No X-ray machine is needful to make the
skeleton visible; it stands forth with the parts all nicely related
and compactly joined. In reference to structure, his son and biographer
writes, "He loved to visualize his object clearly. The framework of
what he wished to say would always be drawn out first." Professor Ray
Lankester also mentions Huxley's love of form. "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 form, a character which
others recognize in him though he does not himself set it down in his
analysis." Huxley's own account of his efforts to shape his work is
suggestive. "The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my
native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I
write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get them into proper shape;
and I believe I become more fastidious as I grow older." And, indeed,
there is a marked difference in firmness of structure between the
earlier essays, such as On the Educational Value of the Natural History
Sciences, written, as Huxley acknowledges, in great haste, and the
later essays, such as A Liberal Education and The Method of Scientific
Investigation. To trace and to define this difference will be most
helpful to the student who is building up a knowledge of structure for
his own use.
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