I
INTRODUCTORY
The object of a full-dress biography is to present as complete a picture as may be of a man and his work, the influence of his character upon his achievement, the struggle with opposing influences to carry out some guiding purpose or great idea. With abundant documents at hand the individual development, the action of events upon character, and of character upon events, can be shown in the spontaneous freedom of letters, as well as in considered publications. But this little book is not a full-dress biography, although it may induce readers to turn to the larger Life and Letters, in which (or in the Aphorisms and Reflections of T.H. Huxley) facts and quotations can be turned up by means of the index; it is designed rather as a character sketch, to show not so much the work done as what manner of man Huxley was, and the spirit in which he undertook that work. It will not be a history of his scientific investigations or his philosophical researches; it will be personal, while from the personal side illustrating his attitude towards his scientific and philosophical thought.