For I have not been one of those fortunate persons who are able to
regard a popular lecture as a mere hors d'œuivre, unworthy of being ranked among the serious efforts of a philosopher; and who keep their fame as scientific hierophants unsullied by attempts — at
least of the successful sort — to be understanded of the people. <...> On the contrary, I found that the task of putting the truths learned in the field, the laboratory
and the museum, into language which, without bating a jot of scientific accuracy shall be generally
intelligible, taxed such scientific and literary faculty as I possessed to the uttermost; indeed my experience has furnished me with no better corrective of the tendency to scholastic pedantry which
besets all those who are absorbed in pursuits remote from the common ways of men, and become
habituated to think and speak in the technical dialect of their own little world, as if there were no
other. <...> For though various sadly comical experiences of the results of my own efforts have led me to entertain a very moderate estimate of the purely intellectual value of lectures; though I venture to doubt if more than one
in ten of an average audience carries away an accurate notion of what the speaker has been driving
at; yet is that not equally true of the oratory of the hustings, of the House of Commons, and even of
the pulpit? <...> The orator was a very busy man, a charming conversationalist and by no means despised a good dinner; and, I imagine, rose without having given a thought to what he was going to
say. <...> That sagacious person John Wesley, is reported to have replied to some one who questioned
the propriety of his adaptation of sacred words to extremely secular airs, that he did not see why the
Devil should be left in possession of all the best tunes. <...> The most zealous of popular lecturers can aim at nothing more than the awakening of
a sympathy for abstract truth, in those who do not really follow his arguments; and of a desire to
know more and better in the few who do. <...> At the same time it must be admitted that the popularization of science, whether by lecture
or essay, has its drawbacks. <...> The
"people who fail" take their revenge, as we have recently had occasion to observe, by ignoring all
the rest <...>
Collected_essaysRepr_Discourses_biological_and_geological._Vol._8.pdf
!"LLECTED !SS"YS
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VOLUM' VIII
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DISCOURSES:
BIOLOGICAL & GEOLOGICAL
ESSAYS
BY
THOMAS H. HUXLEY
Lonldon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1894
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Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
London and Bungay
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PREFACE ___________________________________________________________________ 6
I ON A PIECE OF CHALK [1868] (A Lecture delivered to the working men of Norwich
during the meeting of the British Association.) ____________________________________________ 8
II THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEEP SEA [1873] _________________________________ 19
III ON SOME OF THE RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER
[1875] _____________________________________________________________________________ 29
IV YEAST [1871] ____________________________________________________________ 42
V ON THE FORMATION OF COAL [1870] (A Lecture delivered at the Philosophical
Institute, Bradford) _________________________________________________________________ 51
VI ON THE BORDER TERRITORY BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE
VEGETABLE KINGDOMS [1876] (A Fridey evening Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution.)
__________________________________________________________________________________ 59
VII A LOBSTER; OR, THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY [1861] (A Lecture delivered at the
South Kensington Museum.) __________________________________________________________ 70
VIII BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS [1870] (The Presidential Adress to the British
Assotialion for the Advancement of Science at Liverpool)__________________________________ 80
IX GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE [1862]
(Adress to the Geological Society on behalt of the President bye one of tte Secretaries.) _________ 93
X GEOLOGICAL REFORM [1869] (The Presidential Adress to the Geological Society.)
_________________________________________________________________________________ 103
XI PALÆONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION [1870] (The
Presidential Adress to the Ceological Society.) __________________________________________ 114
ESSAYS BY T.H. HUXLEY, VOL.VIII 5
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