Many thanks for the “Oxford Magazine”.  The writer of the article is about the only critic I have met with yet who understands my drift.  My wife says it is a “sensible” article, but her classification is a very simple one—­sensible articles are those that contain praise, “stupid” those that show insensibility to my merits!

Really I thought it very sensible, without regard to the plums in the pudding.

[But the criticism, “sensible” not merely in the humorous sense, which he most fully appreciated was that of Professor Seth, in a lecture entitled “Man and Nature.”  He wrote to him on October 27:—­]

Dear Professor Seth,

A report of your lecture on “Man and Nature” has just reached me.  Accept my cordial thanks for defending me, and still more for understanding me.

I really have been unable to understand what my critics have been dreaming of when they raise the objection that the ethical process being part of the cosmic process cannot be opposed to it.

They might as well say that artifice does not oppose nature, because it is part of nature in the broadest sense.

However, it is one of the conditions of the “Romanes Lecture” that no allusion shall be made to religion or politics.  I had to make my omelette without breaking any of those eggs, and the task was not easy.

The prince of scientific expositors, Faraday, was once asked, “How much may a popular lecturer suppose his audience knows?” He replied emphatically, “Nothing.”  Mine was not exactly a popular audience, but I ought not to have forgotten Faraday’s rule.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[A letter of congratulation to Lord Farrer on his elevation to the peerage contains an ironical reference to the general tone of the criticisms on his lecture:—­]

Hodeslea, June 5, 1893.

CI DEVANT Citoyen PETION (autrefois le vertueux),

You have lost all chance of leading the forces of the County Council to the attack of the Horse-Guards.

You will become an emigre, and John Burns will have to content himself with the heads of the likes of me.  As the Jacobins said of Lavoisier, the Republic has no need of men of science.

But this prospect need not interfere with sending our hearty congratulations to Lady Farrer and yourself.

As for your criticisms, don’t you know that I am become a reactionary and secret friend of the clerics?

My lecture is really an effort to put the Christian doctrine that Satan is the Prince of this world upon a scientific foundation.

Just consider it in this light, and you will understand why I was so warmly welcomed in Oxford. (N.B.—­The only time I spoke before was in 1860, when the great row with Samuel came off!!)

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, July 15, 1893.

My dear Skelton,