occasionally liked to give play to his sarcastic
humour--though always strictly within the limits imposed by
courtesy. I remember that on one occasion, when I had read
to the Society an essay on "The Incoherence of Empiricism," I
looked forward with some little anxiety to his criticisms;
and when they came I felt that my anxiety had not been
superfluous; he "went for" the weak points of my argument in
half-a-dozen trenchant sentences, of which I shall not
forget the impression. It was hard hitting, though perfectly
courteous and fair.

The paper to be read at each meeting of the Society was printed
and circulated in advance, so that all might be prepared with their
arguments. Discussion followed the dinner at which the members met.
Of these papers Huxley contributed three, the titles of which
sufficiently indicate the fundamental points on which his criticism
played, questioning current axioms in its search for trustworthy
evidence of their validity. The first (1869) was on "The Views of
Hume, Kant, and Whately on the Logical Basis of the Doctrine of
the Immortality of the Soul," showing that these thinkers agreed in
holding that no such basis is given by reasoning apart, for instance,
from revelation. The argument is summarized in the essay on Hume
(_Coll. Ess._, vi, 201; 1878).

The second was "Has a Frog a Soul? and if so, of what Nature is that
Soul?" (1870), a physiological discussion as to the seat of those
purposive actions of which the animal is capable after it has lost
ordinary volition and consciousness by the removal of the front part
of its brain. Are these things attributes of the soul, and are
they resident not even in the brain, but in the spinal marrow? If