“Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
    Doctor and saint, and heard great argument
      About it and about:  but evermore
    Came out by the same door where in I went.

    “With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,
    And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
      And this was all the Harvest that I reaped—­
    ‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’

    “Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
    Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
      And out of it, like Wind along the Waste
    I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.”

But, the more profoundly does the conception of evolution lay hold of human thought, the more inevitable it becomes to recognise that man and all that is best in man—­his aspirations, ideas, virtues, and practical and abstract justice and goodness—­are just as much the product of the cosmic process and part of the Cosmos as the most sinister results of the struggle for existence.

CHAPTER XVII

CLOSING DAYS AND SUMMARY

     Huxley’s Life in London—­Decennial
     Periods—­Ill-health—­Retirement to Eastbourne—­Death—­Personal
     Appearance—­Methods of Work—­Personal Characteristics—­An
     Inspirer of Others—­His Influence in Science—­A Naturalist by
     Vocation—­His Aspirations.

Huxley’s life followed the quiet and even tenor of that of a professional man of science and letters.  The great adventure in it was his youthful voyage on the Rattlesnake.  That over, and his choice made in favour of science as against medicine, he settled down in London.  He married happily and shared in the common joys and sorrows of domestic life.  Advancement came to him steadily, and, although he was never rich, after the first few years of life in London, his income was always adequate to his moderate needs.  For the greater part of his working life, he lived actually in London, in the ordinary style and with the ordinary social enjoyments of a professional man.  His duties in connection with the Royal College of Science and with the Geological Survey were not arduous but constant; his time was fully occupied with these, with his scientific and literary work, with the business of scientific societies, with the occasional obligations of royal commissions, public boards, and lecturing engagements.  The quiet routine of his life was diversified by many visits to provincial towns to deliver lectures or addresses, by meetings of the British Association, by holidays in Switzerland, during which, with Tyndall, he made special studies of the phenomena of glaciation, and in the usual Continental resorts, and by several trips to America.