There is probably no lover of apt discourse, of keen criticism, or of scientific doctrine who will not welcome the issue of Professor Huxley's "Essays" in the present convenient shape. For my own part, I know of no writing which by its mere form, even apart from the supreme interest of the matters with which it mostly deals, gives me so much pleasure as that of the author of these essays. In his case, more than that of his contemporaries, it is strictly true that the style is the man. Some authors we may admire for the consummate skill with which they transfer to the reader their thought without allowing him, even for a moment, to be conscious of their personality. In Professor Huxley's work, on the other hand, we never miss his fascinating presence; now he is gravely shaking his head, now compressing the lips with emphasis, and from time to time, with a quiet twinkle of the eye, making unexpected apologies or protesting that he is of a modest and peace-loving nature. At the same time, one becomes accustomed to a rare and delightful phenomenon. Everything which has entered the author's brain by eye or ear, whether of recondite philosophy, biological fact, or political programme, comes out again to us--clarified, sifted, arranged, and vivified by its passage through the logical machine of his strong individuality. Of the artist in him it continues:-- He deals with form not only as a mechanical engineer in partibus (Huxley's own description of himself), but also as an artist, a born lover of forms, a character which others recognise in him though he does not himself set it down in his analysis. The essay on "Animal Automatism" suggested a reminiscence of Professor Lankester's as to the way in which it was delivered, and this in turn led to Huxley's own account of the incident in the letter given in volume 2. About the same time there is a letter acknowledging Mr. Bateson's book "On Variation", which is interesting as touching on the latter-day habit of speculation apart from fact which had begun to prevail in biology:--] Hodeslea, February 20, 1894. My dear Mr. Bateson, I have put off thanking you for the volume "On Variation" which you have been so good as to send me in the hope that I should be able to look into it before doing so. But as I find that impossible, beyond a hasty glance, at present, I must content myself with saying how glad I am to see from that glance that we are getting back from the region of speculation into that of fact again. There have been threatenings of late that the field of battle of Evolution was being transferred to Nephelococcygia. I see you are inclined to advocate the possibility of considerable "saltus" on the part of Dame Nature in her variations. I always took the same view, much to Mr. Darwin's disgust, and we used often to debate it.