MARTIN.

A COURSE OF ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PRACTICAL BIOLOGY. Revised and
extended by G.B. HOWES and D.H. SCOTT. Crown 8vo, _10s. 6d._

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

LECTURES AND ESSAYS

BY

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1910

CONTENTS.
PAGE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5

LECTURES ON EVOLUTION 11

ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 45

NATURALISM AND SUPERNATURALISM 57

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 71

AGNOSTICISM 83

THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION IN RELATION TO JUDAIC
CHRISTIANITY 96

AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 108

_First Edition, February_ 1902.
_Reprinted, December_ 1902, 1903, 1904, 1910.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I was born about eight o'clock in the morning on the 4th of May, 1825,
at Ealing, which was, at that time, as quiet a little country village
as could be found within half-a-dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Now it
is a suburb of London with, I believe, 30,000 inhabitants. My father was
one of the masters in a large semi-public school which at one time had a
high reputation. I am not aware that any portents preceded my arrival in
this world, but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a traditional
account of the manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of
great practical value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in
consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same reason,
probably, a neighbouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony,
pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room when the
horrified nurse shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only
abstained from her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled
on my lips, and I should have been endowed with that mellifluous
eloquence which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth,
capacity, or honest work, to the highest places in Church and State. But
the opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged to content myself
through life with saying what I mean in the plainest of plain language,
than which, I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a man's
prospects of advancement.

Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not know; but it