LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY

BY HIS SON

LEONARD HUXLEY.



IN THREE VOLUMES.


VOLUME 1.




PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The American edition of the "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley"
calls for a few words by way of preface, for there existed a particular
relationship between the English writer and his transatlantic readers.

From the time that his "Lay Sermons" was published his essays found in
the United States an eager audience, who appreciated above all things
his directness and honesty of purpose and the unflinching spirit in
which he pursued the truth. Whether or not, as some affirm, the American
public "discovered" Mr. Herbert Spencer, they responded at once to the
influence of the younger evolutionary writer, whose wide and exact
knowledge of nature was but a stepping-stone to his interest in human
life and its problems. And when, a few years later, after more than one