[Contents] [Frontispiece]

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

Leaders in Science

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORK

BY

P. CHALMERS MITCHELL, M.A. (Oxon.)

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

[Contents]

PREFACE

This volume is in no sense an intimate or authorised biography of Huxley. It is simply an outline of the external features of his life and an account of his contributions to biology, to educational and social problems, and to philosophy and metaphysics. In preparing it, I have been indebted to his own Autobiography, to the obituary notice written by Sir Michael Foster for the Royal Society of London, to a sketch of him by Professor Howes, his successor at the Royal College of Science, and to his published works. The latter consist of many well-known separate volumes which are familiar to all zoölogists, and of a vast number of memoirs and essays scattered in various scientific and general publications. The general Essays were collected into nine volumes, revised by himself in the later years of his life, and published by Messrs. Macmillan. The Scientific Memoirs, thanks to the generous enterprise of the same publishing firm, with which he was so long associated, and to the pious labours of Sir Michael Foster and Professor Ray Lankester, are in process of reissue in the form of four volumes, two of which have now appeared. These will contain all his important contributions to science, with the exception of a large separate treatise on the Oceanic Hydrozoa published by the Ray Society in 1859. There is also announced a formal Biography, prepared by his son, so that future admirers or students of Huxley's work will be in an exceptionally favourable position.

London, 1900. P. CHALMERS MITCHELL.

Leaders in Science

CONTENTS

PAGE

vPREFACE

CHAPTER I

1FROM SCHOOL TO LIFE-WORK

Birth—Parentage—School-days—Choice of Medical Profession—Charing Cross Hospital—End of Medical Studies—Admission to Naval Medical Service.

CHAPTER II

13THE VOYAGE OF THE RATTLESNAKE

The Objects of the Voyage—The Route—The Naturalist and the Surgeon—Collecting and Dredging—Stay in Sydney—Adventures with the Natives—Comparison with Darwin's Voyage on the Beagle.

CHAPTER III

30FLOATING CREATURES OF THE SEA

The Nature of Floating Life—Memoir on Medusæ Accepted by the Royal Society—Old and New Ideas of the Animal Kingdom—What Huxley Discovered in Medusæ—His Comparison of them with Vertebrate Embryos

CHAPTER IV

46EARLY DAYS IN LONDON

Scientific Work as Unattached Ship-Surgeon—Introduction to London Scientific Society—Translating, Receiving, and Lecturing—Ascidians—Molluscs and the Archetype—Criticism of Pre-Darwinian Evolution—Appointment to Geological Survey.

CHAPTER V

67CREATURES OF THE PAST

Beginning Palæontological Work—Fossil Amphibia and Reptilia—Ancestry of Birds—Ancestry of the Horse—Imperfect European Series Completed by Marsh's American Fossils—Meaning of Geological Contemporaneity—Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism Compared with Evolution in Geology—Age of the Earth—Intermediate and Linear Types.

CHAPTER VI

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