I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly creditable state of things.

CHAPTER 2.7.

1875-1876.

[Huxley only delivered one address outside his regular work in 1875, on “Some Results of the ‘Challenger’ Expedition,” given at the Royal Institution on January 29.  For all through the summer he was away from London, engaged upon the summer course of lectures on Natural History at Edinburgh.  This was due to the fact that Professor (afterwards Sir) Wyville Thomson was still absent on the “Challenger” expedition, and Professor Victor Carus, who had acted as his substitute before, was no longer available.  Under these circumstances the Treasury granted Huxley leave of absence from South Kensington.  His course began on May 3, and ended on July 23, and he thought it a considerable feat to deal with the whole Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures.  No doubt both he and his students worked at high pressure, especially when the latter came scantily prepared for the task, like the late Joseph Thomson, afterwards distinguished as an African traveller, who has left an account of his experience in this class.  Thomson’s particular weak point was his Greek, and the terminology of the lectures seems to have been a thorn in his side.  This account, which actually tells of the 1876 course, occurs on pages 36 and 37 of his “Life.”

The experience of studying personally under Huxley was a privilege to which he had been looking forward with eager anticipation; for he had already been fascinated with the charm of Huxley’s writings, and had received from them no small amount of mental stimulus.  Nor were his expectations disappointed.  But he found the work to be unexpectedly hard, and very soon he had the sense of panting to keep pace with the demands of the lecturer.  It was not merely that the texture of scientific reasoning in the lectures was so closely knit,—­although that was a very palpable fact,—­but the character of Huxley’s terminology was entirely strange to him.  It met him on his weakest side, for it presupposed a knowledge of Greek (being little else than Greek compounds with English terminations) and of Greek he had none.

Huxley’s usual lectures, he writes, are something awful to listen to.  One half of the class, which numbers about four hundred, have given up in despair from sheer inability to follow him.  The strain on the attention of each lecture is so great as to be equal to any ordinary day’s work.  I feel quite exhausted after them.  And then to master his language is something dreadful.  But, with all these drawbacks, I would not miss them, even if they were ten times as difficult.  They are something glorious, sublime!

Again he writes:—­

Huxley is still very difficult to follow, and I have been four times in his lectures completely stuck and utterly helpless.  But he has given us eight or nine beautiful lectures on the frog...If you only heard a few of the lectures you would be surprised to find that there were so few missing links in the chain of life, from the amoeba to the genus homo.