In fact, I am told that Harrison is abusing me just now like a pickpocket in the “Fortnightly”, and I only make the philosophical reflection, No wonder! and doubt if the reading it is worth half a crown.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the new edition of Bates’ “Naturalist on the Amazons”, helps to remove a reproach sometimes brought against the Royal Society, in that it ignored the claims of distinguished men of Science to membership of the Society:—­]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 9, 1892.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

Many thanks for the new edition of “Bates.”  I was reading the Life last night with great interest; some of the letters you have printed are admirable.

Lyell is hit off to the life.  I never read a more penetrating character-sketch.  Hooker’s letter of advice is as sage as might be expected from a man who practised what he preached about as much as I have done.  I shall find material for chaff the next time my old friend and I meet.

I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British Museum, and especially on the Royal Society.  The former are hampered by the Treasury and the Civil Service regulations.  If a Bates turned up now I doubt if one could appoint him, however much one wished it, unless he would submit to some idiotic examination.  As to the Royal Society, I undertake to say that Bates might have been elected fifteen years earlier if he had so pleased.  But the Council cannot elect a man unless he is proposed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta which stood in the way.

It is the same with —.  Twenty years ago the Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal, which is about as broad an invitation to join us as we could well give a man.  In fact, I do not think he has behaved well in quite ignoring it.  Formerly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as the annual subscription.  But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more pecunious Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of abolishing this barrier.  At present a man has to pay only 3 pounds a year and no entrance.  I believe the publications of the Society, which he gets, will sell for more. [The “Fee Reduction Fund,” as it is now called, enables the Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even of his annual fee, in that being F.R.S. costs him nothing.]

So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody who ought to be in keeps out on the score of means.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.12.

1893.

[The year 1893 was, save for the death of three old friends, Andrew Clark, Jowett, and Tyndall, one of the most tranquil and peaceful in Huxley’s whole life.  He entered upon no direct controversy; he published no magazine articles; to the general misapprehension of the drift of his Romanes Lecture he only replied in the comprehensive form of Prolegomena to a reprint of the lecture.  He began to publish his scattered essays in a uniform series, writing an introduction to each volume.  While collecting his “Darwiniana” for the second volume, he wrote to Mr. Clodd:—­]