195 
1895.] Obituary notice of Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley. 
ten years ago. This was not however, his only scientific post. He was 
twice Fullerian Professor of Physiology to the Royal Institution ; and 
in the same year in which this'honour first fell to him, was appointed 
Examiner in Physiology and Anatomy to the University of London. 
Four years later, in 1858, he delivered the Croonian Lecture of the 
Royal Society, choosing for his subject the “ Theory of the Vertebrate 
Skull.” For six years he was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College 
of Surgeons, and twice he presided at the British Association, first 
in 1862 over the Biological Section at the Cambridge meeting, and 
eight years later, at the Liverpool meeting, over the Association as a 
whole. In 1869 and 1870, he was President of the Geological and 
Ethnological Societies, and for three years he was Lord Rector of 
Aberdeen University. Elected Secretary of the Royal Society in 1873, 
he was called ten years later to the highest honour of English Science, the 
presidency of that body. He occupied the place of Sir Wyville Thomson 
as Professor of Natural History of Edinburgh, during that naturalist’s 
absence with the Challenger , and for four years acted as Inspector of 
Salmon Fisheries. All his official posts, however, as above stated, 
were resigned by him in 1885, after which he retired to Eastbourne ; 
but more than six years after his retirement, he received the dignity 
of Privy Councillor. His honorary degrees and memberships are 
too numerous to mention, though it must here be remarked that he 
was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal 
as early as 1872. After his retirement, Huxley lived a quiet but by no 
means inactive life, but latterly his health failed, and after more than a 
year’s illness, he died on June 29th, 1895. His work lay in more depart¬ 
ments than one, and in each of these he occupies an exceptional position. 
As Biologist, whatever his rank will in the future be decided to be, he 
will at any rate be reckoned as one of the foremost of the century. Of 
wide interests, he undertook research in many Invertebrate and Verte¬ 
brate groups, and shed enlightenment on all. Most noteworthy, perhaps, 
was his work on the Comparative Anatomy and classification of 
the Vertebrata, to which he paid particular attention. In the second 
place, as a philosophic thinker, Huxley is universally acknowledged 
to have held a high position. On many questions he has profoundly 
influenced modern thought, and in none so much as in that relating to 
the theory of Evolution. Of the views of Darwin and Wallace he was, if 
not the earliest, certainly far the most brilliant supporter. As early as 
1863 his lectures t.Q working men, begun in 1860 at the Jermyn Street 
Museum, were published under the title “ Evidence as to Man’s place 
in Nature,” and excited great interest both at honfe and abroad. Not 
only did he advance the Darwinian principles in this and other works, 
but himself worked out many important developments thereof. 
