The New York herald., 1876-09-19
Professor Huxley. First Lecture.


Professor Huxley's First Lecture.
Professor Huxley's audience last evening
at Chickering Hall was large and brilliant.
The hall was completely filed, and among
the audience was large proportion of the
most distinguished and cultivated people of
the city. We advise all who have not
tickets for the course to call at Appleton's
and secure them, for those who want to pur-
chase them at the door may fail to get seats.
The appearance of this eminent naturalist
is n little disappointing to those who knew
him only by reputation and through his
works. Instead of the sturdy, scientific
Boanerges which his writings would pre-
figure there comes forward on the platform,
greeted by general clapping Of hands in
token of admiring welcome, an elderly
gentleman of medium height, with the
stoop of an habitual hard student and step
which indicates wantof muscular frmness-
a man, in short, whose mind has overtaxed
his body. His face is good, hair
dark brown, unsprin1led with signs
of approaching white; beard gray, con-
English cut; brow ample, but not immense;
nose pointed and projecting, and his gen.
eral air and address more like that of O not
very well fed evangelical clergyman than Of
strenuous intellectual athlete who is
shaking the old beliefs of two continents. In
mere manner he is not SO pleasing as Pro-
fessor Tyndall, tho English scientist, with
whom we most naturally compare him
after having had the pleasure of listening
to both. Tyndall has stronger and clearer
voice and an easy erectness of bearing
which we miss in Professor Huxley, who,
bent forward restingly upon a small
reading desk, as if for support, dur
ing the greater part of his lecture,
whereas Tyndall had no such encum-
brance, spoke entirely without notes and
had the art of putting himself in more COM
plete sympathy with his audience. Profess
sor Huxley is SO absorbed in his subject that
he does not carry along in his consciousness
perpetual feeling of the attitude of the
listeners who hang upon his lips. He had
behind him, stretched on frame, geologi-
cal chart, to which he frequently pointed for
illustration, apparently not observing that
blackboard almost half it's size (of which he
made no use) had been placed almost di-
rectly in front of the chart, concealing it
from the greater part Of the audience. Pro-
fessor Tyndall, who gave series of brilliant
and surprising experiments, was SO careful
in all his arrangements that everybody pres
ent had an unobstructed view Of all that
was done.
1t is too early to speak in detail of Profess
sor Huxley's main thesis, as this lecture was
merely Introductory and touched on no
science but that of geology, whose doctrines
are universally accepted by well informed
people, There was stroke of courteous
.tiresse in his describing the Mosaic account
of the creation as the "Miltonic hypothesis"
and reading from the seventh book of Para
disc Lost" to show what the hypothesis was
which he set himself to refute. This deli
cacy of refuting Milton rather than Moses
would have been better relished for its
dexterous fneness if he had not afterward
required to the point and explained at some
length his reasons for setting himself in op-
position to the verse of Milton rather than
against the prose of the first chapter of Gene
sis. which Milton followed with almost literal
closeness. The chief reason was that the
biblical account has been variously inter-
preted. There was strong tinge of sar-
casm in his profession of humility in not
presuming to have an opinion as to its mean
ing, winding up with hit at the puzzling
fexibility of language which is susceptible
of such widely different constructions The
delicate Jtincsse of refuting Milton would
have been more "cute" and pleasing if he
had made no reference to the Bible at ALL
Each succeeding lecture will be more ex-
citing than the first, because he will tread
further and further on debatable ground,
especially when he comes to treat of the
Darwinian theory of tho descent of man.
Professor Huxley is furnishing stimulating
intellectual repast which few intellectual
people in the city will be willing to miss.
Tho Procession of Sultans-Murad and
Hannid.
On the subject of Sultans Of disordered