily declined the 

 inducements to leave it, which have at various times 

 been offered. At last, in 1854, on the translation of my 

 warm friend Edward Forbes, to Edinburgh, Sir Henry De 

 la Beche, the Director- General of the Geological Survey, 

 offered me the post Forbes had vacated of Paleontologist 

 and Lecturer on Natural History. I refused the former 

 point blank, and accepted the latter only provisionally, 

 telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, and that 

 I should give up Natural History as soon as I could get a 

 physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one 

 years, and a large part of my work has been paleonto- 

 logical. 



At that time I disliked public speaking, and had a firm 

 conviction that I should break down every time I opened 

 my mouth. I believe I had every fault a speaker could 

 have (except talking at random or indulging in rhetoric), 

 when I spoke to the first important audience I ever ad- 

 dressed, on a Friday evening at the Royal Institution, 12 

 in 1852. Yet, I must confess to having been guilty, 

 malgre moi of as much public speaking as most of my 

 contemporaries, and for the last ten years it ceased to be 

 so much of a bugbear to me. I used to pity myself for 

 having to go through this training, but I am now more 

 disposed to compassionate the unfortunate audiences, 

 especially my ever- friendly hearers at the Royal Insti- 

 tution, who were the subjects of my oratorical experi- 

 ments. 



The last thing that it would be proper for me to do 

 would be to speak of the work of my life, or to say at 



12 The Royal Institution is "an establishment in London for 

 diffusing the knowledge of useful mechanical improvements." It 

 was founded in 1799 to "teach the application of science to the 

 useful purposes of life." Huxley described his appearance there 

 in a letter to his sister, Life and Letters, 1:106-107. 



13 "In spite of myself." 



