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Title: Autobiography and Selected Essays

Author: Thomas Henry Huxley

Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1315]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED ESSAYS ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED ESSAYS

by

Thomas Henry Huxley

Note: The notes at the end of the book were originally
referenced by page number. I have instead inserted numbers
within the text in the format [xx] and cross-referenced
these to the appropriate notes.--D.L.

Edited, with introduction and notes by Ada L. F. Snell Associate
Professor Of English Mount Holyoke College

Riverside College Classics Copyright 1909

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

The Life of Huxley

Subject-matter, Structure, and Style of Essays

Suggested Studies

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE

A LIBERAL EDUCATION

ON A PIECE OF CHALK

THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION

THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE

ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS

NOTES

PREFACE

The purpose of the following selections is to present to students
of English a few of Huxley's representative essays. Some of these
selections are complete; others are extracts. In the latter case,
however, they are not extracts in the sense of being incomplete wholes,
for each selection given will be found to have, in Aristotle's
phrase, "a beginning, a middle, and an end." That they are complete in
themselves, although only parts of whole essays, is due to the fact that
Huxley, in order to make succeeding material clear, often prepares
the way with a long and careful definition. Such is the nature of the
extract A Liberal Education, in reality a definition to make distinct
and forcible his ideas on the shortcomings of English schools. Such a
definition, also, is The Method of Scientific Investigation.

The footnotes are those of the author. Other notes on the text have been
included for the benefit of schools inadequately equipped with reference
books. It is