dversaries, and there were few
disputants who left an argument with Huxley in an undamaged condition.
The consciousness which he had of his own careful methods, added to a
natural pugnacity, gave him an intellectual courage of a very high
order. As he knew himself to have made sure of his premisses, he did
not care whither his conclusions might lead him, against whatsoever
established doctrine or accepted axiom.

There was, however, a strong spice of natural combativeness in his
nature, the direct result of his native and highly trained critical
faculty. He tells us that in the pre-Darwinian days he was accustomed
to defend the fixity of species in the company of evolutionists and in
the presence of the orthodox to attack the same doctrine. Later in
life, when evolution had become fashionable, and the principles of
Darwinism were being elevated into a new dogmatism, he was as ready to
criticise the loose adherents of his own views as he had been to
expose the weakness of the conventional dogmatists.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Huxley's work as a whole was its
infectious nature. His vigorous and decided personality was reflected
on all the subjects to which he gave attention, and in the same
fashion as his presence infected persons with a personal enthusiasm so
his writings stimulated readers to efforts along the same lines. His
great influence is clear in the number and distinction of the
biologists who came under his personal care, and in the great army of
writers and thinkers who have been inspired by his views and methods
on general questions. His position as an actual contributor to science
has to a certain extent been lost sight of for two reasons. In the
first place, his effect on the world as an expositor of the scientific
method in its general application to life has overshadowed his exact
work; in the second place, his exact work itself has been partly lost
sight of in the new discoveries and advances to which it gave rise. It
is therefore necessary to reiterate that, apart from all his other
successes, he had made for himself an extremely distinguished position
in the annals of exact science. Sir Michael Foster and Prof. Ray
Lankester, in their preface to the collected edition of his scientific
memoirs, make a just claim for him. These memoirs, they wrote, show
that, "apart from the influence exerted by his popular writings, the
progress of biology during the present century was largely due to
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