Chapter I: Front Matter

LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS

by

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S.

London: MacMillan and Co. London R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers, Bread Street Hill.

1870

A PREFATORY LETTER.

MY DEAR TYNDALL,

I should have liked to provide this collection of "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," with a Dedication and a Preface. In the former, I should have asked you to allow me to associate your name with the book, chiefly on the ground that the oldest of the papers in it is a good deal younger than our friendship. In the latter, I intended to comment upon certain criticisms with which some of these Essays have been met.

But, on turning the matter over in my mind, I began to fear that a formal dedication at the beginning of such a volume would look like a grand lodge in front of a set of cottages; while a complete defence of any of my old papers would simply amount to writing a new one--a labour for which I am, at present, by no means fit.

The book must go forth, therefore, without any better substitute for either Dedication, or Preface, than this letter; before concluding which it is necessary for me to notify you, and any other reader, of two or three matters.

The first is, that the oldest Essay of the whole, that "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences," contains a view of the nature of the differences between living and not-living bodies out of which I have long since grown.

Secondly, in the same paper, there is a statement concerning the method of the mathematical sciences, which, repeated and expanded elsewhere, brought upon me, during the meeting of the British Association at Exeter, the artillery of our eminent friend Professor Sylvester.

No one knows better than you do, how readily I should defer to the opinion of so great a mathematician if the question at issue were really, as he seems to think it is, a mathematical one. But I submit, that the dictum of a mathematical athlete upon a difficult problem which mathematics offers to philosophy, has no more special weight, than the verdict of that great pedestrian Captain Barclay would have had, in settling a disputed point in the physiology of locomotion.

The genius which sighs for new worlds to conquer beyond that surprising region in which "geometry, algebra, and the theory of numbers melt into one another like sunset tints, or the colours of a dying dolphin," may be of comparatively little service in the cold domain (mostly lighted by the moon, some say) of philosophy. And the more I think of it, the more does our friend seem to me to fall into the position of one of those "verständige Leute," about whom he makes so apt a quotation from Goethe. Surely he has not duly considered two points. The first, that I am in no way answerable for the origination of the doctrine he criticises: and the second, that if we are to employ the terms observation, induction, and experiment, in the sense in which he uses them, logic is as much an observational, inductive, and experimental science as mathematics; and that, I confess, appears to me to be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of his argument.

Thirdly, the essay "On the Physical Basis of Life" was intended to contain a plain and untechnical statement of one of the great tendencies of modern biological thought, accompanied by a protest, from the philosophical side, against what is commonly called Materialism. The result of my well-meant efforts I find to be, that I am generally credited with having invented "protoplasm" in the interests of "materialism." My unlucky "Lay Sermon" has been attacked by microscopists, ignorant alike of Biology and Philosophy; by philosophers, not very learned in either Biology or Microscopy; by clergymen of several denominations; and by some few writers who have taken the trouble to understand the subject. I trust that these last will believe that I leave the essay unaltered from no want of respectful attention to all they have said.

Fourthly, I wish to refer all who are interested in the topics discussed in my address on "Geological Reform," to the reply with which Sir William Thomson has honoured me.

And, lastly, let me say that I reprint the review of "The Origin of Species" simply because it has been cited as mine by a late President of the Geological Society. If you find its phraseology, in some places, to be more vigorous than seems needful, recollect that it was written in the heat of our first battles over the Novum Organon of biology; that we were all ten years younger in those days; and last, but not least, that it was not published until it had been submitted to the revision of a friend for whose judgment I had then, as I have now, the greatest respect.

Ever, my dear TYNDALL,

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. HUXLEY

LONDON, _June 1870_.

CONTENTS.

I.
PAGE
ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
(A Lay Sermon delivered in St. Martin's Hall, on the evening
of Sunday, the 7th of January, 1866, and subsequently published
in the _Fortnightly Review_) 3

II.

EMANCIPATION--BLACK AND WHITE.
(The _Reader_, May 20th, 1865) 23

III.

A LIBERAL EDUCATION: AND WHERE TO FIND IT. (An Address
to the South London Working Men's College, delivered on the
4th of January, 1868, and subsequently published in _Macmillan's
Magazine_) 31

IV.

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH. (Delivered
before the Liverpool Philomathic Society in April 1869,
and subsequently published in _Macmillan's Magazine_) 60

V.

ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES.
(An Address delivered at St. Martin's Hall, on the 22d July,
1854, and published as a pamphlet in that year) 80

VI.

ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. (A Lecture delivered at the South
Kensington Museum, in 1861, and subsequently published by the
Department of Science and Art) 104

VII.

ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. (A Lay Sermon delivered in
Edinburgh, on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1868, at the request
of the late Rev. James Cranbrook; subsequently published in the
_Fortnightly Review_) 132

VIII.

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. (A Reply to Mr. Congreve's
Attack upon the preceding Paper. Published in the _Fortnightly
Review._ 1869) 162

IX.

ON A PIECE OF CHALK. (A Lecture delivered to the Working Men of
Norwich, during the Meeting of the British Association, in 1868.
Subsequently published in _Macmillan's Magazine_) 192

X.

GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. (The
Anniversary Address to the Geological Society for 1862) 223

XI.

GEOLOGICAL REFORM. (The Anniversary Address to the Geological
Society for 1869) 251

XII.

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. (The _Westminster Review_, April 1860) 280

XIII.

CRITICISMS ON "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." (The _Natural History
Review_, 1864) 328

XIV.

ON DESCARTES' "DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE METHOD OF USING ONE'S
REASON RIGHTLY AND OF SEEKING SCIENTIFIC TRUTH." (An Address to
the Cambridge Young Men's Christian Society, delivered on the
24th of March, 1870, and subsequently published in
_Macmillan's Magazine_) 351

LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS.