Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois (fossil)

rather Aino-ish about the body, small in the calf, and cheese-cutting in the shins.  Le voici!

CHAPTER 3.14.

1895.

Two months of almost continuous frost, during which the thermometer fell below zero, marked the winter of 1894-95.  Tough, if not strong, as Huxley’s constitution was, this exceptional cold, so lowering to the vitality of age, accentuated the severity of the illness which followed in the train of influenza, and at last undermined even his powers of resistance.

But until the influenza seized him, he was more than usually vigorous and brilliant.  He was fatigued, but not more so than he expected, by attending a deputation to the Prime Minister in the depth of January, and delivering a speech on the London University question; and in February he was induced to write a reply to the attack upon agnosticism contained in Mr. Arthur Balfour’s “Foundations of Belief”.  Into this he threw himself with great energy, all the more because the notices in the daily press were likely to give the reading public a wrong impression as to its polemic against his own position.  Mr. Wilfrid Ward gives an account of a conversation with him on this subject:—­

Some one had sent me Mr. A.J.  Balfour’s book on the “Foundations of Belief” early in February 1895.  We were very full of it, and it was the theme of discussion on the 17th of February, when two friends were lunching with us.  Not long after luncheon, Huxley came in, and seemed in extraordinary spirits, he began talking of Erasmus and Luther, expressing a great preference for Erasmus, who would, he said, have impregnated the Church with culture, and brought it abreast of the thought of the times, while Luther concentrated attention on individual mystical doctrines.  “It was very trying for Erasmus to be identified with Luther, from whom he differed absolutely.  A man ought to be ready to endure persecution for what he does hold; but it is hard to be persecuted for what you don’t hold.”  I said that I thought his estimate of Erasmus’s attitude towards the Papacy coincided with Professor R.C.  Jebb’s.  He asked if I could lend him Jebb’s Rede Lecture on the subject.  I said that I had not got it at hand, but I added, “I can lend you another book, which I think you ought to read—­Balfour’s ’Foundations of Belief’.”

He at once became extremely animated, and spoke of it as those who have read his criticisms, published in the following month, would expect.] “You need not lend me that.  I have exercised my mind with it a good deal already.  Mr. Balfour ought to have acquainted himself with the opinions of those he attacks.  One has no objection to being abused for what one does hold, as I said of Erasmus; at least, one is prepared to put up with it.  An attack on us by some one who understood our position would do all of us good—­myself included.