Of course I can’t persuade people of this, and they will have it that it is overwork.  I have come to the conviction, however, that steady work hurts nobody, the real destroyer of hardworking men being not their work, but dinners, late hours, and the universal humbug and excitement of society.

I mean to get out of all that and keep out of it.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The other contribution to the general question was his Working Men’s Lectures for 1862.  As he writes to Darwin on October 10—­] “I can’t find anything to talk to the working men about this year but your book.  I mean to give them a commentary a la Coke upon Lyttleton.”

[The lectures to working men here referred to, six in number, were duly delivered once a week from November 10 onwards, and published in the form of as many little pamphlets.  Appearing under the general title, “On our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature,” they wound up with a critical examination of the portion of Mr. Darwin’s work “On the Origin of Species,” in relation to the complete theory of the causes of organic nature.

Jermyn Street, December 2, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

I send you by this post three of my working men’s lectures now in course of delivery.  As you will see by the prefatory notice, I was asked to allow them to be taken down in shorthand for the use of the audience, but I have no interest in them, and do not desire or intend that they should be widely circulated.

Sometime hence, may be, I may revise and illustrate them, and make them into a book as a sort of popular exposition of your views, or at any rate of my version of your views.

There really is nothing new in them nor anything worth your attention, but if in glancing over them at any time you should see anything to object to, I should like to know.

I am very hard worked just now—­six lectures a week, and no end of other things—­but as vigorous as a three-year old.  Somebody told me you had been ill, but I hope it was fiction, and that you and Mrs. Darwin and all your belongings are flourishing.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[In reply, Darwin writes on December 10:—­

I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with perfect safety and truth...

Touching the “Natural History Review,” “Do inaugurate a great improvement, and have pages cut, like the Yankees do; I will heap blessings on your head.”

And again, December 18:—­

I have read Numbers 4 and 5.  They are simply perfect.  They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down Number 4 with this reflection, “What is the good of my writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book so despicable for its size?” In the name of all that is good and bad I may as well shut up shop altogether.