PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2159, 11 July 1895, Page 41

PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

By Dinobnis.

Professor Huxley is dead, and by his death England has lost one of her greatest, most lucid-minded trutlueekers. Every age of the world has its special characteristic*. lye read of stone ages, of the age of bronze, of iron sges. Oar own era has been defined In many ways, but to me it always seems that this is pre-eminently the age of science. Science and the first-born of science—invention—axe at the head of things in our day. At no other period in the world's history has another raca gained each knowledge of and mattery over Nature as oar single-minded Btndents of science have obtained for us. In the front rank of those whose Intelleotual acumen and unwearied toil have conquered Nature's domain, universal consent assigns a prominent place to the scientist and philosopher whose intended the other day. Judging by his life's labours, Thomas Henry Huxley mast indeed have been born possessed of an inveterate dislike of whatever savoured of assumption in regard to mattes of fact. In seeking knowledge his motto ever was " that a man shall not gay he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." In every form of investigation strict adherence to the principle of honesty thus expressed is simply indispensable. Children assume that they know all abont things when they have learnt a lesson or two ; men start out with the assurance that they don't know, bat mean to dad out. The owner of perceptive faculties of the very highest orders, this notable man's mission in life was to bring light into places hitherto dark. He would be a boldly foolish critic who would venture to assert that Huxley left the world less bright than he found it. Iv common with many of our most eminent scientists, Professor Huxley commenced his career as a medical man, taking the M.B. degree, with honours in anatomy, physiology, and chemistry at the University of London, in his twentieth year. While still a student he produced a paper upon the root sheath of hair, " the first of bis <*many valuable contributions to the material of science." Always throughout life distinguished by his geniality, kindness, and courtesy towards thesa with whom he came in contact, it wa« characteristic of Hvixley that while a practising physician his life was spent among the London poor. Ten or a dozan years back he gave an account of his experiences among some of the most poverty-stricken districts of the great metropolis. Afterwards entering the naval service at Haslar Hospital, Huxley soon received an appointment as assistant surgeon to the Gjvernment vessel Rattlesnake, a post which be held for four years. The voyage of the Rattlabnake did for Huxley exactly what the voyage of the Beagle did for Darwin — it made a naturalist of him. His chief zoological . work resulting from original inveatfg itions during the voyage gained for him the Fellowship of the Royal Society, and in the year following he was awarded the medal of that institu' ion. «, It is quite needless here to give in detail the voluminous list of honours showered upon Professor Huxley during his long and memorably useful life. Suffice it to say that almost every distinction possible in his native land has became his or has been declined by him. All the great nations of Europe have heaped honours upon him as lavishly as did the scientific societies and universities of Britain. An acknowledged leader amongst his fellow worker? , Professor Huxley has all along been the chief fighting man of the revolutionary party. By his eloquence, fairness, and consistency in advocatiDg hia views he has gained the goodwill of all sections of the community', or, at least, of all such as seek truth for itself. " Though the contributions of Professor Huxley to the store of knowledge in his own special science—comparative anatomy — would alone entitle him to a position in the front rank of scientific men, yet hi* reputation Is owing chiefly to hia magnificent powers of generalisation (without which noßcieatiat can bs more than a mere workman), to his power of language wherewith to xjlothe his idsas, to his devotedoess as a follower of Darwin, to his high Btanding as a scientific philosopher, to his advocacy in the cause of medical reform, and to his untiring energies having always been enlisted on the side of education." Among the most important of his generalisations may be mentioned, first, the uniting of the classes of reptiles and birds in the one gr«at group of the Sauropaida, a mode of regarding the facts which at the time it was formulated required more than Ordinary inteUsctual courage, but which subsequent discoveries and descriptions of "missing links" have fully justified; and secondly, the grouping according to the natural system of clastification of man, apes, and monkeys in the one order of primates. This latter, though at first much oppoied, was so conclusively demonstrated in the " Evidences as to Mau's Place in Nature " as being in strict accordance with the facts of anatomy, that few now think of disputing its necessity. Huxley has chiefly earned fame as a philosopher by his masterly exposition of the systems of Berkeley and Hume, his views upon which are pretty certain to outlive the vast quantities of unscientific criticism which have been hurled at them. In the United States, which he visited in ' 1876, he waß most enthusiastically received, and the series of lectures upon Evolution which he then delivered -"would seem to have marked a distinctive epooh in the history of scientific philo«ophy in that country." In 1870 Professor Haxley was elected a member of the first London School Board, and earnestly and consistently advocated the claims of secular and unsectarian education. -Few men have worked so steadfastly aad well in life's highways as he has ; but who that toils there in honest sincerity has no snarler at his heels 1 Huxley had his snarler in the form of that pariah of his race, the feo-called " religious editor," We can never forget how that most wretched denizen of the newspaper world has always striven to do > gfcb contemptible little best to picture

Huxley as a bogey to be shunned, a man whose works are " dangerous " — not to be read upon any account, oh, no ; but to be condemned not only without being read, but, for that matter, before being written even ! This, however, as I have partially shown, and could much more f ully show, is very far from being tbe attitude of reasonable thinking people. Among these will long be revered the frank open-mlndedneas and manly candour of the ablest champion of modern Ecience, Thomas Hanry Huxley.