The crowning addition, however, to Huxley’s official work was the Presidency of the Royal Society.  He had resigned the Secretaryship in 1880, after holding office for nine years under three Presidents—­Airy, Hooker, and Spottiswoode.  Spottiswoode, like Hooker, was a member of the x Club, and was regarded with great affection and respect by Huxley, who in 1887 wrote of him to Mr. John Morley:—­]

It is quite absurd you don’t know Spottiswoode, and I shall do both him and you a good turn by bringing you together.  He is one of my best friends, and comes under the A1 class of “people with whom you may go tiger-hunting.”

[On June 7, writing to Professor (afterwards Sir E.) Frankland, he says:—­]

You will have heard that Spottiswoode is seriously ill.  The physicians suspect typhoid, but are not quite certain.  I called this morning, and hear that he remains much as he has been for the last two or three days.  So many of our friends have dropped away in the course of the last two years that I am perhaps morbidly anxious about Spottiswoode, but there is no question that his condition is such as to cause grave anxiety.

[But by the end of the month his fears were realised.  Consequently it devolved upon the Council of the Royal Society to elect one of their own body to hold office until the St. Andrew’s Day following, when a regular President would be elected at a general meeting of the Society.

Huxley himself had no wish to stand.  He writes to Sir M. Foster on June 27, announcing Spottiswoode’s death, which had taken place that morning:—­]

It is very grievous in all ways.  Only the other day he and I were talking of the almost miraculous way in which the x Club had held together without a break for some 18 years, and little did either of us suspect that he would be the first to go.

A heavy responsibility falls on you in the Royal Society.  It strikes me you will have to call another meeting of the Council before the recess for the consideration of the question of the Presidency.  It is hateful to talk of these things, but I want you to form some notion of what had best be done as you come up to-morrow.

—­ is a possibility, but none of the other officers, I think.

[Indeed, he wished to diminish his official distractions rather than to increase them.  His health was unlikely to stand any additional strain, and he longed to devote the remainder of his working years to his unfinished scientific researches.  But he felt very strongly that the President of the Royal Society ought to be chosen for his eminence in science, not on account of social position, or of wealth, even though the wealth might have been acquired through the applications of science.  The acknowledgment of this principle had led some years back to the great revolution from within, which succeeded in making the Society the living centre and representative of science for the whole country, and he was above all things anxious that the principle should be maintained.  He was assured, however, from several quarters that unless he allowed himself to be put forward, there was danger lest the principle should be disregarded.