ifficulties
of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever
since Theism was invented."

XIV

LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS

"To live laborious days" was, for Huxley, at all times a necessity as
well as a creed. The lover of knowledge and truth, he firmly believed,
must devote his uttermost powers to their service; he held as strongly
that every man's first duty to society was to support himself. But
science provided more fame than pence, and with wife and family to
support he was spurred to redoubled efforts. In the early years of
married life especially, while he was still struggling to make
his way, he often felt the pinch. He added to his modest income by
reviewing and translating scientific books and by lecturing. On
one occasion, when he was a candidate for a certain scientific
lectureship, one of the committee of election, a wealthy man,
expressed astonishment at his application--"what can he want with a
hundred a year?" "I dare say," commented Huxley, "he pays his cook
that." In early days, visioning the future, he and his wife had fondly
planned to marry on L400 a year, while he pursued science, unknown
if need be, for the sake of science. The reality pressed hardly upon
them; those were dark evenings when he would come home fagged out by
a second lecture at the end of a full day's work and lay himself down
wearily on one couch, while she, so long a semi-invalid, lay uselessly
on another. And, later, the upbringing of a large family, though its
advent made life the more worth living, involved a heavy strain. At
the same time, a man who was ever ready to take up responsibilities
for the furtherance of every branch of science with which he was
concerned had endless responsibilities committed to him. Besides
his researches in pure science, whether anatomy, paleontology, or
anthropology, his regular teaching work and other courses of lectures,
his long work as examiner at the London University, the production of
scientific memoirs and text-books and more general essays, he took
a leading share in editing the _Natural History Review_ for two and
a-half years; he was an active supporter of the chief scientific
societies to which he belonged, and took a prominent part in their
administration as member of council, secretary, or president, the
most laborious period of which was during the nine years of his
secretaryship of the Royal Society, soon to be followed by the
presidency. Add to these his