ll 



Nor was it only in impersonal academic distinctions that Huxley 

 found his worth recognised. In the scientific world of London he 

 soon formed warm friendships, both among the older and the younger 

 generations. By Edward Forbes, in whose nature there was much 

 that was kin to his own, and with whom he had had some acquaint- 

 ance before his voyage, he was at once greeted as a comrade, and 

 with J oseph Dalton Hooker, to whom he was drawn at the very first 

 by their common experience as navy surgeons, he began an attach- 

 ment which, strengthened by like biological aspirations, grew closer 

 as their lives went on. In the first year of his return, in the autumn of 

 1851, he made the aquaintance of John Tyndall at the meeting of the 

 British Association at Ipswich ; and the three, Hooker, Huxley, and 

 Tyndall, finding how much in common were all their scientific views 

 and desires, formed then and there a triple scientific alliance. Nor were 

 older and more influential friends wanting ; and these made repeated 

 efforts to induce the Admiralty to at least contribute to the expense of 

 publishing Huxley's researches. But in vain ; and after three years 

 the young naval surgeon, whose scientific abilities were thus giving 

 trouble, was ordered to join a ship for active service. This he declined 

 to do, and, though absolutely without private resources, boldly threw 

 himself into a scientific life. For a year or so he appears to have 

 maintained himself by his pen, fighting with it a double fight, labour- 

 ing on the one hand to make the results of his inquiries known to the 

 scientific world, and struggling on the other to secure his daily bread. 

 A candidature about this time for the Chair of Natural History in the 

 University of Toronto proved unsuccessful, as did also a like candi- 

 dature for the Chair of Physics, in the same University, by his now 

 close friend John Tyndall. But in 1854 his chance came. Edward 

 Forbes, who held the posts of Palaeontologist to the Geological 

 Survey, and Lecturer on General Natural History at the Metropolitan 

 School of Science applied to Mining and the Arts, subsequently called 

 the Royal School of Mines, had just left these to fill the Chair of 

 Natural History at Edinburgh, and Sir H. De la Beche, the then 

 Director- General of the Geological Survey, offered both the posts to 

 Huxley, who in June and July of that year had given lectures at the 

 school in place of Forbes. Of this he has said himself,* " The 

 former post (that of Palaeontologist) I refused point blank, and 

 accepted the latter (that of Lecturer) 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." 

 As he himself has said, "there was very little of the genuine 

 naturalist in me ; I never collected anything, and species work was a 

 burden to me. What I cared for was the architectural and engineer- 

 ing part of the business ; the working out the wonderful unity of 

 * ' Atitobiograpliy,' p. 15. 



