Although a man by his works and personality shall have made his mark
upon the age he lives in, yet when he has passed away and his influence
with him, the next generation, and still more the succeeding one, will
know little of this work, of his ideals and of the goal he strove to
win, although for the student his scientific work may always live.
Thomas Henry Huxley may come to be remembered by the public merely as
the man who held that we were descended from the ape, or as the apostle
of Darwinism, or as the man who worsted Bishop Wilberforce at Oxford.
To prevent such limitation, and to afford more intimate and valuable
reasons for remembrance of this man of science and lover of his
fellow-men, I have gathered together passages, on widely differing
themes, from the nine volumes of his "Essays," from his "Scientific
Memoirs" and his "Letters," to be published in a small volume, complete
in itself and of a size that can be carried in the pocket.
Some of the passages were picked out for their philosophy, some for
their moral guidances, some for their scientific exposition of natural
facts, or for their insight into social questions; others for their
charms of imagination or genial humour, and many--not the least--for
their pure beauty of lucid English writing.
In so much wealth of material it was difficult to restrict the
gathering.
My great wish is that this small book, by the easy method of its
contents, may attract the attention of those persons who are yet
unacquainted with my husband's writings; of the men and women of
leisure, who, although they may have heard of the "Essays," do not care
to work their way through the nine volumes; of others who would like to
read them, but who have either no time to do so or coin wherewith to buy
them. More especially do I hope that these selections may attract
the attention of the working man, whose cause my husband so ardently
espoused, and to whom he was the first to reveal, by his free lectures,
the loveliness of Nature, the many rainbow-coloured rays of science, and
to show forth to his listeners how all these glorious rays unite in the
one pure white light of holy truth.
I am most grateful to our son Leonard Huxley for weeding out the
overgrowth of my extracts, for indexing the text of the book and seeing
it through the press for me.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 29th, 1907.