Excerpt from The Teachings of Thomas Henry Huxley The purpose of a life, the central idea about which all its activities revolve must ever be the criterion by which posterity shall judge of its efficiency. It is not how much nor how well nor yet how ill the work has been done, but Why was it done The motif of an act is often all that is required to recommend or to condemn it at once. If the motif was bad the results can scarcely be other than bad; and if the motif be good the end-results can be criticized only from the standpoint of comparative worth. Many a good thought or act has been spoiled in the making or the doing; but a bad thought or act can never be made over into goodness by any process of juggling or craft. It is conceived in death and destruction at the very outset. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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T.H. Huxley led a fascinating and outgoing life. He did battle with God and Gladstone, sat on royal commissions and campaigned for elementary education. He carried Darwin's fight to the public. This book uses the life of Huxley to illustrate the second half of the 19th century.