14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



the end of the day whether I think I have earned my 

 wages or not. Men are said to be partial judges of them- 

 selves. Young men may be, I doubt if old men are. 

 Life seems terribly foreshortened as they look back, and 

 the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth turns 

 out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges 

 when, by failing breath, they reach the top. But if I 

 may speak of the objects I have had more or less defi- 

 nitely in view since I began the ascent of my hillock, they 

 are briefly these: To promote the increase of natural 

 knowledge and to forward the application of scientific 

 methods of investigation to all the problems of life to 

 the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown 

 with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that 

 there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind ex- 

 cept veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute 

 facing of the world as it is when the garment of make- 

 believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier 

 features is stripped off. 



It is with this intent that I have subordinated any 

 reasonable, or unreasonable, ambition for scientific fame 

 which I may have permitted myself to entertain to 

 other ends; to the popularisation of science; to the 

 development and organisation of scientific education; 

 to the endless series of battles and skirmishes over evo- 

 lution; and to untiring opposition to that ecclesiastical 

 spirit, that clericalism, which in England, as everywhere 

 else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, is 

 the deadly enemy of science. 



In striving for the attainment of these objects, I have 

 been but one among many, and I shall be well content 

 to be remembered, or even not remembered, as such. 

 Circumstances, among which I am proud to reckon the 

 devoted kindness of many friends, have led to my oc- 

 cupation of various prominent positions, among which 



