Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3
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Title: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3
Author: Thomas Henry Huxley
Editor: Leonard Huxley
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5799]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY — VOLUME 3 ***
This eBook was produced by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com
LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
BY HIS SON
LEONARD HUXLEY.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME 3.
(PLATE: PORTRAIT OF T.H. HUXLEY, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY DOWNEY, 1890.
MCQUEEN, SC.)
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 3.1. 1887.
CHAPTER 3.2. 1887.
CHAPTER 3.3. 1888.
CHAPTER 3.4. 1888.
CHAPTER 3.5. 1889.
CHAPTER 3.6. 1889-1890.
CHAPTER 3.7. 1890-1891.
CHAPTER 3.8. 1890-1891.
CHAPTER 3.9. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.10. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.11. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.12. 1893.
CHAPTER 3.13. 1894.
CHAPTER 3.14. 1895.
CHAPTER 3.15.
CHAPTER 3.16. 1895.
APPENDIX 1.
APPENDIX 2.
APPENDIX 3.
APPENDIX 4.
INDEX.
CHAPTER 3.1.
1887.
[The first half of 1887, like that of the preceding year, was chequered
by constant returns of ill-health.] "As one gets older," [he writes in
a New Year's letter to Sir J. Donnelly, "hopes for oneself get more
moderate, and I shall be content if next year is no worse than the
last. Blessed are the poor in spirit!" [The good effects of the visit
to Arolla had not outlasted the winter, and from the end of February he
was obliged to alternate between London and the Isle of Wight.
Nevertheless, he managed to attend to a good deal of business in the
intervals between his periodic flights to the country, for he continued
to serve on the Royal Society Council, to do some of the examining work
at South Kensington, and to fight for the establishment of adequate
Technical Education in England. He attended the Senate and various
committees of the London University and of the Marine Biological
Association.
Several letters refer to the proposal--it was the Jubilee year--to
commemorate the occasion by the establishment of the Imperial
Institute. To this he gladly gave his support; not indeed to the merely
social side; but in the opportunity of organising the practical
applications of science to industry he saw the key to success in the
industrial war of the future. Seconding the resolution proposed by Lord
Rothschild at the Mansion House meeting on January 12, he spoke of the
relation of industry to science--the two great developments of this
century. Formerly practical men looked askance at science, "but within
the last thirty years, more particularly," continues the report in
"Nature" (volume 33 page 265) "that state of things had entirely
changed. There began in the first place a slight flirtation between
science and industry, and that flirtation had grown into an intimacy,
he must almost say courtship, until those who watched the signs of the
times saw that it was high time that the young people married and set
up an establishment for themselves. This great scheme, from his point
of view, was the public and ceremonial marriage of science and
industry."
Proceeding to speak of the contrast between militarism and
industrialism, he asked whether, after all, modern industry was not war
under the forms of peace. The difference was the difference between
modern and ancient war, consisting in the use of scientific weapons, of
organisation and information. The country, he concluded, had dropped
astern in the race for want of special education which was obtained
elsewhere by the artisan. The only possible chance for keeping the
industry of England at the head of the world was through organisation.
Writing on January 18, to Mr. Herbert Spencer, who had sent him some
proofs of his Autobiography to look through, he says:--]
I see that your proofs have been in my hands longer than I thought for.
But you may have seen that I have been "starring" at the Mansion House.
This was not exactly one of those bits of over-easiness to pressure
with which you reproach me--but the resultant of a composition of
pressures, one of which was the conviction that the "Institute" might
be made into something very useful and greatly wanted--if only the
projectors could be made to believe that they had always intended to do
that which your humble servant wants done--that is the establishment of
a sort of Royal Society for the improvement of industrial knowledge and
an industrial university--by voluntary association.
I hope my virtue may be its own reward. For except being knocked up for
a day or two by the unwonted effort, I doubt whether there will be any
other. The thing has fallen flat as a pancake, and I greatly doubt
whether any good will come of it. Except a fine in the shape of a
subscription, I hope to escape further punishment for my efforts to be
of use.
[However, this was only the beginning of his campaign.
On January 27, a letter from him appeared in the "Times," guarding
against a wrong interpretation of his speech, in the general
uncertainty as to the intentions of the proposers of the scheme.]
I had no intention [he writes] of expressing any enthusiasm on behalf
of the establishment of a vast permanent bazaar. I am not competent to
estimate the real utility of these great shows. What I do see very
clearly is that they involve difficulties of site, huge working
expenses, the potentiality of endless squabbles, and apparently the
cheapening of knighthood.
[As for the site proposed at South Kensington,] "the arguments used in
its favour in the report would be conclusive if the dry light of reason
were the sole guide of human action." [But it would alienate other
powerful and wealthy bodies, which were interested in the Central
Institute of the City and Guilds Technical Institute,] "which looks so
portly outside and is so very much starved inside."
[He wrote again to the "Times" on March 21:--]
The Central Institute is undoubtedly a splendid monument of the
munificence of the city. But munificence without method may arrive at
results indistinguishably similar to those of stinginess. I have been
blamed for saying that the Central Institute is "starved." Yet a man
who has only half as much food as he needs is indubitably starved, even
though his short rations consist of ortolans and are served upon gold
plate.
[Only half the plan of operations as drawn up by the Committee was, or
could be, carried out on existing funds.
The later part of his letter was printed by the Committee as defining
the functions of the new Institute:--]
That with which I did intend to express my strong sympathy was the
intention which I thought I discerned to establish something which
should play the same part in regard to the advancement of industrial
knowledge which has been played in regard to science and learning in
general, in these realms, by the Royal Society and the Universities...I
pictured the Imperial Institute to myself as a house of call for all
those who are concerned in the advancement of industry; as a place in
which the home-keeping industrial could find out all he wants to know
about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; as a sort
of neutral ground on which the capitalist and the artisan would be
equally welcome; as a centre of intercommunication in which they might
enter into friendly discussion of the problems at issue between them,
and, perchance, arrive at a friendly solution of them. I imagined it a
place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made
accessible to the public; in which the higher questions of commerce and
industry would be systematically studied and elucidated; and where, as
in an industrial university, the whole technical education of the
country might find its centre and crown. If I earnestly desire to see
such an institution created, it is not because I think that or anything
else will put an end to pauperism and want--as somebody has absurdly
suggested,--but because I believe it will supply a foundation for that
scientific organisation of our industries which the changed conditions
of the times render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not think I
am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, have already
entered, upon the most serious struggle for existence to which this
country has ever been committed. The latter years of the century
promise to see us embarked in an industrial war of far more serious
import than the military wars of its opening years. On the east, the
most systematically instructed and best-informed people in Europe are
our competitors; on the west, an energetic offshoot of our own stock,
grown bigger than its parent, enters upon the struggle possessed of
natural resources to which we can make no pretension, and with every
prospect of soon possessing that cheap labour by which they may be
effectually utilised. Many circumstances tend to justify the hope that
we may hold our own if we are careful to "organise victory." But to
those who reflect seriously on the prospects of the population of
Lancashire and Yorkshire--should the time ever arrive when the goods
which are produced by their labour and their skill are to be had
cheaper elsewhere--to those who remember the cotton famine and reflect
how much worse a customer famine would be, the situation appears very
grave.
[On February 19 and 22, he wrote again to the "Times" declaring against
the South Kensington site. It was too far from the heart of commercial
organisation in the city, and the city people were preparing to found a
similar institution of their own. He therefore wished to prevent the
Imperial Institute from becoming a weak and unworthy memorial of the
reign.
A final letter to the "Times" on March 21, was evoked by the fact that
Lord Hartington, in giving away the prizes at the Polytechnic Y.M.C.A.,
had adopted Huxley's position as defined in his speech, and declared
that science ought to be aided on precisely the same grounds on which
we aid the army and navy.
In this letter he asks, how do we stand prepared for the task thus
imperatively set us? We have the machinery for providing instruction
and information, and for catching capable men, but both in a disjointed
condition]--"all mere torsos--fine, but fragmentary." "The ladder from
the School Board to the Universities, about which I dreamed dreams many
years ago, has not yet acquired much more substantiality than the
ladder of Jacob's vision," [but the Science and Art Department, the
Normal School of Science, and the Central Institute only want the means
to carry out the recommendations already made by impartial and
independent authority.] "Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in
spending it wisely."
[He concluded with an appeal to Lord Hartington to take up this task of
organising industrial education and bring it to a happy issue.
A proposal was also made to the Royal Society to co-operate, and Sir M.
Foster writes on February 19: "We have appointed a Committee to
consider and draw up a draft reply with a view of the Royal Society
following up your letter."
To this Huxley replied on the 22nd:--]
...My opinion is that the Royal Society has no right to spend its money
or pledge its credit for any but scientific objects, and that we have
nothing to do with sending round the hat for other purposes.
The project of the Institute Committee as it stands connected with the
South Kensington site--is condemned by all the city people and will
receive none but the most grudging support from them. They are going to
set up what will be practically an Institute of their own in the city.
The thing is already a failure. I daresay it will go on and be
varnished into a simulacrum of success--to become eventually a ghost
like the Albert Hall or revive as a tea garden.
[The following letter also touches upon the function of the Institute
from the commercial side:--]
4 Marlborough Place, February 20, 1887.
My dear Donnelly,
Mr. Law's suggestion gives admirable definition to the notions that
were floating in my mind when I wrote in my letter to the "Times", that
I imagined the Institute would be a "place in which the fullest stores
of industrial knowledge would be made accessible to the public." A man
of business who wants to know anything about the prospects of trade
with, say, Boorioboola-Gha (vide Bleak House) ought to be able to look
into the Institute and find there somebody who will at once fish out
for him among the documents in the place all that is known about
Boorioboola.
But a Commercial Intelligence Department is not all that is wanted,
vide valuable letter aforesaid.
I hope your appetite for the breakfast was none the worse for last
night's doings--mine was rather improved, but I am dog-tired.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I return Miss --'s note. she evidently thinks my cage is labelled
"These animals bite."
[Later in the year, the following letters show him continuing the
campaign. But an attack of pleurisy, which began the very day of the
Jubilee, prevented him from coming to speak at a meeting upon Technical
Education. In the autumn, however, he spoke on the subject at
Manchester, and had the satisfaction of seeing the city "go solid," as
he expressed it, for technical education. The circumstances of this
visit are given later.]
4 Marlborough Place, May 1, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
I met Lord Hartington at the Academy Dinner last night and took the
opportunity of urging upon him the importance of following up his
technical education speech. He told me he had been in communication
with you about the matter, and he seemed to me to be very well disposed
to your plans.
I may go on crying in the wilderness until I am hoarse, with no result,
but if he and you and Mundella will take it up, something may be done.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, June 28, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
Donnelly was here on Sunday and was quite right up to date. I felt I
ought to be better, and could not make out why the deuce I was not.
Yesterday the mischief came out. There is a touch of pleurisy--which
has been covered by the muscular rheumatism.
So I am relegated to bed and told to stop there--with the company of
cataplasms to keep me lively.
I do not think the attack in any way serious--but M. Pl. is a gentleman
not to be trifled with, when you are over sixty, and there is nothing
for it but to obey my doctor's orders.
Pray do not suppose I would be stopped by a trifle, if my coming to the
meeting [Of July 1, on Technical Education.] would really have been of
use. I hope you will say how grieved I am to be absent.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, June 29, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
I have scrawled a variety of comments on the paper you sent me. Deal
with them as you think fit.
Ever since I was on the London School Board I have seen that the key of
the position is in the Sectarian Training Colleges and that wretched
imposture, the pupil teacher system. As to the former Delendae sunt no
truce or pact to be made with them, either Church or Dissenting. Half
the time of their students is occupied with grinding into their minds
their tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee theological idiocies, and the other
half in cramming them with boluses of other things to be duly spat out
on examination day. Whatever is done do not let us be deluded by any
promises of theirs to hook on science or technical teaching to their
present work.
I am greatly disgusted that I cannot come to Tyndall's dinner
to-night--but my brother-in-law's death would have stopped me (the
funeral to-day)--even if my doctor had not forbidden me to leave my
bed. He says I have some pleuritic effusion on one side and must mind
my P's and Q's.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A good deal of correspondence at this time with Sir M. Foster relates
to the examinations of the Science and Art Department. He was still
Dean, it will be remembered, of the Royal College of Science, and
further kept up his connection with the Department by acting in an
honorary capacity as Examiner, setting questions, but less and less
looking over papers, acting as the channel for official communications,
as when he writes (April 24),] "I send you some Department
documents--nothing alarming, only more worry for the Assistant
Examiners, and that WE do not mind"; and finally signing the Report.
But to do this after taking so small a share in the actual work of
examining, grew more and more repugnant to him, till on October 12 he
writes:--]
I will read the Report and sign it if need be--though there really must
be some fresh arrangement.
Of course I have entire confidence in your judgment about the
examination, but I have a mortal horror of putting my name to things I
do not know of my own knowledge.
[In addition to these occupations, he wrote a short paper upon a
fossil, Ceratochelys, which was read at the Royal Society on March 31;
while on April 7 he read at the Linnean ("Botany" volume 24 pages
101-124), his paper, "The Gentians: Notes and Queries," which had
sprung from his holiday amusement at Arolla.
Philosophy, however, claimed most of his energies. The campaign begun
in answer to the incursion of Mr. Lilly was continued in the article
"Science and Pseudo-Scientific Realism" ("Collected Essays" 5 59-89)
which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for February 1887. The text
for this discourse was the report of a sermon by Canon Liddon, in which
that eminent preacher spoke of catastrophes as the antithesis of
physical law, yet possible inasmuch as a "lower law" may be "suspended"
by the "intervention of a higher," a mode of reasoning which he applied
to the possibility of miracles such as that of Cana.
The man of science was up in arms against this incarnation of abstract
terms, and offered a solemn protest against that modern recrudescence
of ancient realism which speaks of "laws of nature" as though they were
independent entities, agents, and efficient causes of that which
happens, instead of simply our name for observed successions of facts.
Carefully as all personalities had been avoided in this article, it
called forth a lively reply from the Duke of Argyll, rebuking him for
venturing to criticise the preacher, whose name was now brought forward
for the first time, and raising a number of other questions,
philosophical, geological, and biological, to which Huxley rejoined
with some selections from the authentic history of these points in
"Science and Pseudo-Science" ("Nineteenth Century" April 1887,
"Collected Essays" 5 90-125).
Moreover, judging from the vivacity of the duke's reply that some of
the shafts of the first article must have struck nearer home than the
pulpit of St. Paul's, he was induced to read "The Reign of Law," the
second chapter of which, dealing with the nature of "Law," he now
criticised sharply as] "a sort of 'summa' of pseudo-scientific
philosophy," [with its confusions of law and necessity, law and force,]
"law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause." [(Cf. his
treatment of the subject 24 years before, volume 1.)
He wound up with some banter upon the Duke's picture of a scientific
Reign of Terror, whereby, it seemed, all men of science were compelled
to accept the Darwinian faith, and against which Huxley himself was
preparing to rebel, as if:--]
Forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of "revolt," which
some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise before I dare
express my real opinions concerning questions about which we older men
had to fight in the teeth of fierce public opposition and obloquy--of
something which might almost justify even the grandiloquent epithet of
a Reign of Terror--before our excellent successors had left school.
[Here for a while the debate ceased. But in the September number of the
"Nineteenth Century" the Duke of Argyll returned to the fray with an
article called "A Great Lesson," in which he attempted to offer
evidence in support of his assertions concerning the scientific reign
of terror. The two chief pieces of evidence adduced were Bathybius and
Dr. (now Sir J.) Murray's theory of coral reefs. The former was
instanced as a blunder due to the desire of finding support for the
Darwinian theory in the existence of this widespread primordial life;
the latter as a case in which a new theory had been systematically
burked, for fear of damaging the infallibility of Darwin, who had
propounded a different theory of coral reefs!
Huxley's reply to this was contained in the latter half of an article
which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for November 1887, under the
title of "Science and the Bishops" (reprinted both in "Controverted
Questions" and in the "Collected Essays" 5 126, as "An Episcopal
Trilogy"). Preaching at Manchester this autumn, during the meeting of
the British Association, the Bishops of Carlisle, Bedford, and
Manchester had spoken of science not only with knowledge, but in the
spirit of equity and generosity.] "These sermons," [he exclaims,] "are
what the Germans call Epochemachend!"
How often was it my fate [he continues], a quarter of a century ago, to
see the whole artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine
of evolution and its supporters! Any one unaccustomed to the amenities
of ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to
be permitted to live.
[After thus welcoming these episcopal advances, he once more repudiated
the a priori argument against the efficacy of prayer, the theme of one
of the three sermons, and then proceeded to discuss another sermon of a
dignitary of the Church, which had been sent to him by an unknown
correspondent, for] "there seems to be an impression abroad--I do not
desire to give any countenance to it--that I am fond of reading
sermons."
[Now this preacher was of a very different mind from the three bishops.
Instead of dwelling upon the "supreme importance of the purely
spiritual in our faith," he warned his hearers against dropping off any
of the miraculous integument of their religion. "Christianity is
essentially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles be
impossible." He was uncompromisingly opposed to any accommodation with
advancing knowledge, or with the high standard of veracity, enforced by
the nature of their pursuits, in which Huxley found the only difference
between scientific men and any other class of the community.
But it was not merely this misrepresentation of science on its
speculative side which Huxley deplored; he was roused to indignation by
an attack on its morality. The preacher reiterated the charge brought
forward in the "Great Lesson," that Dr. Murray's theory of coral reefs
had been actually suppressed for two years, and that by the advice of
those who accepted it, for fear of upsetting the infallibility of the
great master.
Hereupon he turned in downright earnest upon the originator of the
assertion, who, he considered, had no more than the amateur's knowledge
of the subject. A plain statement of the facts was refutation enough.
The new theories, he pointed out, had been widely discussed; they had
been adopted by some geologists, although Darwin himself had not been
converted, and after careful and prolonged re-examination of the
question, Professor Dana, the greatest living authority on coral reefs,
had rejected them. As Professor Judd said, "If this be a 'conspiracy of
silence,' where, alas! can the geological speculator seek for fame?"
Any warning not to publish in haste was but advice to a still unknown
man not to attack a seemingly well-established theory without making
sure of his ground. (Letter in "Nature.")
As for the Bathybius myth, Huxley pointed out that his announcement of
the discovery had been simply a statement of the actual facts, and that
so far from seeing in it a confirmation of Darwinian hypotheses, he was
careful to warn his readers] "to keep the questions of fact and the
questions of interpretation well apart." "That which interested me in
the matter," he says, "was the apparent analogy of Bathybius with other
well-known forms of lower life,"..."if Bathybius were brought up alive
from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the
slightest bearing, that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations,
or upon any of the disputed problems of biology." [And as for his]
"eating the leek" [afterwards, his ironical account of it is an
instance of how the adoption of a plain, straightforward course can be
described without egotism.]
The most considerable difference I note among men [he concludes] is not
in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to
acknowledge these inevitable lapses.
[As the Duke in a subsequent article did not unequivocally withdraw his
statements, Huxley declined to continue public controversy with him.
Three years later, writing (October 10, 1890) to Sir J. Donnelly
apropos of an article by Mr. Mallock in the "Nineteenth Century," which
made use of the "Bathybius myth," he says:--]
Bathybius is far too convenient a stick to beat this dog with to be
ever given up, however many lies may be needful to make the weapon
effectual.
I told the whole story in my reply to the Duke of Argyll, but of course
the pack give tongue just as loudly as ever. Clerically-minded people
cannot be accurate, even the liberals.
[I give here the letter sent to the "unknown correspondent" in
question, who had called his attention to the fourth of these sermons.]
4 Marlborough Place, September 30, 1887.
I have but just returned to England after two months' absence, and in
the course of clearing off a vast accumulation of letters, I have come
upon yours.
The Duke of Argyll has been making capital out of the same
circumstances as those referred to by the Bishop. I believe that the
interpretation put upon the facts by both is wholly misleading and
erroneous.
It is quite preposterous to suppose that the men of science of this or
any other country have the slightest disposition to support any view
which may have been enunciated by one of their colleagues, however
distinguished, if good grounds are shown for believing it to be
erroneous.
When Mr. Murray arrived at his conclusions I have no doubt he was
advised to make his ground sure before he attacked a generalisation
which appeared so well founded as that of Mr. Darwin respecting coral
reefs.
If he had consulted me I should have given him that advice myself, for
his own sake. And whoever advised him, in that sense, in my opinion did
wisely.
But the theologians cannot get it out of their heads, that as they have
creeds, to which they must stick at all hazards, so have the men of
science. There is no more ridiculous delusion. We, at any rate, hold
ourselves morally bound to "try all things and hold fast to that which
is good"; and among public benefactors, we reckon him who explodes old
error, as next in rank to him who discovers new truth.
You are at liberty to make any use you please of this letter.
[Two letters on kindred subjects may appropriately follow in this
place. Thanking M. Henri Gadeau de Kerville for his "Causeries sur le
Transformisme," he writes (February 1):--]
Dear Sir,
Accept my best thanks for your interesting "causeries," which seem to
me to give a very clear view of the present state of the evolution
doctrine as applied to biology.
There is a statement on page 87 "Apres sa mort Lamarck fut completement
oublie," which may be true for France but certainly is not so for
England. From 1830 onwards for more than forty years Lyell's
"Principles of Geology" was one of the most widely read scientific
books in this country, and it contains an elaborate criticism of
Lamarck's views. Moreover, they were largely debated during the
controversies which arose out of the publication of the "Vestiges of
Creation" in 1844 or thereabouts. We are certainly not guilty of any
neglect of Lamarck on this side of the Channel.
If I may make another criticism it is that, to my mind, atheism is, on
purely philosophical grounds, untenable. That there is no evidence of
the existence of such a being as the God of the theologians is true
enough; but strictly scientific reasoning can take us no further. Where
we know nothing we can neither affirm nor deny with propriety.
[The other is in answer to the Bishop of Ripon, enclosing a few lines
on the principal representatives of modern science, which he had asked
for.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 16, 1887.
My dear Bishop of Ripon,
I shall be very glad if I can be of any use to you now and always. But
it is not an easy task to put into half-a-dozen sentences, up to the
level of your vigorous English, a statement that shall be unassailable
from the point of view of a scientific fault-finder--which shall be
intelligible to the general public and yet accurate.
I have made several attempts and enclose the final result. I think the
substance is all right, and though the form might certainly be
improved, I leave that to you. When I get to a certain point of
tinkering my phrases I have to put them aside for a day or two.
Will you allow me to suggest that it might be better not to name any
living man? The temple of modern science has been the work of many
labourers not only in our own but in other countries. Some have been
more busy in shaping and laying the stones, some in keeping off the
Sanballats, some prophetwise in indicating the course of the science of
the future. It would be hard to say who has done best service. As
regards Dr. Joule, for example, no doubt he did more than any one to
give the doctrine of the conservation of energy precise expression, but
Mayer and others run him hard.
Of deceased Englishmen who belong to the first half of the Victorian
epoch, I should say that Faraday, Lyell, and Darwin had exerted the
greatest influence, and all three were models of the highest and best
class of physical philosophers.
As for me, in part from force of circumstance and in part from a
conviction I could be of most use in that way, I have played the part
of something between maid-of-all-work and gladiator-general for
Science, and deserve no such prominence as your kindness has assigned
to me.
With our united kind regards to Mrs. Carpenter and yourself, ever yours
very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A brief note, also, to Lady Welby, dated July 25, is characteristic of
his attitude towards unverified speculation.]
I have looked through the paper you have sent me, but I cannot
undertake to give any judgment upon it. Speculations such as you deal
with are quite out of my way. I get lost the moment I lose touch of
valid fact and incontrovertible demonstration and find myself wandering
among large propositions, which may be quite true but which would
involve me in months of work if I were to set myself seriously to find
out whether, and in what sense, they are true. Moreover, at present,
what little energy I possess is mortgaged to quite other occupations.
[The following letter was in answer to a request which I was
commissioned to forward him, that he would consent to serve on an
honorary committee of the Societe des Professeurs de Francais en
Angleterre.]
January 17, 1887.
I quite forgot to say anything about the Comite d'honneur, and as you
justly remark in the present strained state of foreign politics the
consequences may be serious. Please tell your colleague that I shall be
"proud an' 'appy." You need not tell him that my pride and happiness
are contingent on having nothing to do for the honour.
[In the meantime, the ups and downs of his health are reflected in
various letters of these six months. Much set up by his stay in the
Isle of Wight, he writes from Shanklin on April 11 to Sir E. Frankland,
describing the last meeting of the x Club, which the latter had not
been able to attend, as he was staying in the Riviera:--]
Hooker, Tyndall, and I alone turned up last Thursday. Lubbock had gone
to High Elms about used up by the House of Commons, and there was no
sign of Hirst.
Tyndall seemed quite himself again. In fact, we three old fogies voted
unanimously that we were ready to pit ourselves against any three
youngsters of the present generation in walking, climbing, or
head-work, and give them odds.
I hope you are in the same comfortable frame of mind.
I had no notion that Mentone had suffered so seriously in the
earthquake of 1887. Moral for architects: read your Bible and build
your house upon the rock.
The sky and sea here may be fairly matched against Mentone or any other
of your Mediterranean places. Also the east wind, which has been
blowing steadily for ten days, and is nearly as keen as the Tramontana.
Only in consequence of the long cold and drought not a leaf is out.
[Shanklin, indeed, suited him so well that he had half a mind to settle
there.] "There are plenty of sites for building," [he writes home in
February,] "but I have not thought of commencing a house yet."
[However, he gave up the idea; Shanklin was too far from town.
But though he was well enough as long as he kept out of London, a
return to his life there was not possible for any considerable time. On
May 19, just before a visit to Mr. F. Darwin at Cambridge, I find that
he went down to St. Albans for a couple of days, to walk; and on the
27th he betook himself, terribly ill and broken down, to the Savernake
Forest Hotel, in hopes of getting] "screwed up." [This] "turned out a
capital speculation, a charming spick-and-span little country hostelry
with great trees in front." [But the weather was persistently bad,]
"the screws got looser rather than tighter," [and again he was
compelled to stay away from the x.
A week later, however, he writes:--]
The weather has been detestable, and I got no good till yesterday,
which was happily fine. Ditto to-day, so I am picking up, and shall
return to-morrow, as, like an idiot as I am, I promised to take the
chair at a public meeting about a Free Library for Marylebone on
Tuesday evening.
I wonder if you know this country. I find it charming.
[On the same day as that which was fixed for the meeting in favour of
the Free Library, he had a very interesting interview with the Premier,
of which he left the following notes, written at the Athenaeum
immediately after:--]
June 7, 1887.
Called on Lord Salisbury by appointment at 3 p.m., and had twenty
minutes' talk with him about the "matter of some public interest"
mentioned in his letter of the [29th].
This turned out to be a proposal for the formal recognition of
distinguished services in Science, Letters, and Art by the institution
of some sort of order analogous to the Pour le Merite. Lord Salisbury
spoke of the anomalous present mode of distributing honours, intimated
that the Queen desired to establish a better system, and asked my
opinion.
I said that I should like to separate my personal opinion from that
which I believed to obtain among the majority of scientific men; that I
thought many of the latter were much discontented with the present
state of affairs, and would highly approve of such a proposal as Lord
Salisbury shadowed forth.
That, so far as my own personal feeling was concerned, it was opposed
to anything of the kind for Science. I said that in Science we had two
advantages--first, that a man's work is demonstrably either good or
bad; and secondly, that the "contemporary posterity" of foreigners
judges us, and rewards good work by membership of Academies and so
forth.
In Art, if a man chooses to call Raphael a dauber, you can't prove he
is wrong; and literary work is just as hard to judge.
I then spoke of the dangers to which science is exposed by the undue
prominence and weight of men who successfully apply scientific
knowledge to practical purposes--engineers, chemical inventors, etc.,
etc.; said it appeared to me that a Minister having such order at his
disposal would find it very difficult to resist the pressure brought by
such people as against the man of high science who had not happened to
have done anything to strike the popular mind.
Discussed the possibility of submission of names by somebody for the
approval and choice of the Crown. For Science, I thought the Royal
Society Council might discharge that duty very fairly. I thought that
the Academy of Berlin presented people for the Pour le Merite, but Lord
Salisbury thought not.
In the course of conversation I spoke of Hooker's case as a glaring
example of the wrong way of treating distinguished men. Observed that
though I did not personally care for or desire the institution of such
honorary order, yet I thought it was a mistake in policy for the Crown
as the fountain of honour to fail in recognition of that which deserves
honour in the world of Science, Letters, and Art.
Lord Salisbury smilingly summed up. "Well, it seems that you don't
desire the establishment of such an order, but that if you were in my
place you would establish it," to which I assented.
Said he had spoken to Leighton, who thought well of the project.
[It was not long, however, before he received imperative notice to quit
town with all celerity. He fell ill with what turned out to be
pleurisy; and after recruiting at Ilkley, went again to Switzerland.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 27, 1887.
My dear Foster,
...I am very sorry that it will be impossible for me to attend [the
meeting of committee down for the following Wednesday]. If I am well
enough to leave the house I must go into the country that day to attend
the funeral of my wife's brother-in-law and my very old friend Fanning,
of whom I may have spoken to you. He has been slowly sinking for some
time, and this morning we had news of his death.
Things have been very crooked for me lately. I had a conglomerate of
engagements of various degrees of importance in the latter half of last
week, and had to forgo them all, by reason of a devil in the shape of
muscular rheumatism of one side, which entered me last Wednesday, and
refuses to be wholly exorcised (I believe it is my Jubilee Honour).
[(On the same day he describes this to Sir J. Evans:--] "I have hardly
been out of the house as far as my garden, and not much off my bed or
sofa since I saw you last. I have had an affection of the muscles of
one side of my body, the proper name of which I do not know, but the
similitude thereof is a bird of prey periodically digging in his claws
and stopping your breath in a playful way.") Along with it, and I
suppose the cause of it, a regular liver upset. I am very seedy yet,
and even if Fanning's death had not occurred I doubt if I should have
been ready to face the Tyndall dinner.
[The reference to this "Tyndall dinner" is explained in the following
letters, which also refer to a meeting of the London University, in
which the projects of reform which he himself supported met with a
smart rebuff.]
4 Marlborough Place, May 13, 1887.
My dear Tyndall,
I am very sorry to hear of your gout, but they say when it comes out at
the toes it flies from the better parts, and that is to the good.
There is no sort of reason why unsatisfied curiosity should continue to
disturb your domestic hearth; your wife will have the gout too if it
goes on. "They" can't bear the strain.
The history of the whole business is this. A day or two before I spoke
to you, Lockyer told me that various people had been talking about the
propriety of recognising your life-long work in some way or other;
that, as you would not have anything else, a dinner had been suggested,
and finally asked me to inquire whether you would accept that
expression of goodwill. Of course I said I would, and I asked
accordingly.
After you had assented I spoke to several of our friends who were at
the Athenaeum, and wrote to Lockyer. I believe a strong committee is
forming, and that we shall have a scientific jubilation on a large
scale; but I have purposely kept in the background, and confined
myself, like Bismarck, to the business of "honest broker."
But of course nothing (beyond preliminaries) can be done till you name
the day, and at this time of year it is needful to look well ahead if a
big room is to be secured. So if you can possibly settle that point,
pray do.
There seems to have been some oversight on my wife's part about the
invitation, but she is stating her own case. We go on a visit to Mrs.
Darwin to Cambridge on Saturday week, and the Saturday after that I am
bound to be at Eton.
Moreover, I have sacrificed to the public Moloch so far as to promise
to take the chair at a public meeting in favour of a Free Library for
Marylebone on the 7th. As Wednesday's work at the Geological Society
and the soiree knocked me up all yesterday, I shall be about finished I
expect on the 8th. If you are going to be at Hindhead after that, and
would have us for a day, it would be jolly; but I cannot be away long,
as I have some work to finish before I go abroad.
I never was so uncomfortable in my life, I think, as on Wednesday when
L-- was speaking, just in front of me, at the University. Of course I
was in entire sympathy with the tenor of his speech, but I was no less
certain of the impolicy of giving a chance to such a master of polished
putting-down as the Chancellor. You know Mrs. Carlyle said that Owen's
sweetness reminded her of sugar of lead. Granville's was that plus
butter of antimony!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
N.B.--Don't swear, but get Mrs. Tyndall, who is patient and
good-tempered, to read this long screed.
May 18, 1887.
My dear Tyndall,
I was very glad to get your letter yesterday morning, and I conveyed
your alteration at once to Rucker, who is acting as secretary. I asked
him to communicate with you directly to save time.
I hear that the proposal has been received very warmly by all sorts and
conditions of men, and that is quite apart from any action of your
closer personal friends. Personally I am rather of your mind about the
"dozen or score" of the faithful. But as that was by no means to the
mind of those who started the project, and, moreover, might have given
rise to some heartburning, I have not thought it desirable to meddle
with the process of spontaneous combustion. So look out for a big
bonfire somewhere in the middle of June! I have a hideous cold, and can
only hope that the bracing air of Cambridge, where we go on Saturday,
may set me right.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To recover from his pleuritic "Jubilee Honour" he went for a fortnight
(July 11-25) to Ilkley, which had done him so much good before,
intending to proceed to Switzerland as soon as he conveniently could.]
Ilkley, July 15, 1887.
My dear Foster,
I was very much fatigued by the journey here, but the move was good,
and I am certainly mending, though not so fast as I could wish. I
expect some adhesions are interfering with my bellows. As soon as I am
fit to travel I am thinking of going to Lugano, and thence to Monte
Generoso. The travelling is easy to Lugano, and I know the latter place.
My notion is I had better for the present avoid the chances of a wet,
cold week in the high places.
M.B.A. [Marine Biological Association]...As to the employment of the
Grant, I think it ought to be on something definite and limited. The
Pilchard question would be an excellent one to take up.
-- seems to have a notion of employing it on some geological survey of
Plymouth Sound, work that would take years and years to do properly,
and nothing in the way of clear result to show.
I hope to be in London on my way abroad in less than ten days' time,
and will let you know.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[And on the same day to Sir J. Donnelly:--]
I expect...that I shall have a slow convalescence. Lucky it is no worse!
Much fighting I am likely to do for the Unionist cause or any other!
But don't take me for one of the enrages. If anybody will show me a way
by which the Irish may attain all they want without playing the devil
with us, I am ready to give them their own talking-shop or anything
else.
But that is as much writing as I can sit up and do all at once.
CHAPTER 3.2.
1887.
[On the last day of July he left England for Switzerland, and did not
return till the end of September. A second visit to Arolla worked a
great change in him. He renewed his Gentian studies also, with
unflagging ardour. The following letters give some idea of his doings
and interests:--]
Hotel du Mont Collon, Arolla, Switzerland, August 28, 1887.
My dear Foster,
I know you will be glad to hear that I consider myself completely set
up again. We went to the Maderaner Thal and stayed a week there. But I
got no good out of it. It is charmingly pretty, but damp; and,
moreover, the hotel was 50 per cent too full of people, mainly
Deutschers, and we had to turn out into the open air after dinner
because the salon and fumoir were full of beds. So, in spite of all
prudential considerations, I made up my mind to come here. We travelled
over the Furca, and had a capital journey to Evolena. Thence I came on
muleback (to my great disgust, but I could not walk a bit uphill) here.
I began to get better at once; and in spite of a heavy snowfall and
arctic weather a week ago, I have done nothing but mend. We have
glorious weather now, and I can take almost as long walks as last year.
We have some Cambridge people here: Dr. Peile of Christ's and his
family. Also Nettleship of Oxford. What is the myth about the Darwin
tree in the "Pall Mall"? ["A tree planted yesterday in the centre of
the circular grass plot in the first court of Christ's College, in
Darwin's honour, was 'spirited' away at night."--"Pall Mall Gazette"
August 23, 1887.] Dr. Peile believes it to be all a flam.
Forel has just been paying a visit to the Arolla glacier for the
purpose of ascertaining the internal temperature. He told me he much
desired to have a copy of the Report of the Krakatoa Committee. If it
is published, will you have a copy sent to him? He is Professor at
Lausanne, and a very good man.
Our stay here will depend on the weather. At present it is perfect. I
do not suppose we shall leave before 7th or 8th of September, and we
shall get home by easy stages not much before the end of the month.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Madder than ever on Gentians.
[The following is in reply to Sir E. Frankland's inquiries with
reference to the reported presence of fish in the reservoirs of one of
the water-companies.]
Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, September 16, 1887.
We left Arolla about ten days ago, and after staying a day at St.
Maurice in consequence of my wife's indisposition, came on here where
your letter just received has followed me. I am happy to say I am quite
set up again, and as I can manage my 1500 or 2000 feet as well as ever,
I may be pretty clear that my pleurisy has not left my lung sticking
anywhere.
I will take your inquiries seriatim. (1) The faith of your small
boyhood is justified. Eels do wander overland, especially in the wet
stormy nights they prefer for migration. But so far as I know this is
the habit only of good-sized, downwardly-moving eels. I am not aware
that the minute fry take to the land on their journey upwards.
(2) Male eels are now well known. I have gone over the evidence myself
and examined many. But the reproductive organs of both sexes remain
undeveloped in fresh water--just the contrary of salmon, in which they
remain undeveloped in salt water.
(3) So far as I know, no eel with fully-developed reproductive organs
has yet been seen. Their matrimonial operations go on in the sea where
they spend their honeymoon, and we only know the result in the shape of
the myriads of thread-like eel-lets, which migrate up in the well-known
"eel-fare."
(4) On general principles of eel-life I think it is possible that the
Inspector's theory MAY be correct. But your story about the roach is a
poser. They certainly do not take to walking abroad. It reminds me of
the story of the Irish milk-woman who was confronted with a stickleback
found in the milk. "Sure, then, it must have been bad for the poor cow
when that came through her teat."
Surely the Inspector cannot have overlooked such a crucial fact as the
presence of other fish in the reservoirs?
We shall be here another week, and then move slowly back to London. I
am loth to leave this place, which is very beautiful with splendid air
and charming walks in all directions--two or three thousand feet up if
you like.
Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 16, 1887.
My dear Donnelly,
We left Arolla for this place ten days ago, but my wife fell ill, and
we had to stay a day at St. Maurice. She has been more or less out of
sorts ever since until to-day. However, I hope now she is all right
again.
This is a very charming place at the east end of the Lake of
Geneva--1500 feet above the lake--and you can walk 3000 feet higher up
if you like.
What they call a "funicular railway" hauls you up a gradient of 1 in 1
3/4 from the station on the shore in ten minutes. At first the
sensation on looking down is queer, but you soon think nothing of it.
The air is very fine, the weather lovely, the feeding unexceptionable,
and the only drawback consists in the "javelins," as old Francis Head
used to call them--stinks of such wonderful crusted flavour that they
must have been many years in bottle. But this is a speciality of all
furrin parts that I have ever visited.
I am very well and extremely lazy so far as my head goes--legs I am
willing to use to any extent up hill or down dale. They wanted me to go
and speechify at Keighley in the middle of October, but I could not get
permission from the authorities. Moreover, I really mean to keep quiet
and abstain even from good words (few or many) next session. My wife
joins with me in love to Mrs. Donnelly and yourself.
She thought she had written, but doubts whether in the multitude of her
letters she did not forget.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[From Glion also he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
I have been doing some very good work on the Gentians in the interests
of the business of being idle.
[The same subject recurs in the next letter:--]
Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 21, 1887.
My dear Hooker,
I saw in the "Times" yesterday the announcement of Mr. Symond's death.
I suppose the deliverance from so painful a malady as heart-disease is
hardly to be lamented in one sense; but these increasing gaps in one's
intimate circle are very saddening, and we feel for Lady Hooker and
you. My wife has been greatly depressed in hearing of Mrs. Carpenter's
fatal disorder. One cannot go away for a few weeks without finding some
one gone on one's return.
I got no good at the Maderaner Thal, so we migrated to our old quarters
at Arolla, and there I picked up in no time, and in a fortnight could
walk as well as ever. So if there are any adhesions they are pretty
well stretched by this time.
I have been at the Gentians again, and worked out the development of
the flower in G. purpurea and G. campestris. The results are very
pretty. They both start from a thalamifloral condition, then become
corollifloral, G. purpurea at first resembling G. lutea and G.
campestris, an Ophelia, and then specialise to the Ptychantha and
Stephanantha forms respectively.
In G. campestris there is another very curious thing. The anthers are
at first introrse, but just before the bud opens they assume this
position [sketch] and then turn right over and become extrorse. In G.
purpurea this does not happen, but the anthers are made to open
outwards by their union on the inner side of the slits of dehiscence.
There are several other curious bits of morphology have turned up, but
I reserve them for our meeting.
Beyond pottering away at my Gentians and doing a little with that
extraordinary Cynanchum I have been splendidly idle. After three weeks
of the ascetic life of Arolla, we came here to acclimatise ourselves to
lower levels and to fatten up. I go straight through the table d'hote
at each meal, and know not indigestion.
My wife has fared not so well, but she is all right again now. We go
home by easy stages, and expect to be in Marlborough Place on Tuesday.
With all our best wishes to Lady Hooker and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The second visit to Arolla did as much good as the first. Though
unable to stay more than a week or two in London itself, he was greatly
invigorated. His renewed strength enabled him to carry out vigorously
such work as he had put his hand to, and still more, to endure one of
the greatest sorrows of his whole life which was to befall him this
autumn in the death of his daughter Marian.
The controversy which fell to his share immediately upon his return,
has already been mentioned. This was all part of the war for science
which he took as his necessary portion in life; but he would not plunge
into any other forms of controversy, however interesting. So he writes
to his son, who had conveyed him a message from the editor of a
political review:--]
4 Marlborough Place, October 19, 1887.
No political article from me! I have had to blow off my indignation
incidentally now and then lest worse might befall me, but as to serious
political controversy, I have other fish to fry. Such influence as I
possess may be most usefully employed in promoting various educational
movements now afoot, and I do not want to bar myself from working with
men of all political parties.
So excuse me in the prettiest language at your command to Mr. A.
[Nevertheless politics very soon drew him into a new conflict, in
defence, be it said, of science against the possible contamination of
political influences. Professor (now Sir) G.G. Stokes, his successor in
the chair of the Royal Society, accepted an invitation from the
University of Cambridge to stand for election as their member of
Parliament, and was duly elected. This was a step to which many Fellows
of the Royal Society, and Huxley in especial, objected very strongly.
Properly to fulfil the duties of both offices at once was, in his
opinion, impossible. It might seem for the moment an advantage that the
accredited head of the scientific world should represent its interests
officially in Parliament; but the precedent was full of danger. Science
being essentially of no party, it was especially needful for such a
representative of science to keep free from all possible entanglements;
to avoid committing science, as it were, officially to the policy of a
party, or, as its inevitable consequence, introducing political
considerations into the choice of a future President.
During his own tenure of the Presidency Huxley had carefully abstained
from any official connection with societies are public movements on
which the feeling of the Royal Society was divided, lest as a body it
might seem committed by the person and name of its President. He
thought it a mistake that his successor should even be President of the
Victoria Institute.
Thus there is a good deal in his correspondence bearing on this matter.
He writes on November 6 to Sir J. Hooker:--]
I am extremely exercised in my mind about Stokes' going into Parliament
(as a strong party man, moreover) while still P.R.S. I do not know what
you may think about it, but to my mind it is utterly wrong--and
degrading to the Society--by introducing politics into its affairs.
[And on the same day to Sir M. Foster:--]
I think it is extremely improper for the President of the Royal Society
to accept a position as a party politician. As a Unionist I should vote
for him if I had a vote for Cambridge University, but for all that I
think it is most lamentable that the President of the Society should be
dragged into party mud.
When I was President I refused to take the Presidency of the Sunday
League, because of the division of opinion on the subject. Now we are
being connected with the Victoria Institute, and sucked into the slough
of politics.
[These considerations weighed heavily with several both of the older
and the younger members of the Society; but the majority were
indifferent to the dangers of the precedent. The Council could not
discuss the matter; they waited in vain for an official announcement of
his election from the President, while he, as it turned out, expected
them to broach the subject.
Various proposals were discussed; but it seemed best that, as a
preliminary to further action, an editorial article written by Huxley
should be inserted in "Nature," indicating what was felt by a section
of the Society, and suggesting that resignation of one of the two
offices was the right solution of the difficulty.
Finally, it seemed that perhaps, after all, a] "masterly inactivity"
[was the best line of action. Without risk of an authoritative decision
of the Society] "the wrong way," [out of personal regard for the
President, the question would be solved for him by actual experience of
work in the House of Commons, where he would doubtless discover that he
must] "renounce either science, or politics, or existence."
This campaign, however, against a principle, was carried on without any
personal feeling. The perfect simplicity of the President's attitude
would have disarmed the hottest opponent, and indeed Huxley took
occasion to write him the following letter, in reference to which he
writes to Dr. Foster:--] "I hate doing things in the dark and could not
stand it any longer."
December 1, 1887.
My dear Stokes,
When we met in the hall of the Athenaeum on Monday evening I was on the
point of speaking to you on a somewhat delicate topic; namely, my
responsibility for the leading article on the Presidency of the Royal
Society and politics which appeared a fortnight ago in "Nature." But I
was restrained by the reflection that I had no right to say anything
about the matter without the consent of the Editor of "Nature." I have
obtained that consent, and I take the earliest opportunity of availing
myself of my freedom.
I should have greatly preferred to sign the article, and its anonymity
is due to nothing but my strong desire to avoid the introduction of any
personal irrelevancies into the discussion of a very grave question of
principle.
I may add that as you are quite certain to vote in the way that I think
right on the only political questions which greatly interest me, my
action has not been, and cannot be, in any way affected by political
feeling.
And as there is no one of whom I have a higher opinion as a man of
science--no one whom I should be more glad to serve under, and to
support year after year in the Chair of the Society, and no one for
whom I entertain feelings of more sincere friendship---I trust you will
believe that, if there is a word in the article which appears
inconsistent with these feelings, it is there by oversight, and is
sincerely regretted.
During the thirty odd years we have known one another, we have often
had stout battles without loss of mutual kindness. My chief object in
troubling you with this letter is to express the hope that, whatever
happens, this state of things may continue.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.--I am still of opinion that it is better that my authorship should
not be officially recognised, but you are, of course, free to use the
information I have given you in any way you may think fit.
[To this the President returned a very frank and friendly reply; saying
he had never dreamed of any incompatibility existing between the two
offices, and urging that the Presidency ought not to constrain a man to
give up his ordinary duties as a citizen. He concludes:--
And now I have stated my case as it appears to myself; let me assure
you that nothing that has passed tends at all to diminish my friendship
towards you. My wife heard last night that the article was yours, and
told me so. I rather thought it must have been written by some hot
Gladstonian. It seems, however, that her informant was right. She
wishes me to tell you that she replied to her informant that she felt
quite sure that if you wrote it, it was because you thought it.
To which Huxley replied:--]
I am much obliged for your letter, which is just such as I felt sure
you would write.
Pray thank Mrs. Stokes for her kind message. I am very grateful for her
confidence in my uprightness of intention.
We must agree to differ.
It may be needful for me and those who agree with me to place our
opinions on record; but you may depend upon it that nothing will be
done which can suggest any lack of friendship or respect for our
President.
[It will be seen from this correspondence and the letter to Sir J.
Donnelly of July 15, that Huxley was a staunch Unionist. Not that he
considered the actual course of English rule in Ireland ideal; his main
point was that under the circumstances the establishment of Home Rule
was a distinct betrayal of trust, considering that on the strength of
Government promises, an immense number of persons had entered into
contracts, had bought land, and staked their fortunes in Ireland, who
would be ruined by the establishment of Home Rule. Moreover, he held
that the right of self-preservation entitled a nation to refuse to
establish at its very gates a power which could, and perhaps would, be
a danger to its own existence. Of the capacity of the Irish peasant for
self-government he had no high opinion, and what he had seen of the
country, and especially the great central plain, in his frequent visits
to Ireland, convinced him that the balance between subsistence and
population would speedily create a new agrarian question, whatever
political schemes were introduced. This was one of] "the only political
questions which interested him."
[Towards the end of October he left London for Hastings, partly for his
own, but still more for his wife's sake, as she was far from well. He
was still busy with one or two Royal Society Committees, and came up to
town occasionally to attend their meetings, especially those dealing
with the borings in the Delta, and with Antarctic exploration. Thus he
writes:--]
11 Eversfield Place, Hastings, October 31, 1887.
My dear Foster,
We have been here for the last week, and are likely to be here for some
time, as my wife, though mending, is getting on but slowly, and she
will be as well out of London through beastly November. I shall be up
on Thursday and return on Friday, but I do not want to be away longer,
as it is lonesome for the wife.
I quite agree to what you propose on Committee, so I need not be there.
Very glad to hear that the Council "very much applauded what we had
done," and hope we shall get the 500 pounds.
I don't believe a word in increasing whale fishery, but scientifically,
the Antarctic expedition would, or might be very interesting, and if
the colonies will do their part, I think we ought to do ours.
You won't want me at that Committee either. Hope to see you on Thursday.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hideous pen!
[But he did not come up that Thursday. His wife was for a time too ill
to be left, and he winds up the letter of November 2 to Dr. Foster with
the reflection:--]
Man is born to trouble as the sparks, etc.--but when you have come to
my time of life you will say as I do--Lucky it is no worse.
November 6.
I am very glad to hear that the 500 pounds is granted, and I will see
to what is next to be done as soon as I can. Also I am very glad to
find you don't want my valuable service on Council Royal Society. I
repented me of my offer when I thought how little I might be able to
attend.
[One thing, however, afforded him great pleasure at this time. He
writes on November 6 to his old friend, Sir J. Hooker:--]
I write just to say what infinite satisfaction the award of the Copley
Medal to you has given me. If you were not my dear old friend, it would
rejoice me as a mere matter of justice--of which there is none too much
in this "-- rum world," as Whitworth's friend called it.
[To the reply that the award was not according to rule, inasmuch as it
was the turn for the medal to be awarded in another branch of science,
he rejoins:--]
I had forgotten all about the business--but he had done nothing to
deserve the Copley, and all I can say is that if the present award is
contrary to law, the "law's a hass" as Mr. Bumble said. But I don't
believe that it is.
[He replies also on November 5 to a clerical correspondent who had
written to him on the distinction between sheretz and rehmes, and
accused him of "wilful blindness" in his theological controversy of
1886:--]
Let me assure you that it is not my way to set my face against being
convinced by evidence.
I really cannot hold myself to be responsible for the translators of
the Revised Version of the Old Testament. If I had given a translation
of the passage to which you refer on my own authority, any mistake
would be mine, and I should be bound to acknowledge it. As I did not, I
have nothing to admit. I have every respect for your and Mr. --'s
authority as Hebraists, but I have noticed that Hebrew scholars are apt
to hold very divergent views, and before admitting either your or Mr.
--'s interpretation, I should like to see the question fully discussed.
If, when the discussion is concluded, the balance of authority is
against the revised version, I will carefully consider how far the
needful alterations may affect the substance of the one passage in my
reply to Mr. Gladstone which is affected by it.
At present I am by no means clear that it will make much difference,
and in no case will the main lines of my argument as to the antagonism
between modern science and the Pentateuch be affected. The statements I
have made are public property. If you think they are in any way
erroneous I must ask you to take upon yourself the same amount of
responsibility as I have done, and submit your objections to the same
ordeal.
There is nothing like this test for reducing things to their true
proportions, and if you try it, you will probably discover, not without
some discomfort, that you really had no reason to ascribe wilful
blindness to those who do not agree with you.
[He was now preparing to complete his campaign of the spring on
technical education by delivering an address to the Technical Education
Association at Manchester on November 29, and looked forward to
attending the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society on his way home
next day, and seeing the Copley medal conferred upon his old friend,
Sir J. Hooker. However, unexpected trouble befell him. First he was
much alarmed about his wife, who had been ill more or less ever since
leaving Arolla. Happily it turned out that there was nothing worse than
could be set right by a slight operation. But nothing had been done
when news came of the sudden death of his second daughter on November
19.] "I have no heart for anything just now," [he writes; nevertheless,
he forced himself to fulfil this important engagement at Manchester,
and in the end the necessity of bracing himself for the undertaking
acted on him as a tonic.
It is a trifle, perhaps, but a trifle significant of the disturbance of
mind that could override so firmly fixed a habit, that the two first
letters he wrote after receiving the news are undated; almost the only
omission of the sort I have found in all his letters of the last
twenty-five years of his life.
His daughter's long illness had left him without hope for months past,
but this, as he confessed, did not mend matters much. In his letters to
his two most intimate friends, he recalls her brilliant promise, her
happy marriage, her] "faculty for art, which some of the best artists
have told me amounted to genius." [But he was naturally reticent in
these matters, and would hardly write of his own griefs unbidden even
to old friends.]
85 Marina, St. Leonards, November 21, 1887.
My dear Spencer,
You will not have forgotten my bright girl Marian, who married so
happily and with such bright prospects half a dozen years ago?
Well, she died three days ago of a sudden attack of pneumonia, which
carried her off almost without warning. And I cannot convey to you a
sense of the terrible sufferings of the last three years better than by
saying that I, her father, who loved her well, am glad that the end has
come thus...
My poor wife is well nigh crushed by the blow. For though I had lost
hope, it was not in the nature of things that she should.
Don't answer this--I have half a mind to tear it up--for when one is in
a pool of trouble there is no sort of good in splashing other people.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[As for his plans, he writes to Sir J. Hooker on November 21:--]
I had set my heart on seeing you get the Copley on the 30th. In fact, I
made the Manchester people, to whom I had made a promise to go down and
address the Technical Education Association, change their day to the
29th for that reason.
I cannot leave them in the lurch after stirring up the business in the
way I have done, and I must go and give my address. But I must get back
to my poor wife as fast as I can, and I cannot face any more publicity
than that which it would be cowardly to shirk just now. So I shall not
be at the Society except in the spirit.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[And again to Sir M. Foster:--]
You cannot be more sorry than I am that I am going to Manchester, but I
am not proud of chalking up "no popery" and running away--for all
Evans' and your chaff--and, having done a good deal to stir up the
Technical Education business and the formation of the Association, I
cannot leave them in the lurch when they urgently ask for my services...
The Delta business must wait till after the 30th. I have no heart for
anything just now.
[The letters following were written in answer to letters of sympathy.]
85 Marina, St. Leonards, November 25, 1887.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
Let me thank you on my wife's behalf and my own for your very kind and
sympathetic letter.
My poor child's death is the end of more than three years of suffering
on her part, and deep anxiety on ours. I suppose we ought to rejoice
that the end has come, on the whole, so mercifully. But I find that
even I, who knew better, hoped against hope, and my poor wife, who was
unfortunately already very ill, is quite heart-broken. Otherwise, she
would have replied herself to your very kind letter.
She has never yet learned the art of sparing herself, and I find it
hard work to teach her.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[In the same strain he writes to Dr. Dyster:--]
Rationally we must admit that it is best so. But then, whatever
Linnaeus may say, man is not a rational animal--especially in his
parental capacity.
85, Marina, St. Leonards, November 25, 1887.
My dear Knowles,
I really must thank you very heartily for your letter. It went to our
hearts and did us good, and I know you will like to learn that you have
helped us in this grievous time.
My wife is better, but fit for very little; and I do not let her write
a letter even, if I can help it. But it is a great deal harder to keep
her from doing what she thinks her duty than to get most other people
to do what plainly is their duty.
With our kindest love and thanks to all of you.
Ever, my dear Knowles, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Yes, you are quite right about "loyal." I love my friends and hate my
enemies, which may not be in accordance with the Gospel, but I have
found it a good wearing creed for honest men.
[The "Address on behalf of the National Association for the Promotion
of Technical Education," first published in the ensuing number of
"Science and Art," and reprinted in "Collected Essays," 3 427-451, was
duly delivered in Manchester, and produced a considerable effect.
He writes to Sir M. Foster, December 1:--]
I am glad I resisted the strong temptation to shirk the business.
Manchester has gone solid for technical education, and if the idiotic
London papers, instead of giving half a dozen lines of my speech, had
mentioned the solid contributions to the work announced at the meeting,
they would have enabled you to understand its importance.
...I have the satisfaction of having got through a hard bit of work,
and am none the worse physically--rather the better for having to pull
myself together.
[And to Sir J. Hooker:--]
85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 4, 1887.
My dear Hooker,
x = 8, 6.30. I meant to have written to ask you all to put off the x
till next Thursday, when I could attend, but I have been so bedevilled
I forgot it. I shall ask for a bill of indemnity.
I was rather used up yesterday, but am picking up. In fact my
Manchester journey convinced me that there was more stuff left than I
thought for. I travelled 400 miles, and made a speech of fifty minutes
in a hot, crowded room, all in about twelve hours, and was none the
worse. Manchester, Liverpool, and Newcastle have now gone in for
technical education on a grand scale, and the work is practically done.
Nunc dimittis!
I hear great things of your speech at the dinner. I wish I could have
been there to hear it...
[Of the two following letters, one refers to the account of Sir J.D.
Hooker's work in connection with the award of the Copley medal; the
other, to Hooker himself, touches a botanical problem in which Huxley
was interested.]
St. Leonards, November 25, 1887.
My dear Foster,
...I forget whether in the notice of Hooker's work you showed me there
was any allusion made to that remarkable account of the Diatoms in
Antarctic ice, to which I once drew special attention, but Heaven knows
where?
Dyer perhaps may recollect all about the account in the "Flora
Antarctica," if I mistake not. I have always looked upon Hooker's
insight into the importance of these things and their skeletons as a
remarkable piece of inquiry--anticipative of subsequent deep sea work.
Best thanks for taking so much trouble about H--. Pray tell him if ever
you write that I have not answered his letter only because I awaited
your reply. He may think my silence uncivil...
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
To Sir J.D. Hooker.
4 Marlborough Place, December 29, 1887.
Where is the fullest information about distribution of Coniferae? Of
course I have looked at "Genera Plantarum" and De Candolle.
I have been trying to make out whether structure or climate or
paleontology throw any light on their distribution--and am drawing
complete blank. Why the deuce are there no Conifers but Podocarpus and
Widringtonias in all Africa south of the Sahara? And why the double
deuce are about three-quarters of the genera huddled together in Japan
and northern China?
I am puzzling over this group because the paleontological record is
comparatively so good.
I am beginning to suspect that present distribution is an affair rather
of denudation than migration.
Sequoia! Taxodium! Widringtonia! Araucaria! all in Europe, in Mesozoic
and Tertiary.
[The following letters to Mr. Herbert Spencer were written as sets of
proofs of his Autobiography arrived. That to Sir J. Skelton was to
thank him for his book on "Maitland of Lethington," the Scotch
statesman of the time of Queen Mary.]
January 18, 1887.
[The first part of this letter is given above.]
My dear Spencer,
I see that your proofs have been in my hands longer than I thought for.
But you may have seen that I have been "starring" at the Mansion
House...
I am immensely tickled with your review of your own book. That is
something most originally Spencerian. I have hardly any suggestions to
make, except in what you say about the "Rattlesnake" work and my
position on board.
Her proper business was the survey of the so-called "inner passage"
between the Barrier Reef and the east coast of Australia; the New
Guinea work was a hors d'oeuvre, and dealt with only a small part of
the southern coast.
Macgillivray was naturalist--I was actually Assistant-Surgeon and
nothing else. But I was recommended to Stanley by Sir John Richardson,
my senior officer at Haslar, on account of my scientific proclivities.
But scientific work was no part of my duty. How odd it is to look back
through the vista of years! Reading your account of me, I had the
sensation of studying a fly in amber. I had utterly forgotten the
particular circumstance that brought us together. Considering what
wilful tykes we both are (you particularly), I think it is a great
credit to both of us that we are firmer friends now than we were then.
Your kindly words have given me much pleasure.
This is a deuce of a long letter to inflict upon you, but there is more
coming. The other day a Miss --, a very good, busy woman of whom I and
my wife have known a little for some years, sent me a proposal of the
committee of a body calling itself the London Liberty League (I think)
that I should accept the position of one of three honorary something or
others, you and Mrs. Fawcett being the other two.
Now you may be sure that I should be glad enough to be associated with
you in anything; but considering the innumerable battles we have fought
over education, vaccination, and so on, it seemed to me that if the
programme of the League were wide enough to take us both for
figure-heads, it must be so elastic as to verge upon infinite
extensibility; and that one or other of us would be in a false position.
So I wrote to Miss -- to that effect, and the matter then dropped.
Misrepresentation is so rife in this world that it struck me I had
better tell you exactly what happened.
On the whole, your account of your own condition is encouraging; not
going back is next door to going forward. Anyhow, you have contrived to
do a lot of writing.
We are all pretty flourishing, and if my wife does not get worn out
with cooks falling ill and other domestic worries, I shall be content.
Now this really is the end.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., March 7, 1887.
My dear Skelton [This letter is one of the twelve from T.H.H. already
published by Sir John Skelton in his "Table Talk of Shirley" page 295
sq.],
Wretch that I am, I see that I have never had the grace to thank you
for "Maitland of Lethington" which reached me I do not choose to
remember how long ago, and which I read straight off with lively
satisfaction.
There is a paragraph in your preface, which I meant to have charged you
with having plagiarised from an article of mine, which had not appeared
when I got your book. In that Hermitage of yours, you are up to any
Esotericobuddhistotelepathic dodge!
It is about the value of practical discipline to historians. Half of
them know nothing of life, and still less of government and the ways of
men.
I am quite useless, but have vitality enough to kick and scratch a
little when prodded.
I am at present engaged on a series of experiments on the thickness of
skin of that wonderful little wind-bag --. The way that second rate
amateur poses as a man of science, having authority as a sort of
papistical Scotch dominie, bred a minister, but stickit, really "rouses
my corruption." What a good phrase that is. I am cursed with a lot of
it, and any fool can strike ile.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Please remember me very kindly to Mrs. Skelton.
11 Eversfield Place, Hastings, November 18, 1887.
My dear Spencer,
I was very glad to get your letter this morning. I heard all about you
from Hirst before I left London, now nearly a month ago, and I promised
myself that instead of bothering you with a letter I would run over
from here and pay you a visit.
Unfortunately, my wife, who had been ill more or less ever since we
left Arolla and came here on Clark's advice, had an attack one night,
which frightened me a good deal, though it luckily turned out to arise
from easily remediable causes.
Under these circumstances you will understand how I have not made my
proposed journey to Brighton.
I am rejoiced to hear of your move. I believe in the skill of Dr. B.
Potter and her understanding of the case more than I do in all the
doctors and yourself put together. Please offer my respectful homage to
that eminent practitioner.
You see people won't let me alone, and I have had to tell the Duke to
"keep on board his own ship," as the Quaker said, once more. I seek
peace, but do not ensue it.
Send any quantity of proofs, they are a good sign. By the way, we move
to 85 Marina, St. Leonards, to-morrow.
Wife sends her kind regards.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 1887.
My dear Spencer,
I have nothing to criticise in the enclosed except that the itineraries
seem to me rather superfluous.
I am glad to find that you forget things that have happened to you as
completely as I do. I should cut almost as bad a figure as "Sir Roger"
if I were cross-examined about my past life.
Your allusion to sending me the proofs made me laugh by reminding me of
a particularly insolent criticism with which I once favoured you: "No
objection except to the whole."
It was some piece of diabolical dialectics, in which I could pick no
hole, if the premises were granted--and even then could be questioned
only by an ultra-sceptic!
Do you see that the American Association of Authors has adopted a
Resolution, which is a complete endorsement of my view of the
stamp-swindle?
We have got our operation over, and my wife is going on very well.
Overmuch anxiety has been telling on me, but I shall throw it off.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 3.3.
1888.
[Huxley had returned to town before Christmas, for the house in St.
John's Wood was still the rallying-point for the family, although his
elder children were now married and dispersed. But he did not stay
long.] "Wife wonderfully better," [he writes to Sir M. Foster on
January 8,] "self as melancholy as a pelican in the wilderness." [He
meant to have left London on the 16th, but his depressed condition
proved to be the beginning of a second attack of pleurisy, and he was
unable to start for Bournemouth till the 24th.
Here, however, his recovery was very slow. He was unable to come up to
the first meeting of the x Club.] "I trust," [he writes,] "I shall be
able to be at the next x--but I am getting on very slowly. I can't walk
above a couple of miles without being exhausted, and talking for twenty
minutes has the same effect. I suppose it is all Anno Domini."
[But he had a pleasant visit from one of the x, and writes:--]
Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, January 29, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
Spencer was here an hour ago as lively as a cricket. He is going back
to town on Tuesday to plunge into the dissipations of the Metropolis. I
expect he will insist on you all going to Evans' (or whatever
represents that place to our descendants) after the x.
Bellows very creaky--took me six weeks to get them mended last time, so
I suppose I may expect as long now.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[As appears from the letters which follow, he had been busied with
writing an article for the "Nineteenth Century," for February, on the
"Struggle for Existence" ("Collected Essays" 9 195.), which on the one
hand ran counter to some of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories of society;
and on the other, is noticeable as briefly enunciating the main thesis
of his "Romanes Lecture" of 1893.]
85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 13, 1887.
My dear Knowles,
I have to go to town to-morrow for a day, so that puts an end to the
possibility of getting my screed ready for January. Altogether it will
be better to let it stand over.
I do not know whence the copyright extract came, except that, as
Putnam's name was on the envelope, I suppose they sent it.
Pearsall Smith's practice is a wonderful commentary on his theory.
Distribute the contents of the baker's shop gratis--it will give people
a taste for bread!
Great is humbug, and it will prevail, unless the people who do not like
it hit hard. The beast has no brains, but you can knock the heart out
of him.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, January 9, 1888.
My dear Donnelly,
Here is my proof. Will you mind running your eye over it?
The article is long, and partly for that reason and partly because the
general public wants principles rather than details, I have condensed
the practical half.
H. Spencer and "Jus" will be in a white rage with me.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To Professor Frankland, February 6:--]
I am glad you like my article. There is no doubt it is rather like a
tadpole, with a very big head and a rather thin tail. But the subject
is a ticklish one to deal with, and I deliberately left a good deal
suggested rather than expressed.
Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, February 9, 1888.
My dear Donnelly,
No! I don't think softening has begun yet--vide "Nature" this week.
["Nature" 37 337 for February 9, 1888: review of his article in the
"Nineteenth Century" on the "Industrial Struggle for Existence."] I am
glad you found the article worth a second go. I took a vast of trouble
(as the country folks say) about it. I am afraid it has made Spencer
very angry--but he knows I think he has been doing mischief this long
time.
Bellows to mend! Bellows to mend! I am getting very tired of it. If I
walk two or three miles, however slowly, I am regularly done for at the
end of it. I expect there has been more mischief than I thought for.
How about the Bill?
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[However, he and Mr. Spencer wrote their minds to each other on the
subject, and as Huxley remarks with reference to this occasion,] "the
process does us both good, and in no way interferes with our
friendship."
[The letter immediately following, to Mr. Romanes, answers an inquiry
about a passage quoted from Huxley's writings by Professor Schurman in
his "Ethical Import of Darwinism." This passage, made up of sentences
from two different essays, runs as follows:--]
It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties
of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection
is to favour the development of some of these, while it opposes the
development of others along their predetermined line of modification.
("Collected Essays" 2 223.) A whale does not tend to vary in the
direction of producing feathers, nor a bird in the direction of
producing whalebone. (In "Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays"
2 181.)
"On the strength of these extracts" (writes Mr. Romanes), "Schurman
represents you 'to presuppose design, since development takes place
along certain predetermined lines of modification.' But as he does not
give references, and as I do not remember the passages, I cannot
consult the context, which I fancy must give a different colouring to
the extracts."
4 Marlborough Place, January 5, 1888.
My dear Romanes,
They say that liars ought to have long memories. I am sure authors
ought to. I could not at first remember where the passage Schurman
quotes occurs, but I did find it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
article on "Evolution" ["Collected Essays" 2 223.], reprinted in
"Science and Culture," page 307.
But I do not find anything about the "whale" here. Nevertheless I have
a consciousness of having said something of the kind somewhere. [In
"Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays" 2 181.]
If you look at the whole passage, you will see that there is not the
least intention on my part to presuppose design.
If you break a piece of Iceland spar with a hammer, all the pieces will
have shapes of a certain kind, but that does not imply that the Iceland
spar was constructed for the purpose of breaking up in this way when
struck. The atomic theory implies that of all possible compounds of A
and B only those will actually exist in which the proportions of A and
B by weight bear a certain numerical ratio. But it is mere arguing in a
circle to say that the fact being so is evidence that it was designed
to be so.
I am not going to take any more notice of the everlasting D--, as you
appropriately call him, until he has withdrawn his slanders....
Pray give him a dressing--it will be one of those rare combinations of
duty and pleasure.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[He was, moreover, constantly interested in schemes for the reform of
the scientific work of the London University, and for the enlargement
of the scope and usefulness of the Royal Society. As for the latter, a
proposal had been made for federation with colonial scientific
societies, which was opposed by some of his friends in the x Club; and
he writes to Sir E. Frankland on February 3:--]
I am very sorry you are all against Evans' scheme. I am for it. I think
it a very good proposal, and after all the talk, I do not want to see
the Society look foolish by doing nothing.
You are a lot of obstructive old Tories, and want routing out. If I
were only younger and less indisposed to any sort of exertion, I would
rout you out finely!
[With respect to the former, it had been proposed that medical degrees
should be conferred, not by the university, but by a union of the
several colleges concerned. He writes:--]
4 Marlborough Place, January 11, 1888.
My dear Foster,
I send back the "Heathen Deutscheree's" (whose ways are dark) letter
lest I forget it to-morrow.
Meanwhile perpend these two things:--
1. United Colleges propose to give just as good an examination and
require as much qualification as the Scotch Universities. Why then give
their degree a distinguishing mark?
2. "Academical distinctions" in medicine are all humbug. You are making
a medical technical school at Cambridge--and quite right too. The
United Colleges, if they do their business properly, will confer just
as much, or as little "academical distinction" as Cambridge by their
degree.
3. The Fellowship of the College of Surgeons is in every sense as much
an "academical distinction" as the Masterships in Surgery or Doctorate
of Medicine of the Scotch and English Universities.
4. You may as well cry for the moon as ask my colleagues in the Senate
to meddle seriously with the Matriculation. They are possessed by the
devil that cries continually, "There is only the Liberal education, and
Greek and Latin are his prophets."
[At Bournemouth he also applied himself to writing the Darwin obituary
notice for the Royal Society, a labour of love which he had long felt
unequal to undertaking. The manuscript was finally sent off to the
printer's on April 6, unlike the still longer unfinished memoir on
Spirula, to which allusion is made here, among other business of the
"Challenger" Committee, of which he was a member.
On February 12 he writes to Sir J. Evans:--]
Spirula is a horrid burden on my conscience--but nobody could make head
or tail of the business but myself.
That and Darwin's obituary are the chief subjects of my meditations
when I wake in the night. But I do not get much "forrarder," and I am
afraid I shall not until I get back to London.
Bournemouth, February 14, 1888.
My dear Foster,
No doubt the Treasury will jump at any proposition which relieves them
from further expense--but I cannot say I like the notion of leaving
some of the most important results of the "Challenger" voyage to be
published elsewhere than in the official record....
Evans made a deft allusion to Spirula, like a powder between two dabs
of jam. At present I have no moral sense, but it may awake as the days
get longer.
I have been reading the "Origin" slowly again for the nth time, with
the view of picking out the essentials of the argument, for the
obituary notice. Nothing entertains me more than to hear people call it
easy reading.
Exposition was not Darwin's forte--and his English is sometimes
wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb sagacity about him--like that
of a sort of miraculous dog--and he gets to the truth by ways as dark
as those of the Heathen Chinee.
I am getting quite sick of all the "paper philosophers," as old Galileo
called them, who are trying to stand upon Darwin's shoulders and look
bigger than he, when in point of real knowledge they are not fit to
black his shoes. It is just as well I am collapsed or I believe I
should break out with a final "Fur Darwin."
I will think of you when I get as far as the fossils. At present I am
poking over P. sylvestris and P. pinnata in the intervals of weariness.
My wife joins with me in love to you both.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Snow and cold winds here. Hope you are as badly off at Cambridge.
Bournemouth, February 21, 1888.
My dear Foster,
We have had nothing but frost and snow here lately, and at present half
a gale of the bitterest north-easter I have felt since we were at
Florence is raging. [Similarly to Sir J. Evans on the 28th]--"I get my
strength back but slowly, and think of migrating to Greenland or
Spitzbergen for a milder climate."]
I believe I am getting better, as I have noticed that at a particular
stage of my convalescence from any sort of illness I pass through a
condition in which things in general appear damnable and I myself an
entire failure. If that is a sign of returning health you may look upon
my restoration as certain.
If it is only Murray's speculations he wants to publish separately, I
should say by all means let him. But the facts, whether advanced by him
or other people, ought all to be in the official record. I agree we
can't stir.
I scented the "goak." How confoundedly proud you are of it. In former
days I have been known to joke myself.
I will look after the questions if you like. In my present state of
mind I shall be a capital critic--on Dizzy's views of critics...
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[This year Huxley was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum, an
office which he had held ex officio from 1883 to 1885, as President of
the Royal Society.
This is referred to in the following letter of March 9:--]
My dear Hooker,
Having nothing to do plays the devil with doing anything, and I suppose
that is why I have been so long about answering your letter.
There is nothing the matter with me now except want of strength. I am
tired out with a three-mile walk, and my voice goes if I talk for any
time. I do not suppose I shall do much good till I get into high and
dry air, and it is too early for Switzerland yet....
You see I was honoured and gloried by a trusteeship of the British
Museum. [Replying on the 2nd to Sir John Evans' congratulations, he
says:--"It is some months since Lord Salisbury made the proposal to me,
and I was beginning to wonder what had happened--whether Cantaur had
put his foot down for example, and objected to bad company."] These
things, I suppose, normally come when one is worn-out. When Lowe was
Chancellor of the Exchequer I had a long talk with him about the
affairs of the Natural History Museum, and I told him that he had
better put Flower at the head of it and make me a trustee to back him.
Bobby no doubt thought the suggestion cheeky, but it is odd that the
thing has come about now that I don't care for it, and desire nothing
better than to be out of every description of bother and responsibility.
Have not Lady Hooker and you yet learned that a large country house is
of all places the most detestable in cold weather? The neuralgia was a
mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am
rejoiced it has vanished.
Pronouns got mixed somehow.
With our kindest regards.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
More last words:--What little faculty I have has been bestowed on the
obituary of Darwin for Royal Society lately. I have been trying to make
it an account of his intellectual progress, and I hope it will have
some interest. Among other things I have been trying to set out the
argument of the "Origin of Species," and reading the book for the nth
time for that purpose. It is one of the hardest books to understand
thoroughly that I know of, and I suppose that is the reason why even
people like Romanes get so hopelessly wrong.
If you don't mind, I should be glad if you would run your eye over the
thing when I get as far as the proof stage--Lord knows when that will
be.
[A few days later he wrote again on the same subject, after reading the
obituary of Asa Gray, the first American supporter of Darwin's theory.]
March 23, 1888.
I suppose Dana has sent you his obituary of Asa Gray.
The most curious feature I note in it is that neither of them seems to
have mastered the principles of Darwin's theory. See the bottom of page
19 and the top of page 20. As I understand Darwin there is nothing
"Anti-Darwinian" in either of the two doctrines mentioned.
Darwin has left the causes of variation and the question whether it is
limited or directed by external conditions perfectly open.
The only serious work I have been attempting lately is Darwin's
obituary. I do a little every day, but get on very slowly. I have read
the life and letters all through again, and the "Origin" for the sixth
or seventh time, becoming confirmed in my opinion that it is one of the
most difficult books to exhaust that ever was written.
I have a notion of writing out the argument of the "Origin" in
systematic shape as a sort of primer of Darwinismus. I have not much
stuff left in me, and it would be as good a way of using what there is
as I know of. What do you think?
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[In reply to this Sir J. Hooker was inclined to make the biographer
alone responsible for the confusion noted in the obituary of Asa Gray.
He writes:--
March 27, 1888.
Dear Huxley,
Dana's Gray arrived yesterday, and I turned to pages 19 and 20. I see
nothing Anti-Darwinian in the passages, and I do not gather from them
that Gray did.
I did not follow Gray into his later comments on Darwinism, and I never
read his "Darwiniana." My recollection of his attitude after acceptance
of the doctrine, and during the first few years of his active
promulgation of it, is that he understood it clearly, but sought to
harmonise it with his prepossessions, without disturbing its physical
principles in any way.
He certainly showed far more knowledge and appreciation of the contents
of the "Origin" than any of the reviewers and than any of the
commentators, yourself excepted.
Latterly he got deeper and deeper into theological and metaphysical
wanderings, and finally formulated his ideas in an illogical fashion.
...Be all this as it may, Dana seems to be in a muddle on page 20, and
quite a self-sought one.
Ever yours,
J.D. Hooker.
The following is a letter of thanks to Mrs. Humphry Ward for her novel
"Robert Elsmere."]
Bournemouth, March 15, 1888.
My dear Mrs. Ward,
My wife thanked you for your book which you were so kind as to send us.
But that was grace before meat, which lacks the "physical basis" of
after-thanksgiving--and I am going to supplement it, after my most
excellent repast.
I am not going to praise the charming style, because that was in the
blood and you deserve no sort of credit for it. Besides, I should be
stepping beyond my last. But as an observer of the human
ant-hill--quite impartial by this time--I think your picture of one of
the deeper aspects of our troubled time admirable.
You are very hard on the philosophers. I do not know whether Langham or
the Squire is the more unpleasant--but I have a great deal of sympathy
with the latter, so I hope he is not the worst.
If I may say so, I think the picture of Catherine is the gem of the
book. She reminds me of her namesake of Siena--and would as little have
failed in any duty, however gruesome. You remember Sodoma's picture.
Once more, many thanks for a great pleasure.
My wife sends her love.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Meanwhile, he had been making no progress towards health; indeed, was
going slowly downhill. He makes fun of his condition when writing to
condole with Mr. Spencer on falling ill again after the unwonted spell
of activity already mentioned; but a few weeks later discovered the
cause of his weakness and depression in an affection of the heart. This
was not immediately dangerous, though he looked a complete wreck. His
letters from April onwards show how he was forced to give up almost
every form of occupation, and even to postpone his visit to
Switzerland, until he had been patched up enough to bear the journey.]
Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, March 9, 1888.
My dear Spencer,
I am very sorry to hear from Hooker that you have been unwell again.
You see if young men from the country will go plunging into the
dissipations of the metropolis nemesis follows.
Until two days ago, the weather cocks never overstepped North on the
one side and East on the other ever since you left. Then they went west
with sunshine and most enjoyable softness--but next South with a gale
and rain--all ablowin' and agrowin' at this present.
I have nothing to complain of so long as I do nothing; but although my
hair has grown with its usual rapidity I differ from Samson in the
absence of a concurrent return of strength. Perhaps that is because a
male hairdresser, and no Delilah, cut it last! But I waste Biblical
allusions upon you.
My wife and Nettie, who is on a visit, join with me in best wishes.
Please let me have a line to say how you are--Gladstonianly on a
post-card.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Bournemouth, April 7, 1888.
My dear Foster,
"Let thy servant's face be white before thee." The obituary of Darwin
went to Rix yesterday! [Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society.] It
is not for lack of painstaking if it is not worth much, but I have been
in a bad vein for work of any kind, and I thought I should never get
even this simple matter ended.
I have been bothered with praecordial uneasiness and intermittent pulse
ever since I have been here, and at last I got tired of it and went
home the day before yesterday to get carefully overhauled. Hames tells
me there is weakness and some enlargement of the left ventricle, which
is pretty much what I expected. Luckily the valves are all right.
I am to go and devote myself to coaxing the left ventricle wall to
thicken pro rata--among the mountains, and to have nothing to do with
any public functions or other exciting bedevilments. So the
International Geological Congress will not have the pleasure of seeing
its Honorary President in September. I am disgusted at having to break
an engagement, but I cannot deny that Hames is right. At present the
mere notion of the thing puts me in a funk.
I wish I could get out of the chair of the M.B.A. Also...I know that
you and Evans and Dyer will do your best, but you are all eaten up with
other occupations.
Just turn it over in your mind--there's a dear good fellow--just as if
you hadn't any other occupations.
With which eminently reasonable and unselfish request believe me,
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Bournemouth, April 10, 1888.
My dear Foster,
I send by this post the last--I hope for your sake and for that of the
recording angel--of --. [The "Heathen Deutscheree". A paper of his,
contributed to the Royal Society, had been under revision.] I agree to
all Brady's suggestions.
With all our tinkering I feel inclined to wind up the affair after the
manner of Mr. Shandy's summing up of the discussion about Tristram's
breeches--"And when he has got 'em he'll look a beast in 'em."
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[April 12. To the same:--]
I am quite willing to remain at the M.B.A. till the opening. If Evans
will be President I shall be happy.
-- is a very good man, but you must not expect too much of the
"wild-cat" element, which is so useful in the world, in him.
I am disgusted with myself for letting everything go by the run, but
there is no help for it. The least thing bowls me over just now.
Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 12, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
I plead not guilty. [In the matter of sending out no notices for a
meeting of the x Club.] It was agreed at the last meeting that there
should be none in April--I suppose by reason of Easter, so I sent no
notice. This is what Frankland told me in his letter of the 2nd.
However, I see you were present, so I can't make it out.
My continual absence makes me a shocking bad Treasurer, and I am sorry
to say that things will be worse instead of better. Ever since this
last pleuritic business I have been troubled with praecordial
uneasiness. [After an account of his symptoms he continues] so I am off
(with my wife) to Switzerland at the end of this month, and shall be
away all the summer. We have not seen the Engadine and Tyrol yet, so we
shall probably make a long circuit. It is a horrid nuisance to be
exiled in this fashion. I have hardly been at home one month in the
last ten. But it is of no use to growl.
Under these circumstances, would you mind looking after the x while I
am away? There is nothing to do but to send the notices on Saturday
previous to the meeting.
I am very grieved to hear about Hirst--though to say truth, the way he
has held out for so long has been a marvel to me. The last news I had
of Spencer was not satisfactory.
Eheu! the "Table Round" is breaking up. It's a great pity; we were such
pleasant fellows, weren't we?
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, April 18, 1888.
My dear Foster,
I am cheered by your liking of the notice of Darwin. I read the "Life
and Letters," and the "Origin," Krause's "Life," and some other things
over again in order to do it. But I have not much go in me, and I was a
scandalous long time pottering over the writing.
I have sent the proof back with a variety of interpolations. I would
have brought the "Spirula" notes down here to see what I could do, but
I felt pretty sure that if I brought two things I should not do one.
Nobody could do anything with it but myself. I will try what I can do
when I go to town. How much time is there before the wind-up of the
Challenger?
We go up to town Monday next, and I am thinking of being off the Monday
following (April 30). I have come to the same conclusion as yourself,
that Glion would be better than Grindelwald. I should like very much to
see you. Just drop me a line to say when you are likely to turn up.
Poor Arnold's death has been a great shock [Matthew Arnold died
suddenly of heart disease at Liverpool, where he had gone to meet his
daughter on her return from America.]--rather for his wife than
himself--I mean on her account than his. I have always thought sudden
death to be the best of all for oneself, but under such circumstances
it is terrible for those who are left. Arnold told me years ago that he
had heart disease. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of an
immediate catastrophe in my own case. I should not go abroad if there
were. Imagine the horror of leaving one's wife to fight all the
difficulties of sudden euthanasia in a Swiss hotel! I saw enough of
that two years ago at Arolla.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, April 25, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
All my beautiful Swiss plans are knocked on the head--at any rate for
the present--in favour of horizontality and Digitalis here. The journey
up on Monday demonstrated that travelling, at present, was
impracticable.
Hames is sanguine I shall get right with rest, and I am quite satisfied
with his opinion, but for the sake of my belongings he thinks it right
to have Clark's opinion to fortify him.
It is a bore to be converted into a troublesome invalid even for a few
weeks, but I comfort myself with my usual reflection on the chances of
life, "Lucky it is no worse." Any impatience would have been checked by
what I heard about Moseley this morning--that he has sunk into hopeless
idiocy. A man in the prime of life!
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, May 4, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
Best thanks for your note and queries.
I remember hearing what you say about Darwin's father long ago, I am
not sure from what source. But if you look at page 20 of the "Life and
Letters" you will see that Darwin himself says his father's mind "was
not scientific." I have altered the passage so as to use these exact
words.
I used "malice" rather in the French sense, which is more innocent than
ours, but "irony" would be better if "malice" in any way suggests
malignity. "Chaff" is unfortunately beneath the dignity of a Royal
Society obituary.
I am going to add a short note about Erasmus Darwin's views.
It is a great comfort to me that you like the thing. I am getting
nervous over possible senility--63 to-day, and nothing of your
evergreen ways about me.
I am decidedly mending, chiefly to all appearance by allowing myself to
be stuffed with meat and drink like a Strasburg goose. I am also very
much afraid that abolishing tobacco has had something to do with my
amendment.
But I am mindful of your maxim--keep a tight hold over your doctor.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S. 1.--Can't say I have sacrificed anything to penmanship, and am not
at all sure about lucidity!
P.S. 2.--It is "Friday"--there is a dot over the i--reopened my letter
to crow!
[The following letter to Mr. Spencer is in answer to a note of
condolence on his illness, in which the following passage occurs:--]
I was grieved to hear of so serious an evil as that which [Hirst]
named. It is very depressing to find one's friends as well as one's
self passing more and more into invalid life.
Well, we always have one consolation, such as it is, that we have made
our lives of some service in the world, and that, in fact, we are
suffering from doing too much for our fellows. Such thoughts do not go
far in the way of mitigation, but they are better than nothing.
4 Marlborough Place, May 8, 1888.
My dear Spencer,
I have been on the point of writing to you, but put it off for lack of
anything cheerful to say.
After I had recovered from my pleurisy, I could not think why my
strength did not come back. It turns out that there is some weakness
and dilatation of the heart, but lucky no valvular mischief. I am
condemned to the life of a prize pig--physical and mental idleness, and
corporeal stuffing with meat and drink, and I am certainly improving
under the regimen.
I am told I have a fair chance of getting all right again. But I take
it as a pretty broad hint to be quiet for the rest of my days. At
present I have to be very quiet, and I spend most of my time on my back.
You and I, my dear friend, have had our innings, and carry our bats out
while our side is winning. One could not reasonably ask for more. And
considering the infinite possibilities of physical and moral suffering
which beset us, I, for my part, am well pleased that things are no
worse.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 1, 1888.
My dear Knowles,
I have been living the life of a prize pig for the last six weeks--no
exercise, much meat and drink, and as few manifestations of
intelligence as possible, for the purpose of persuading my heart to
return to its duty.
I am astonished to find that there is a kick left in me--even when your
friend Kropotkin pitches into me without the smallest justification.
Vide 19, June, page 820.
Just look at 19, February, page 168. I say, "AT THE PRESENT TIME, the
produce of the soil does not suffice," etc.
I did not say a word about the capabilities of the soil if, as part and
parcel of a political and social revolution on the grandest scale, we
all took to spade husbandry.
As a matter of fact, I did try to find out a year or two ago, whether
the soil of these islands could, under any circumstances, feed its
present population with wheat. I could not get any definite
information, but I understood Caird to think that it could.
In my argument, however, the question is of no moment. There must be
some limit to the production of food by a given area, and there is none
to population.
What a stimulus vanity is!--nothing but the vain dislike of being
thought in the wrong would have induced me to trouble myself or bore
you with this letter. Bother Kropotkin!
I think his article very interesting and important nevertheless.
I am getting better but very slowly.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
[In reply, Mr. Knowles begged him to come to lunch and a quiet talk,
and further suggested, "as an ENTIRELY UNBIASSED person," that he ought
to answer Kropotkin's errors in the "Nineteenth Century," and not only
in a private letter behind his back.
The answer is as follows:--]
4 Marlborough Place, June 3, 1888.
My dear Knowles,
Your invitation is tantalising. I wish I could accept it. But it is now
some six weeks that my excursions have been limited to a daily drive.
The rest of my time I spend on the flat of my back, eating, drinking,
and doing absolutely nothing besides, except taking iron and digitalis.
I meant to have gone abroad a month ago, but it turned out that my
heart was out of order, and though I am getting better, progress is
slow, and I do not suppose I shall get away for some weeks yet.
I have neither brains nor nerves, and the very thought of controversy
puts me in a blue funk!
My doctors prophesy good things, as there is no valvular disease, only
dilatation. But for the present I must subscribe myself (from an
editorial point of view).
Your worthless and useless and bad-hearted friend,
T.H. Huxley.
[The British Association was to meet at Plymouth this year; and Mr.
W.F. Collier (an uncle of John Collier, his son-in-law) invited Huxley
and any friend of his to be his guest at Horrabridge.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 13, 1888.
My dear Mr. Collier,
It would have been a great pleasure to me to be your guest once more,
but the Fates won't have it this time.
Dame Nature has given me a broad hint that I have had my innings, and,
for the rest of my time, must be content to look on at the players.
It is not given to all of us to defy the doctors and go in for a new
lease, as I am glad to hear you are doing. I declare that your open
invitation to any friend of mine is the most touching mark of
confidence I ever received. I am going to send it to my great ally
Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society. I do not know whether
he has made any other arrangements, and I am not quite sure whether he
and his wife are going to Plymouth. But I hope they may be able to
accept, for you will certainly like them, and they will certainly like
you. I will ask him to write directly to you to save time.
With very kind remembrances to Mrs. Collier.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I forgot to say that I am mending as fast as I can expect to do.
CHAPTER 3.4.
1888.
[It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up sufficiently by the
doctors for him to start for the Engadine. His first stage was to
Lugano; the second by Menaggio and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to
the Maloja. The summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he
could scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that it was
a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their surprise was the
greater when, after a couple of months, they saw him walking his ten
miles and going up two thousand feet without difficulty. As far as his
heart was concerned, the experiment of sending him to the mountains was
perfectly justified. With returning strength he threw himself once more
into the pursuit of gentians, being especially interested in their
distribution and hybridism, and the possibility of natural hybrids
explaining the apparent connecting links between species. No doubt,
too, he felt some gratification in learning from his friend Mr. (now
Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer, that the results he had already obtained in
pursuing this hobby had been of real value:--
Your important paper "On Alpine Gentians" (writes the latter) has begun
to attract the attention of botanists. It has led Baillon, who is the
most acute of the French people, to make some observations of his own.
At the Maloja he stayed twelve weeks, but it was not until nearly two
months had elapsed that he could write of any decided improvement,
although even then his anticipations for the future were of the
gloomiest. The "secret" alluded to in the following letter is the
destined award to him of the Copley medal:--]
Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, Ober Engadine, August 17, 1888.
My dear Foster,
I know you will be glad to hear that, at last, I can report favourably
of my progress. The first six weeks of our stay here the weather was
cold, foggy, wet, and windy--in short, everything it should not be. If
the hotel had not been as it is, about the most comfortable in
Switzerland, I do not know what I should have done. As it was, I got a
very bad attack of "liver," which laid me up for ten days or so. A
Brighton doctor--Bluett by name, and well up to his work--kindly looked
after me.
With the early days of August the weather changed for the better, and
for the last fortnight we have had perfect summer--day after day. I
soon picked up my walking power, and one day got up to Lake Longhin,
about 2000 feet up. That was by way of an experiment, and I was none
the worse for it, but usually my walks are of a more modest
description. To-day we are all clouds and rain, and my courage is down
to zero, with praecordial discomfort. It seems to me that my heart is
quite strong enough to do all that can reasonably be required of it--if
all the rest of the machinery is in good order, and the outside
conditions are favourable. But the poor old pump cannot contend with
grit or want of oil anywhere.
I mean to stay here as long as I can; they say it is often very fine up
to the middle of September. Then we shall migrate lower, probably on
the Italian side, and get home most likely in October. But I really am
very much puzzled to know what to do.
My wife has not been very well lately, and Ethel has contrived to
sprain her ankle at lawn-tennis. Collier has had to go to Naples, but
we expect him back in a few days.
With our united love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I was very pleased to hear of a secret my wife communicated to me. So
long as I was of any use, I did not care much about having the fact
recognised, but now that I am used up I like the feather in my cap.
"Fuimus." Let us have some news of you.
[Sir M. Foster, who was kept in England by the British Association till
September 10, wrote that he was going abroad for the rest of September,
and proposed to spend some time at Menaggio, whence he hoped to effect
a meeting. He winds up with a jest at his recent unusual
occupation:--"I have had no end of righteousness accounted to me for
helping to entertain Bishops at Cambridge." Hence the postcript in
reply:--]
Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 2, 1888.
My dear Foster,
A sharp fall of snow has settled our minds, which have been long
wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel
Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ultimately leave till the
22nd.]
All the wiseacres tell us that there are fresher breezes (vento di
Lecco) at Menaggio than anywhere else in the Como country, and at any
rate we are going to try whether we can exist there. If it does not
answer, we will leave a note for you there to say where we are gone. It
would be very jolly to forgather.
I am sorry to leave this most comfortable of hotels, but I do not think
that cold would suit either of us. I am marvellously well so long as I
am taking sharp exercise, and I do my nine or ten miles without
fatigue. It is only when I am quiet that I know that I have a heart.
I do not feel at all sure how matters may be 4000 feet lower, but what
I have gained is all to the good in the way of general health. In spite
of all the bad weather we have had, I have nothing but praise for this
place--the air is splendid, excellent walks for invalids, capital
drainage, and the easiest to reach of all places 6000 feet up.
My wife sends her love, and thanks Mrs. Foster for her letter, and
looks forward to meeting her.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Wash yourself clean of all that episcopal contamination or you may
infect me!
[But adverse circumstances prevented the meeting.]
Hotel Kursaal, Maloja, September 24, 1888.
My dear Foster,
As ill luck would have it, we went over to Pontresina to-day (for the
first time), and have only just got back (5.30). I have just
telegraphed to you.
All our plans have been upset by the Fohn wind, which gave us four
days' continuous downpour here--upset the roads, and flooded the
Chiavenna to Colico Railway. We hear that the latter is not yet
repaired.
I was going to write to you at the Vittoria, but thought you could have
hardly got there yet. We took rooms there a week ago, and then had to
countermand them. If there are any letters kicking about for us, will
you ask them to send them on?
By way of an additional complication, my poor wife gave herself an
unlucky strain this morning, and even if the railway is mended I do not
think she will be fit to travel for two or three days. We are very
disappointed. What is to be done?
I am wonderfully better. So long as I am taking active exercise and the
weather is dry, I am quite comfortable, and only discover that I have a
heart when I am kept quiet by bad weather or get my liver out of order.
Here I can walk nine or ten miles up hill and down dale without
difficulty or fatigue. What I may be able to do elsewhere is doubtful.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
It would do you and Mrs. Foster a great deal of good to come up here.
Not out of your way at all! Oh dear no!
Zurich, October 4, 1888.
My dear Foster,
I should have written to you at Stresa, but I had mislaid your
postcard, and it did not turn up till too late.
We made up our minds after all that we would as soon not go down to the
Lakes--where the ground would be drying up after the inundations--so we
went the other way over the Julier to Tiefenkasten, and from T. to
Ragatz, where we stayed a week. Ragatz was hot and steamy at
first--cold and steamy afterwards--but earlier in the season, I should
think, it would be pleasant.
Last Monday we migrated here, and have had the vilest weather until
to-day. All yesterday it rained cats and dogs.
To-day we are off to Neuhausen (Schweitzerhof) to have a look at the
Rhine falls. If it is pleasant we may stop there a few days. Then we go
to Stuttgart, on our way to Nuremberg, which neither of us have seen.
We shall be at the "Bavarian Hotel," and a letter will catch us there,
if you have anything to say, I daresay up to the middle of the month.
After that Frankfort, and then home.
We do not find long railway journeys very good for either of us, and I
am trying to keep within six hours at a stretch.
I am not so vigorous as I was at Maloja, but still infinitely better
than when I left England.
I hope the mosquitoes left something of you in Venice. When I was there
in October there were none!
My wife joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Some friendly chaff in Sir M. Foster's reply to the latter contains at
least a real indication of the way in which Huxley became the centre of
the little society at the Maloja:--]
You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service
this summer. At most table d'hotes in the Lakes I overheard people
talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on
account of their intimacy with "Professor Huxley"!!
[But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected
quarter. This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in
Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer,
with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the
critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast
with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English
representatives of that science who came to the hotel.
A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:--]
In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in sunshine I
felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years.
It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was
not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions. Four thousand
feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I
am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return. Quite
certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth. I like the place,
but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.
I should be very glad if we could be within reach of you and help to
cheer you up, but I cannot say anything definite at present about our
winter doings...
My wife sends her kindest regards. She is much better than when we
left, which is lucky for me, as I have no mind, and could not make it
up if I had any. The only vigour I have is in my legs, and that only
when the sun shines.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[A curious incident on this journey deserves recording, as an instance
of a futile "warning." On the night of October 6-7, Huxley woke in the
night and seemed to hear an inward voice say, "Don't go to Stuttgart
and Nuremberg; go straight home." All he did was to make a note of the
occurrence and carry out his original plan, whereupon nothing happened.
The following to his youngest daughter, who had gone back earlier from
the Maloja, refers to her success in winning the prize for modelling at
the Slade School of Art.]
Schweitzerhof, Neuhausen, October 7, 1888.
Dearest Babs,
I will sit to you like "Pater on a monument smiling at grief" for the
medallion. As to the photographs, I will try to get them done to order
either at Stuttgart or Nuremberg, if we stay at either place long
enough. But I am inclined to think they had better be done at home, and
then you could adjust the length of the caoutchouc visage to suit your
artistic convenience.
We have been crowing and flapping our wings over the medal and
trimmings. The only thing I lament is that "your father's influence"
was not brought to bear; there is no telling what you might have got if
it had been. Thoughtless--very!!
So sorry we did not come here instead of stopping at Ragatz. The falls
are really fine, and the surrounding country a wide tableland, with the
great snowy peaks of the Oberland on the horizon. Last evening we had a
brilliant sunset, and the mountains were lighted up with the most
delicate rosy blush you can imagine.
To-day it rains cats and dogs again. You will have seen in the papers
that the Rhine and the Aar and the Rhone and the Arve are all in flood.
There is more water here in the falls than there has been these ten
years. However, we have got to go, as the hotel shuts up to-morrow, and
there seems a good chance of reaching Stuttgart without water in the
carriage.
Long railway journeys do not seem to suit either of us, and we have
fixed the maximum at six hours. I expect we shall be home some time in
the third week of this month.
Love to Hal and anybody else who may be at home.
Ever your Pater.
4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1888.
My dear Foster,
We got back on Thursday, and had a very good passage, and took it easy
by staying the night at Dover. The "Lord Warden" gave us the worst
dinner we have had for four months, at double the price of the good
dinners. I wonder why we cannot manage these things better in England.
We are both very glad to be at home again, and trust we may be allowed
to enjoy our own house for a while. But, oh dear, the air is not
Malojal! not even at Hempstead, whither I walked yesterday, and the
pump labours accordingly.
I found the first part of the fifth edition of the Text-book among the
two or three hundredweight of letters and books which had accumulated
during four months. Gratulire!
By the way, South Kensington has sent me some inquiry about
Examinations, which I treat with contempt, as doubtless you have a
duplicate.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On October 25 he announces his return to Sir Joseph Hooker, and
laments his loss of vigour at the sea-level:--]
Hames won't let me stay here in November, and I think we shall go to
Brighton. Unless on the flat of my back, in bed, I shall not have been
at home a month all this year.
I have been utterly idle. There was a lovely case of hybridism,
Gentiana lutea and G. punctata, in a little island in the lake of Sils;
but I fell ill and was confined to bed just after I found it out. It
would be very interesting if somebody would work out Distribution five
miles round the Maloja as a centre. There are the most curious local
differences.
You asked me to send you a copy of my obituary of Darwin. So I put one
herewith, though no doubt you have seen it in the "Proceedings of the
Royal Society."
I should like to know what you think of 17 to 27. If ever I am able to
do anything again I will enlarge on these heads.
[In these pages of the Obituary Notice ("Proceedings of the Royal
Society" 44 Number 269) he endeavours:--]
to separate the substance of the theory from its accidents, and to show
that a variety, not only of hostile comments, but of friendly would-be
improvements lose their raison d'etre to the careful student...
It is not essential to Darwin's theory that anything more should be
assumed than the facts of heredity, variation, and unlimited
multiplication; and the validity of the deductive reasoning as to the
effect of the last (that is, of the struggle for existence which it
involves) upon the varieties resulting from the operation of the
former. Nor is it essential that one should take up any particular
position in regard to the mode of variation, whether, for example, it
takes place per saltum or gradually; whether it is definite in
character or indefinite. Still less are those who accept the theory
bound to any particular views as to the causes of heredity or of
variation.
[The remaining letters of the year trace the gradual bettering of
health, from the "no improvement" of October to the almost complete
disappearance of bad symptoms in December. He had renounced Brighton,
which he detested, in favour of Eastbourne, where the keen air of the
downs and the daily walk over Beachy Head acted as a tolerable
substitute for the Alps. Though he would not miss the anniversary
meeting of the Royal Society, when he was to receive the Copley medal,
one more link binding him to his old friend Hooker, he did not venture
to stay for the dinner in the evening.
This autumn also he resigned his place on the board of Governors of
Eton College.] "I think it must be a year and a half," [he writes,]
"since I attended a meeting, and I am not likely to do better in the
future."
4 Marlborough Place, October 28, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
Best thanks for your suggestion about the cottage, namely "that before
you decide on Brighton Mrs. Huxley should come down and look at the
cottage below my house" at Sunningdale, but I do not see my way to
adopting it. A house, however small, involves servants and ties one to
one place. The conditions that suit me do not seem to be found anywhere
but in the high Alps, and I can't afford to keep a second house in the
country and pass the summer in Switzerland as well.
We are going to Brighton (not because we love it, quite t'other) on
account of the fine weather that is to be had there in November and
December. We shall be back for some weeks about Christmas, and then get
away somewhere else--Malvern possibly--out of the east winds of
February and March.
I do not like this nomadic life at all, but it appears to be Hobson's
choice between that and none.
I am sorry to hear you are troubled by your ears. I am so deaf that I
begin to fight shy of society. It irritates me not to hear; it
irritates me still more to be spoken to as if I were deaf, and the
absurdity of being irritated on the last ground irritates me still
more.
I wish you would start that business of giving a competent young
botanist with good legs 100 pounds to go and study distribution in the
Engadine--from the Maloja as centre--in a circle of a radius of eight
or ten miles. The distribution of the four principal conifers, Arolla
pine, larch, mountain pine and spruce, is most curious, the why and
wherefore nowise apparent.
I am very sorry I cannot be at x on Thursday, but they won't let me be
out at night at present.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, October 28, 1888.
My dear Foster,
No fear of my trying to stop in London. Hames won't have it. He came
and overhauled me the other day. As I expected, the original mischief
is just as it was. One does not get rid either of dilatation or its
results at my time of life. The only thing is to keep the pipes clear
by good conditions of existence.
After endless discussion we have settled on Brighton for November and
December. It is a hateful place to my mind, but there is more chance of
sunshine there (at this time) than anywhere else. We shall come up for
a week or two on this side of Christmas, and then get away somewhere
else out of the way of the east winds of February and March.
I do not think that the Hazlemere country would do for us, nor indeed
any country place so long as we cannot regularly set up house.
Heaven knows I don't want to bother about anything at present. But I
should like to convince -- that he does not yet understand the elements
of his subject. What a copious ink-spilling cuttlefish of a writer he
is!
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., November 2, 1888.
My dear Skelton,
Best thanks for the second volume of "Maitland of Lethington." I have
been in the Engadine for the last four months, trying to repair the
crazy old "house I live in," and meeting with more success than I hoped
for when I left home.
Your volume turned up amidst a mountain of accumulated books, papers,
and letters, and I can only hope it has not been too long without
acknowledgment.
I have been much interested in your argument about the "Casket
letters." The comparison of Crawford's deposition with the Queen's
letter leaves no sort of doubt that the writer of one had the other
before him; and under the circumstances I do not see how it can be
doubted that the Queen's letter is forged.
But though thus wholly agreeing with you in substance, I cannot help
thinking that your language on page 341 may be seriously pecked at.
My experience of reporters leads me to think that there would be no
discrepancy at all comparable to that between the two accounts, and I
speak from the woeful memories of the many Royal Commissions I have
wearied over. The accuracy of a good modern reporter is really
wonderful.
And I do not think that "the two documents were drawn by the same
hand." I should say that the writer of the letter had Crawford's
deposition before him, and made what he considered improvements here
and there.
You will say this letter is like Falstaff's reckoning, with but a
pennyworth of thanks to this monstrous quantity of pecking.
But the gratitude is solid and the criticism mere two-dimension stuff.
It is a charming book.
With kind remembrances to Mrs. Skelton.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 9, 1888.
My dear Foster,
We came here on Tuesday, on which day, by ill luck, the east wind also
started, and has been blowing half a gale ever since. We are in the
last house but one to the west, and as high up as we dare go--looking
out on the sea. The first day we had to hold on to our chairs to
prevent being blown away in the sitting-room, but we have hired a
screen and can now croon over the fire without danger.
A priori, the conditions cannot be said to have been promising for two
people, one of whom is liable to bronchitis and rheumatism and the
other to pleurisy, but, as I am so fond of rubbing into Herbert
Spencer, a priori reasonings are mostly bosh, and we are thriving.
With three coats on I find the air on Beachy Head eminently refreshing,
and there is so much light in the southern quarter just now, that we
confidently hope to see the sun once more in the course of a few days.
As I told you in my official letter, I am going up for the 30th. But I
am in a quandary about the dinner, partly by reason of the inevitable
speech, and partly the long sitting. I should very much like to attend,
and I think I could go through with it. On the other hand, my wife
declares it would be very imprudent, and I am not quite sure she is
wrong. I wish you would tell me exactly what you think about the
matter.
The way I pick up directly I get into good air makes me suspect myself
of malingering, and yet I certainly had grown very seedy in London
before we left.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 13, 1888.
My dear Foster,
We are very sorry to hear about Michael Junior. [Sir M. Foster's son
was threatened with lung trouble, and was ordered to live abroad. He
proposed to carry his medical experience to the Maloja and practise
there during the summer. Huxley offered to give him some
introductions.] Experto crede; of all anxieties the hardest to bear is
that about one's children. But considering the way you got off yourself
and have become the hearty and bucolic person you are, I think you
ought to be cheery. Everybody speaks well of the youngster, and he is
bound to behave himself well and get strong as swiftly as possible.
Though very loth, I give up the dinner. But unless I am on my back I
shall turn up at the meeting. I think that is a compromise very
creditable to my prudence.
Though it is blowing a gale of wind from south-west to-day there is
real sunshine, and it is fairly warm. I am very glad we came here
instead of that beastly Brighton.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 15, 1888.
My dear Evans,
I am very sorry to have missed you. I told my doctor that while the
weather was bad it was of no use to go away, and when it was fine I
might just as well stop at home; but he did not see the force of my
reasoning, and packed us off here.
The award of the Copley is a kindness I feel very much...
The Congress [The International Geological Congress, at which he was to
have presided.] seems to have gone off excellently. I consider that my
own performance of the part of dummy was distinguished.
So the Lawes business is fairly settled at last! "Lawes Deo," as the
Claimant might have said. But the pun will be stale, as you doubtless
have already made all possible epigrams and punnigrams on the topic.
My wife joins with me in kindest regards to Mrs. Evans and yourself. If
Mrs. Evans had only come up to the Maloja, she would have had real
winter and no cold.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 15, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
You would have it that the Royal Society broke the law in giving you
the Copley, and they certainly violated custom in giving it to me the
year following. Whoever heard of two biologers getting it one after
another? It is very pleasant to have our niches in the Pantheon close
together. It is getting on for forty years since we were first
"acquent," and considering with what a very considerable dose of
tenacity, vivacity, and that glorious firmness (which the beasts who
don't like us call obstinacy) we are both endowed, the fact that we
have never had the shadow of a shade of a quarrel is more to our credit
than being ex-Presidents and Copley medallists.
But we have had a masonic bond in both being well salted in early life.
I have always felt I owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the
realities of things gained in the old "Rattlesnake".
I am getting on pretty well here, though the weather has been mostly
bad. All being well I shall attend the meeting of the Society on the
30th, but not the dinner. I am very sorry to miss the latter, but I
dare not face the fatigue and the chances of a third dose of pleurisy.
My wife sends kindest regards and thanks for your congratulations.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, November 17, 1888.
My dear Flower,
...Many thanks for taking my troublesomeness in good part. My friend
will be greatly consoled to know that you have the poor man "in your
eye." Schoolmaster, naturalist, and coal merchant used to be the three
refuges for the incompetent. Schoolmaster is rapidly being eliminated,
so I suppose the pressure on Natural History and coals will increase.
I am glad you have got the Civil Service Commissioners to listen to
common sense. I had an awful battle with them (through the Department)
over Newton, who is now in your paleontological department. If I
recollect rightly, they examined him inter alia on the working of the
Poor Laws!
The Royal Society has dealt very kindly with me. They patted me on the
back when I started thirty-seven years ago, and it was a great
encouragement. They give me their best, now that my race is run, and it
is a great consolation. At the far end of life all one's work looks so
uncommonly small, that the good opinion of one's contemporaries
acquires a new value.
We have a summer's day, and I am writing before an open window!
Yesterday it blew great guns.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter to Lady Welby, the point of which is that to be
"morally convinced" is not the same thing as to offer scientific proof,
refers to an article in the "Church Quarterly" for October called
"Truthfulness in Science and Religion," evoked by Huxley's "Nineteenth
Century" article on "Science and the Bishops."]
November 27, 1888.
Dear Lady Welby,
Many thanks for the article in the "Church Quarterly", which I return
herewith. I am not disposed to bestow any particular attention upon it;
as the writer, though evidently a fair-minded man, appears to me to be
entangled in a hopeless intellectual muddle, and one which has no
novelty. Christian beliefs profess to be based upon historical facts.
If there was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth, and if His biography
given in the Gospels is a fiction, Christianity vanishes.
Now the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of history is
just as much a question of pure science as the inquiry into the truth
or falsehood of a matter of geology, and the value of evidence in the
two cases must be tested in the same way. If any one tells me that the
evidence of the existence of man in the miocene epoch is as good as
that upon which I frequently act every day of my life, I reply that
this is quite true, but that it is no sort of reason for believing in
the existence of miocene man.
Surely no one but a born fool can fail to be aware that we constantly,
and in very grave conjunctions, are obliged to act upon extremely bad
evidence, and that very often we suffer all sorts of penalties in
consequence. And surely one must be something worse than a born fool to
pretend that such decision under the pressure of the enigmas of life
ought to have the smallest influence in those judgments which are made
with due and sufficient deliberation. You will see that these
considerations go to the root of the whole matter. I regret that I
cannot discuss the question more at length and deal with sundry topics
put forward in your letter. At present writing is a burden to me.
[A letter to Professor Ray Lankester mixes grave and gay in a little
homily, edged by personal experience, on the virtues and vices of
combativeness.]
10 Southcliff Terrace, Eastbourne, December 6, 1888.
I think it would be a very good thing both for you and for Oxford if
you went there. Oxford science certainly wants stirring up, and
notwithstanding your increase in years and wisdom, I think you would
bear just a little more stirring down, so that the conditions for a
transfer of energy are excellent!
Seriously, I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of
fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be
multiplied beyond necessity. Science might say to you as the
Staffordshire collier's wife said to her husband at the fair, "Get thee
foighten done and come whoam." You have a fair expectation of ripe
vigour for twenty years; just think what may be done with that capital.
No use to tu quoque me. Under the circumstances of the time, warfare
has been my business and duty.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Two more letters of the year refer to the South Kensington
examinations, for which Huxley was still nominally responsible. As
before, we see him reluctant to sign the report upon papers which he
had not himself examined; yet at the same time doing all that lay in
his power to assist by criticising the questions and thinking out the
scheme of teaching on which the examination was to be based. He replies
to some proposed changes in a letter to Sir M. Foster of December 12:--]
I am very sorry I cannot agree with your clients about the examination.
They should recollect the late Master of Trinity's aphorism that even
the youngest of us is not infallible.
I know exactly upon what principles I am going, and so far as I am at
present informed that advantage is peculiar to my side. Two points I am
quite clear about--one is the exclusion of Amphioxus, and the other the
retention of so much of the Bird as will necessitate a knowledge of
Sauropsidan skeletal characters and the elements of skeletal homologies
in skull and limbs.
I have taken a good deal of pains over drawing up a new
syllabus--including dogfish--and making room for it by excluding
Amphioxus and all of bird except skeleton. I have added Lamprey
(cranial and spinal skeleton, NOT face cartilages), so that the
intelligent student may know what a notochord means before he goes to
embryology. I have excluded Distoma and kept Helix.
The Committee must now settle the matter. I have done with it.
[On December 27 he writes:--]
I have been thinking over the Examinership business without coming to
any very satisfactory result. The present state of things is not
satisfactory so far as I am concerned. I do not like to appear to be
doing what I am not doing.
-- would of course be the successor indicated, if he had not so
carefully cut his own throat as an Examiner...He would be bringing an
action against the Lord President before he had been three years in
office!...As I told Forster, when he was Vice-President, the whole
value of the Examiner system depends on the way the examiners do their
work. I have the gravest doubt about -- steadily plodding through the
disgustful weariness of it as you and I have done, or observing any
regulation that did not suit his fancy.
[With this may be compared the letter of May 19, 1889, to Sir J.
Donnelly, when he finally resolved to give up the "sleeping
partnership" in the examination.
His last letter of the year was written to Sir J. Hooker, when
transferring to him the "archives" of the x Club, as the new Treasurer.]
4 Marlborough Place, December 29, 1888.
My dear Hooker,
All good wishes to you and yours, and many of them.
Thanks for the cheque. You are very confiding to send it without
looking at the account. But I have packed up the "Archives," which poor
dear Busk handed over to me, and will leave them at the Athenaeum for
you. Among them you will find the account book. There are two or three
cases, when I was absent, in which the names are not down. I have no
doubt Frankland gave them to me by letter, but the book was at home and
they never got set down. Peccavi!
I have been picking up in the most astonishing way during the last
fortnight or three weeks at Eastbourne. My doctor, Hames, carefully
examined my heart yesterday, and told me that though some slight
indications were left, he should have thought nothing of them if he had
not followed the whole history of the case. With fresh air and exercise
and careful avoidance of cold and night air I am to be all right again
in a few months.
I am not fond of coddling; but as Paddy gave his pig the best corner in
his cabin--because "shure, he paid the rint"--I feel bound to take care
of myself as a household animal of value, to say nothing of any other
grounds. So, much as I should like to be with you all on the 3rd, I
must defer to the taboo.
The wife got a nasty bronchitic cold as soon as she came up. She is
much better now. But I shall be glad to get her down to Eastbourne
again.
Except that, we are all very flourishing, as I hope you are.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 3.5.
1889.
[The events to be chronicled in this year are, as might be expected,
either domestic or literary. The letters are full of allusions to his
long controversy in defence of Agnosticism, mainly with Dr. Wace, who
had declared the use of the name to be a "mere evasion" on the part of
those who ought to be dubbed infidels (Apropos of this controversy, a
letter may be cited which appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1884,
in answer to certain inquiries from the editor as to the right
definition of Agnosticism:--]
Some twenty years ago, or thereabouts, I invented the word "Agnostic"
to denote people who, like myself, confess themselves to be hopelessly
ignorant concerning a variety of matters, about which metaphysicians
and theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, dogmatise with the utmost
confidence, and it has been a source of some amusement to me to watch
the gradual acceptance of the term and its correlate, "Agnosticism" (I
think the "Spectator" first adopted and popularised both), until now
Agnostics are assuming the position of a recognised sect, and
Agnosticism is honoured by especial obloquy on the part of the
orthodox. Thus it will be seen that I have a sort of patent right in
"Agnostic" (it is my trade mark), and I am entitled to say that I can
state authentically what was originally meant by Agnosticism. What
other people may understand by it, by this time, I do not know. If a
General Council of the Church Agnostic were held, very likely I should
be condemned as a heretic. But I speak only for myself in answering
these questions.
1. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern.
It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that
which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.
2. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of
popular theology, but also the greater part of popular anti-theology.
On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than
that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason
and science, and orthodoxy does not.
3. I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to
the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of
existing religions. On trial of any so-called miracle the verdict of
science is "Not proven." But true Agnosticism will not forget that
existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more
stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that
there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the
intelligible universe, which "are not dreamt of in our philosophy." The
theological "gnosis" would have us believe that the world is a
conjurer's house; the anti-theological "gnosis" talks as if it were a
"dirt-pie," made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism
simply says that we know nothing of what may be behind phenomena.); [to
the building of the new house at Eastbourne, and to the marriage in
quick succession of his two youngest daughters, whereby, indeed, the
giving up of the house in London and definite departure from London was
made possible.
All the early part of the year, till he found it necessary to go to
Switzerland again, he stayed unwillingly in Eastbourne, from time to
time running up to town, or having son or daughter to stay with him for
a week, his wife being too busy to leave town, with the double
preparations for the weddings on hand, so that he writes to her:] "I
feel worse than the 'cowardly agnostic' I am said to be--for leaving
you to face your botherations alone." [One can picture him still firm
of tread, with grizzled head a little stooped from his square
shoulders, pacing the sea wall with long strides, or renewing somewhat
of his strength as it again began to fail, in the keener air of the
downs, warmly defended against chill by a big cap--for he had been
suffering from his ears--and a long rough coat. He writes (February
22):] "I have bought a cap with flaps to protect my ears. I look more
'doggy' than ever." [And on March 3:--]
We have had a lovely day, quite an Italian sky and sea, with a good
deal of Florentine east wind. I walked up to the Signal House, and was
greatly amused by a young sheep-dog whose master could hardly get him
away from circling round me and staring at me with a short dissatisfied
bark every now and then. It is the undressed wool of my coat bothers
all the dogs. They can't understand why a creature which smells so like
a sheep should walk on its hind legs. I wish I could have relieved that
dog's mind, but I did not see my way to an explanation.
From this time on, the effects of several years' comparative rest
became more perceptible. His slowly returning vigour was no longer
sapped by the unceasing strain of multifarious occupations. And if his
recurrent ill-health sometimes seems too strongly insisted on, it must
be remembered that he had always worked at the extreme limit of his
powers--the limit, as he used regretfully to say, imposed on his brain
by his other organs--and that after his first breakdown he was never
very far from a second. When this finally came in 1884, his forces were
so far spent that he never expected to recover as he did.
In the marriage this year of his youngest daughter, Huxley was doomed
to experience the momentary little twinge which will sometimes come to
the supporter of an unpopular principle when he first puts it into
practice among his own belongings.
Athenaeum Club, January 14, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I have just left the x "Archives" here for you. I left them on my table
by mischance when I came here on the x day.
I have a piece of family news for you. My youngest daughter Ethel is
going to marry John Collier.
I have always been a great advocate for the triumph of common sense and
justice in the "Deceased Wife's Sister" business--and only now
discover, that I had a sneaking hope that all of my own daughters would
escape that experiment!
They are quite suited to one another and I would not wish a better
match for her. And whatever annoyances and social pin-pricks may come
in Ethel's way, I know nobody less likely to care about them.
We shall have to go to Norway, I believe, to get the business done.
In the meantime, my wife (who has been laid up with bronchitic cold
ever since we came home) and I have had as much London as we can stand,
and are off to-morrow to Eastbourne again, but to more sheltered
quarters.
I hope Lady Hooker and you are thriving. Don't conceal the news from
her, as my wife is always accusing me of doing.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
To Mr. W.F. Collier.
4 Marlborough Place, January 24, 1889.
Many thanks for your kind letter. I have as strong an affection for
Jack as if he were my own son, and I have felt very keenly the ruin we
involuntarily brought upon him--by our poor darling's terrible illness
and death. So that if I had not already done my best to aid and abet
other people in disregarding the disabilities imposed by the present
monstrous state of the law, I should have felt bound to go as far as I
could towards mending his life. Ethel is just suited to him...Of course
I could have wished that she should be spared the petty annoyances
which she must occasionally expect. But I know of no one less likely to
care for them.
Your Shakespere parable is charming--but I am afraid it must be put
among the endless things that are read IN to the "divine Williams" as
the Frenchman called him. [The second part of the letter replies to the
question whether Shakespeare had any notion of the existence of the
sexes in plants and the part played in their fertilisation by insects,
which, of course, would be prevented from visiting them by rainy
weather, when he wrote in the "Midsummer Night's Dream":--
The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye,
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower
Lamenting some enforced chastity.]
There was no knowledge of the sexes of plants in Shakespere's time,
barring some vague suggestion about figs and dates. Even in the 18th
century, after Linnaeus, the observations of Sprengel, who was a man of
genius, and first properly explained the action of insects, were set
aside and forgotten.
I take it that Shakespere is really alluding to the "enforced chastity"
of Dian (the moon). The poets ignore that little Endymion business when
they like!
I have recovered in such an extraordinary fashion that I can plume
myself on being an "interesting case," though I am not going to compete
with you in that line. And if you look at the February "Nineteenth" I
hope you will think that my brains are none the worse. But perhaps that
conceited speech is evidence that they are.
We came to town to make the acquaintance of Nettie's fiance, and I am
happy to say the family takes to him. When it does not take to anybody,
it is the worse for that anybody.
So, before long, my house will be empty, and as my wife and I cannot
live in London, I think we shall pitch our tent in Eastbourne. Good
Jack offers to give us a pied-a-terre when we come to town. To-day we
are off to Eastbourne again. Carry off Harry, who is done up from too
zealous Hospital work. However, it is nothing serious.
The following is in reply to a request that he would write a letter, as
he describes it elsewhere, "about the wife's sister business--for the
edification of the peers."
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 12, 1889.
My dear Donnelly,
I feel "downright mean," as the Yankees say, that I have not done for
the sake of right and justice what I am moved to do now that I have a
personal interest in the matter of the directest kind; and I rather
expect that will be thrown in my teeth if my name is at the bottom of
anything I write.
On the other hand, I loathe anonymity. However, we can take time to
consider that point.
Anyhow I will set to work on the concoction of a letter, if you will
supply me with the materials which will enable me to be thoroughly
posted up in the facts.
I have just received your second letter. Pity you could not stay over
yesterday--it was very fine.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The letter in question is as follows:--]
April 30, 1889.
Dear Lord Hartington,
I am assured by those who know more about the political world than I
do, that if Lord Salisbury would hold his hand and let his party do as
they like about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill which is to come on
next week, it would pass. Considering the irritation against the
bishops and a certain portion of the lay peers among a number of people
who have the means of making themselves heard and felt, which is kept
up and aggravated, as time goes on, by the action of the Upper House in
repeatedly snubbing the Lower, about this question, I should have
thought it (from a Conservative point of view) good policy to heal the
sore.
The talk of Class versus Mass is generally mere clap-trap; but, in this
case, there is really no doubt that a fraction of the Classes stands in
the way of the fulfilment of a very reasonable demand on the part of
the Masses.
A clear-headed man like Lord Salisbury would surely see this if it were
properly pressed on his attention.
I do not presume to say whether it is practicable or convenient for the
Leader of the Liberal Unionist party to take any steps in this
direction; and I should hardly have ventured to ask you to take this
suggestion into consideration if the interest I have always taken in
the D.W.S. Bill had not recently been quickened by the marriage of one
of my daughters as a Deceased Wife's Sister.
I am, etc.
[Meantime the effect of Eastbourne, which Sir John Donnelly had induced
him to try, was indeed wonderful. He found in it the place he had so
long been looking for. References to his health read very differently
from those of previous years. He walked up Beachy Head regularly
without suffering from any heart symptoms. And though Beachy Head was
not the same thing as the Alps, it made a very efficient substitute for
a while, and it was not till April that the need of change began to
make itself felt. And so he made up his mind to listen no more to the
eager friends who wished him to pitch his tent near them at either end
of Surrey, but to settle down at Eastbourne, and, by preference, to
build a house of the size and on the spot that suited himself, rather
than to take any existing house lower down in the town. He must have
been a trifle irritated by unsolicited advice when he wrote the
following:--]
It is very odd that people won't give one credit for common sense. We
have tried one winter here, and if we tried another we should be just
as much dependent upon the experience of longer residents as ever we
were. However, as I told X. I was going to settle matters to-morrow,
there won't be any opportunity for discussing that topic when he comes.
If we had taken W.'s house, somebody would have immediately told us
that we had chosen the dampest site in winter and the stuffiest in
summer, and where, moreover, the sewage has to be pumped up into the
main drain.
[He finally decided upon a site on the high ground near Beachy Head, a
little way back from the sea front, at the corner of the Staveley and
Buxton Roads, with a guarantee from the Duke of Devonshire's agent that
no house should be built at the contiguous end of the adjoining plot of
land in the Buxton Road, a plot which he himself afterwards bought. The
principal rooms were planned for the back of the house, looking
south-west over open gardens to the long line of downs which culminate
in Beachy Head, but with due provision against southerly gales and
excess of sunshine.
On May 29 the builder's contract was accepted, and for the rest of the
year the progress of the house, which was designed by his son-in-law,
F.W. Waller, afforded a constant interest.
Meantime, with the improvement in his general health, the old appetite
for work returned with increased and unwonted zest. For the first time
in his life he declares that he enjoyed the process of writing. As he
wrote somewhat later to his newly married daughter from Eastbourne,
where he had gone again very weary the day after her wedding: "Luckily
the bishops and clergy won't let me alone, so I have been able to keep
myself pretty well amused in replying." The work which came to him so
easily and pleasurably was the defence of his attitude of agnosticism
against the onslaught made upon it at the previous Church Congress by
Dr. Wace, the Principal of King's College, London, and followed up by
articles in the "Nineteenth Century" from the pen of Mr. Frederic
Harrison and Mr. Laing, the effect of which upon him he describes to
Mr. Knowles on December 30, 1888:--]
I have been stirred up to the boiling pitch by Wace, Laing, and
Harrison in re Agnosticism, and I really can't keep the lid down any
longer. Are you minded to admit a goring article into the February
"Nineteenth"?
[As for his health, he adds:--]
I have amended wonderfully in the course of the last six weeks, and my
doctor tells me I am going to be completely patched up--seams caulked
and made seaworthy, so the old hulk may make another cruise.
We shall see. At any rate I have been able and willing to write lately,
and that is more than I can say for myself for the first three-quarters
of the year.
...I was so pleased to see you were in trouble about your house. Good
for you to have a taste of it for yourself.
[To this controversy he contributed four articles; three directly in
defence of Agnosticism, the fourth on the value of the underlying
question of testimony to the miraculous.
The first article, "Agnosticism," appeared in the February number of
the "Nineteenth Century". No sooner was this finished than he began a
fresh piece of work, "which," he writes, "is all about miracles, and
will be rather amusing." This, on the "Value of Testimony to the
Miraculous," appeared in the following number of the "Nineteenth
Century". It did not form part of the controversy on hand, though it
bore indirectly upon the first principles of agnosticism. The question
at issue, he urges, is not the possibility of miracles, but the
evidence to their occurrence, and if from preconceptions or ignorance
the evidence be worthless the historical reality of the facts attested
vanishes. The cardinal point, then, "is completely, as the author of
Robert Elsmere says, the value of testimony."
[The March number also contained replies from Dr. Wace and Bishop Magee
on the main question, and an article by Mrs. Humphry Ward on a kindred
subject to his own, "The New Reformation." Of these he writes on
February 27:--]
The Bishop and Wace are hammering away in the "Nineteenth". Mrs. Ward's
article very good, and practically an answer to Wace. Won't I stir them
up by and by.
[And a few days later:--]
Mrs. Ward's service consists in her very clear and clever exposition of
critical results and methods.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 29, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I have just been delighted with Mrs. Ward's article. She has swept away
the greater part of Wace's sophistries as a dexterous and
strong-wristed housemaid sweeps away cobwebs with her broom, and saved
a lot of time.
What in the world does the Bishop mean by saying that I have called
Christianity "sorry stuff" (page 370)? To my knowledge I never so much
as thought anything of the kind, let alone saying it.
I shall challenge him very sharply about this, and if, as I believe, he
has no justification for his statement, my opinion of him will be very
considerably lowered.
Wace has given me a lovely opening by his profession of belief in the
devils going into the swine. I rather hoped I should get this out of
him.
I find people are watching the game with great interest, and if it
should be possible for me to give a little shove to the "New
Reformation," I shall think the fag end of my life well spent.
After all, the reproach made to the English people that "they care for
nothing but religion and politics" is rather to their credit. In the
long run these are the two things that ought to interest a man more
than any others.
I have been much bothered with ear-ache lately, but if all goes well I
will send you a screed by the middle of March.
Snowing hard! They have had more snow within the last month than they
have known for ten years here.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[He set to work immediately, and within ten days despatched his second
contribution, "Agnosticism, a Rejoinder," which appeared in the April
number of the "Nineteenth Century".
On March 3 he writes:--]
I am possessed by a writing demon, and have pretty well finished in the
rough another article for Knowles, whose mouth is wide open for it.
[And on the 9th:--]
I sent off another article to Knowles last night--a regular facer for
the clericals. You can't think how I enjoy writing now for the first
time in my life.
[He writes at greater length to Mr. Knowles]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 10, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
There's a Divinity that shapes the ends (of envelopes!) rough-hew them
how we will. This time I went and bought the strongest to be had, and
sealed him up with wax in the shop. I put no note inside, meaning to
write to you afterwards, and then I forgot to do so.
I can't understand Peterborough nohow. However, so far as the weakness
of the flesh would permit me to abstain from smiting him and his
brother Amalekite, I have tried to turn the tide of battle to matters
of more importance.
The pith of my article is the proposition that Christ was not a
Christian. I have not ventured to state my thesis exactly in that
form--fearing the Editor--but, in a mild and proper way, I flatter
myself I have demonstrated it. Really, when I come to think of the
claims made by orthodox Christianity on the one hand, and of the total
absence of foundation for them on the other, I find it hard to abstain
from using a phrase which shocked me very much when Strauss first
applied it to the Resurrection, "Welthistorischer Humbug!"
I don't think I have ever seen the portrait you speak of. I remember
the artist--a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I forget--but I do
not think I saw his finished work. Some of these days I will ask to see
it.
I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here the next
day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to come with me. If she
does not knock up I shall be pleasantly surprised. The young couple are
flourishing in Paris. I like what I have seen of him very much.
What is the "Cloister scheme"? [It referred to a plan for using the
cloisters of Westminster Abbey to receive the monuments of
distinguished men, so as to avoid the necessity of enlarging the Abbey
itself.] Recollect how far away I am from the world, the flesh and the
d--.
Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of Eginhard and
Emma? What good pictures you will have in your monastery church!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[And again, a few days later:--]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne; March 15, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am sending my proof back to Spottiswoode's. I did not think the
manuscript would make so much, and I am afraid it has lengthened in the
process of correction.
You have a reader in your printer's office who provides me with jokes.
Last time he corrected, where my manuscript spoke of the pigs as
unwilling "porters" of the devils, into "porkers." And this time, when
I, writing about the Lord's Prayer, say "current formula," he has it
"canting formula." If only Peterborough had got hold of that! And I am
capable of overlooking anything in a proof.
You see we have got to big questions now, and if these are once fairly
before the general mind all the King's horses and all the King's men
won't put the orthodox Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[After the article came out he wrote again to Mr. Knowles:--]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., April 14, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am going to try and stop here, desolate as the house is now all the
chicks have flown, for the next fortnight. Your talk of the inclemency
of Torquay is delightfully consoling. London has been vile.
I am glad you are going to let Wace have another "go." My object, as
you know, in the whole business has been to rouse people to think...
Considering that I got named in the House of Commons last night as an
example of a temperate and well-behaved blasphemer, I think I am
attaining my object. [In the debate upon the Religious Prosecutions
Abolition Bill, Mr. Addison said "the last article by Professor Huxley
in the "Nineteenth Century" showed that opinion was free when it was
honestly expressed."--"Times" April 14.]
Of course I go for a last word, and I am inclined to think that
whatever Wace may say, it may be best to get out of the region of
controversy as far as possible and hammer in two big nails--(1) that
the Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more
about the spiritual world than anybody else, and (2) that Newman's
doctrine of "Development" is true to an extent of which the Cardinal
did not dream.
I have been reading some of his works lately, and I understand now why
Kingsley accused him of growing dishonesty.
After an hour or two of him I began to lose sight of the distinction
between truth and falsehood.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
If you are at home any day next week I will look in for a chat.
[The controversy was completed by a third article, "Agnosticism and
Christianity," in the June number of the "Nineteenth Century". There
was a humorous aspect of this article which tickled his fancy
immensely, for he drove home his previous arguments by means of an
authority whom his adversaries could not neglect, though he was the
last man they could have expected to see brought up against them in
this connection--Cardinal Newman. There is no better evidence for
ancient than for modern miracles, he says in effect; let us therefore
accept the teachings of the Church which maintains a continuous
tradition on the subject. But there is a very different conclusion to
be drawn from the same premises; all may be regarded as equally
doubtful, and so he writes on May 30 to Sir J. Hooker:--]
By the way, I want you to enjoy my wind-up with Wace in this month's
"Nineteenth" in the reading as much as I have in the writing. It's as
full of malice [I.e. in the French sense of the word.] as an egg is
full of meat, and my satisfaction in making Newman my accomplice has
been unutterable. That man is the slipperiest sophist I have ever met
with. Kingsley was entirely right about him.
Now for peace and quietness till after the next Church Congress!
[Three other letters to Mr. Knowles refer to this article.]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 4, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am at the end of my London tether, and we go to Eastbourne (3
Jevington Gardens again) on Monday.
I have been working hard to finish my paper, and shall send it to you
before I go.
I am astonished at its meekness. Being reviled, I revile not; not an
exception, I believe, can be taken to the wording of one of the
venomous paragraphs in which the paper abounds. And I perceive the
truth of a profound reflection I have often made, that reviling is
often morally superior to not reviling.
I give up Peterborough. His "Explanation" is neither straightforward,
nor courteous, nor prudent. Of which last fact, it may be, he will be
convinced when he reads my acknowledgment of his favours, which is
soft, not with the softness of the answer which turneth away wrath, but
with that of the pillow which smothered Desdemona.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I shall try to stand an hour or two of the Academy dinner, and hope it
won't knock me up.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 6, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
If I had not gone to the Academy dinner I might have kept my promise
about sending you my paper to-day. I indulged in no gastronomic
indiscretions, and came away after H.R.H.'s speech, but I was dead beat
all yesterday, nevertheless.
We are off to Eastbourne, and I will send the manuscript from there;
there is very little to do.
Such a waste! I shall have to omit a paragraph that was really a
masterpiece.
For who should I come upon in one of the rooms but the Bishop! As we
shook hands, he asked whether that was before the fight or after; and I
answered, "A little of both." Then we spoke our minds pretty plainly;
and then we agreed to bury the hatchet. [As he says ("Collected Essays"
5 210), this chance meeting ended "a temporary misunderstanding with a
man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great
liking and no less respect."]
So yesterday I tore up THE paragraph. It was so appropriate I could not
even save it up for somebody else!
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I sent back my proof last evening. I shall be in town Friday afternoon
to Monday morning next, having a lot of things to do. So you may as
well let me see a revise of the whole. Did you not say to me, "sitting
by a sea-coal fire" (I say nothing about a "parcel gilt goblet"), that
this screed was to be the "last word"? I don't mind how long it goes on
so long as I have the last word. But you must expect nothing from me
for the next three or four months. We shall be off abroad, not later
than the 8th June, and among the everlasting hills, a fico for your
controversies! Wace's paper shall be waste paper for me. Oh! This is a
"goak" which Peterborough would not understand.
I think you are right about the wine and water business--I had my
doubts--but it was too tempting. All the teetotalers would have been on
my side.
There is no more curious example of the influence of education than the
respect with which this poor bit of conjuring is regarded. Your genuine
pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig. I trust you have
properly enjoyed the extracts from Newman. That a man of his intellect
should be brought down to the utterance of such drivel--by Papistry, is
one of the strongest of arguments against that damnable perverter of
mankind, I know of.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Shortly afterwards, he received a long and rambling letter in
connection with this subject. Referring to the passage in the first
article, "the apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly' should be
the rule of life of a true agnostic," the writer began by begging him
"to 'suffer gladly' one fool more," and after several pages wound up
with a variation of the same phrase. It being impossible to give any
valid answer to his hypothetical inquiries, Huxley could not resist the
temptation to take the opening thus offered him, and replied:--]
Sir,
I beg leave to acknowledge your letter. I have complied with the
request preferred in its opening paragraph.
Faithfully yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter also arises out of this controversy:--
Its occasion (writes Mr. Taylor) was one which I had written on seeing
an article in which he referred to the Persian sect of the Babis. I had
read with much interest the account of it in Count Gobineau's book, and
was much struck with the points of likeness to the foundation of
Christianity, and the contrast between the subsequent history of the
two; I asked myself how, given the points of similarity, to account for
the contrast; is it due to the Divine within the one, or the human
surroundings? This question I put to Professor Huxley, with many
apologies for intruding on his leisure, and a special request that he
would not suffer himself to be further troubled by any reply.]
To Mr. Robert Taylor.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 8, 1889.
Sir,
In looking through a mass of papers, before I leave England for some
months among the mountains in search of health, I have come upon your
letter of 7th March. As a rule I find that out of the innumerable
letters addressed to me, the only ones I wish to answer are those the
writers of which are considerate enough to ask that they may receive no
reply, and yours is no exception.
The question you put is very much to the purpose: a proper and full
answer would take up many pages; but it will suffice to furnish the
heads to be filled up by your own knowledge.
1. The Church founded by Jesus has NOT made its way; has NOT permeated
the world--but DID become extinct in the country of its birth--as
Nazarenism and Ebionism.
2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the
4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than
Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and
Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and
demonology as could be got in under new or old names.
3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more
truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their
cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"--and who were fully
prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated
Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but
friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together
for all purposes--the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in
Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and
lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together
like Scotchmen.
If these things are so--and I appeal to your knowledge of history that
they are so--what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth
or falsehood of the story of Jesus?
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter was written in reply to one from Mr. Clodd on the
first of the articles in this controversy. This article, it must be
remembered, not only replied to Dr. Wace's attack, but at the same time
bantered Mr. Frederic Harrison's pretensions on behalf of Positivism at
the expense alike of Christianity and Agnosticism.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 19, 1889.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
I am very much obliged to you for your cheery and appreciative letter.
If I do not empty all Harrison's vials of wrath I shall be astonished!
But of all the sickening humbugs in the world, the sham pietism of the
Positivists is to me the most offensive.
I have long been wanting to say my say about these questions, but my
hands were too full. This time last year I was so ill that I thought to
myself, with Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But my wiry constitution
has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I have every reason to
believe that with renunciation of the devil and all his works (i.e.
public speaking, dining and being dined, etc.) my faculties may be
unimpaired for a good spell yet. And whether my lease is long or short,
I mean to devote them to the work I began in the paper on the Evolution
of Theology.
You will see in the next "Nineteenth" a paper on the Evidence of
Miracles, which I think will be to your mind.
Hutton is beginning to drivel! There really is no other word for it.
[This refers to an article in the "Spectator" on "Professor Huxley and
Agnosticism," February 9, 1889, which suggests, with regard to demoniac
possession, that the old doctrine of one spirit driving out another is
as good as any new explanation, and fortifies this conclusion by a
reference to the phenomena of hypnotism.]
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To the same:--]
4 Marlborough Place, April 15, 1889.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
The adventurous Mr. C. wrote to me some time ago. I expressed my regret
that I could do nothing for the evolution of tent-pegs. What wonderful
people there are in the world!
Many thanks for calling my attention to "Antiqua Mater." I will look it
up. I have such a rooted objection to returning books, that I never
borrow one or allow anybody to lend me one if I can help it.
I hear that Wace is to have another innings, and I am very glad of it,
as it will give me the opportunity of putting the case once more as a
connected argument.
It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of
Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his
followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with
those who take up a new idea.
I have had for some time the notion of dealing with the "Three great
myths"--1. Creation; 2. Fall; 3. Deluge; but I suspect I am getting to
the end of my tether physically, and shall have to start for the
Engadine in another month's time.
Many thanks for your congratulations about my daughter's marriage. No
two people could be better suited for one another, and there is a
charming little grand-daughter of the first marriage to be cared for.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[One more piece of writing dates from this time. He writes to his wife
on March 2:--]
A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a
sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for
something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad
taste of some of the notices, I have done that. I shall show it you
before it goes back to Engel in proof.
This sketch of his life is the brief autobiography which is printed at
the beginning of volume 1 of the "Collected Essays". He was often
pressed, both by friends and by strangers, to give them some more
autobiography; but moved either by dislike of any approach to egotism,
or by the knowledge that if biography is liable to give a false
impression, autobiography may leave one still more false, he constantly
refused to do so, especially so long as he had capacity for useful
work. I found, however, among his papers, an entirely different sketch
of his early life, half-a-dozen sheets describing the time he spent in
the East end, with an almost Carlylean sense of the horrible
disproportions of life. I cannot tell whether this was a first draft
for the present autobiography, or the beginnings of a larger
undertaking.
Several letters of miscellaneous interest were written before the move
to the Engadine took place. They touch on such points as the excessive
growth of scientific clubs, the use of alcohol for brain workers,
advice to one who was not likely to "suffer fools gladly" about
applying for the assistant secretaryship of the British Association,
and the question of the effects of the destruction of immature fish,
besides personal matters.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 22, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I suppose the question of amalgamation with the Royal is to be
discussed at the Phil. Club. The sooner something of the kind takes
place the better. There is really no raison d'etre left for the Phil.
Club, and considering the hard work of scientific men in these days,
clubs are like hypotheses, not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, March 26, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
The only science to which X. has contributed, so far as I know, is the
science of self-advertisement; and of that he is a master.
When you and I were youngsters, we thought it the great thing to
exorcise the aristocratic flunkeyism which reigned in the Royal
Society--the danger now is that of the entry of seven devils worse than
the first, in the shape of rich engineers, chemical traders, and
"experts" (who have sold their souls for a good price), and who find it
helps them to appear to the public as if they were men of science.
If the Phil Club had kept pure, it might have acted as a check upon the
intrusion of the mere trading element. But there seems to be no reason
now against Jack and Tom and Harry getting in, and the thing has become
an imposture.
So I go with you for extinction, before we begin to drag in the mud.
I wish I could take some more active part in what is going on. I am
anxious about the Society altogether. But though I am wonderfully well
so long as I live like a hermit, and get out into the air of the Downs,
either London, or bother, and still more both combined, intimate
respectfully but firmly, that my margin is of the narrowest.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following is to his daughter in Paris. Of course it was the
Tuileries, not the Louvre, which was destroyed in 1871.]
I think you are quite right about French women. They are like French
dishes, uncommonly well cooked and sent up, but what the dickens they
are made of is a mystery. Not but what all womenkind are mysteries, but
there are mysteries of godliness and mysteries of iniquity.
Have you been to see the sculptures in the Louvre?--dear me, I forgot
the Louvre's fate. I wonder where the sculpture is? I used to think it
the best thing in the way of art in Paris. There was a youthful Bacchus
who was the main support of my thesis as to the greater beauty of the
male figure!
Probably I had better conclude.
To Mr. E.T. Collings (of Bolton).
4 Marlborough Place, April 9, 1889.
Dear Sir,
I understand that you ask me what I think about "alcohol as a stimulant
to the brain in mental work"?
Speaking for myself (and perhaps I may add for persons of my
temperament), I can say, without hesitation, that I would just as soon
take a dose of arsenic as I would of alcohol, under such circumstances.
Indeed on the whole, I should think the arsenic safer, less likely to
lead to physical and moral degradation. It would be better to die
outright than to be alcoholised before death.
If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had
better turn to hand work--it is an indication on Nature's part that she
did not mean him to be a head worker.
The circumstances of my life have led me to experience all sorts of
conditions in regard to alcohol, from total abstinence to nearly the
other end of the scale, and my clear conviction is the less the better,
though I by no means feel called upon to forgo the comforting and
cheering effect of a little.
But for no conceivable consideration would I use it to whip up a tired
or sluggish brain. Indeed, for me there is no working time so good as
between breakfast and lunch, when there is not a trace of alcohol in my
composition.
4 Marlborough Place, May 6, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I meant to have turned up at the x on Thursday, but I was unwell and,
moreover, worried and bothered about Collier's illness at Venice, and
awaiting an answer to a telegram I sent there. He has contrived to get
scarlatina, but I hope he will get safe through it, as he seems to be
going on well. We were getting ready to go out until we were reassured
on that point.
I thought I would go to the Academy dinner on Saturday, and that if I
did not eat and drink and came away early, I might venture.
It was pleasant enough to have a glimpse of the world, the flesh (on
the walls, nude!), and the devil (there were several Bishops), but oh,
dear! how done I was yesterday.
However, we are off to Eastbourne to-day, and I hope to wash three
weeks' London out of me before long. I think we shall go to Maloja
again early in June.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Capital portrait in the New Gallery, where I looked in for a quarter of
an hour on Saturday--only you never were quite so fat in the cheeks,
and I don't believe you have got such a splendid fur-coat!
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.
...As to the Assistant Secretaryship of the British Association, I have
turned it over a great deal in my mind since your letter reached me,
and I really cannot convince myself that you would suit it or it would
suit you. I have not heard who are candidates or anything about it, and
I am not going to take any part in the election. But looking at the
thing solely from the point of view of your interests, I should
strongly advise you against taking it, even if it were offered.
My pet aphorism "suffer fools gladly" should be the guide of the
Assistant Secretary, who, during the fortnight of his activity, has
more little vanities and rivalries to smooth over and conciliate than
other people meet with in a lifetime. Now you do NOT "suffer fools
gladly" on the contrary, you "gladly make fools suffer." I do not say
you are wrong--No tu quoque [Cf. above. But for due cause he could
suffer them "with a difference"; of a certain caller he writes: "What
an effusive bore he is! But I believe he was very kind to poor
Clifford, and restrained my unregenerate impatience of that kind of
creature."]--but that is where the danger of the explosion lies--not in
regard to the larger business of the Association.
The risk is great and the 300 pounds a year is not worth it. Foster
knows all about the place; ask him if I am not right.
Many thanks for the suggestion about Spirula. But the matter is in a
state in which no one can be of any use but myself. At present I am at
the end of my tether and I mean to be off to the Engadine a fortnight
hence--most likely not to return before October.
Not even the sweet voice of -- will lure me from my retirement. The
Academy dinner knocked me up for three days, though I drank no wine,
ate very little, and vanished after the Prince of Wales' speech. The
truth is I have very little margin of strength to go upon even now,
though I am marvellously better than I was.
I am very glad that you see the importance of doing battle with the
clericals. I am astounded at the narrowness of view of many of our
colleagues on this point. They shut their eyes to the obstacles which
clericalism raises in every direction against scientific ways of
thinking, which are even more important than scientific discoveries.
I desire that the next generation may be less fettered by the gross and
stupid superstitions of orthodoxy than mine has been. And I shall be
well satisfied if I can succeed to however small an extent in bringing
about that result.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, May 25, 1889.
My dear Lankester,
I cannot attend the Council meeting on the 29th. I have a meeting of
the Trustees of the British Museum to-day, and to be examined by a
Committee on Monday, and as the sudden heat half kills me I shall be
fit for nothing but to slink off to Eastbourne again.
However, I do hope the Council will be very careful what they say or do
about the immature fish question. The thing has been discussed over and
over again ad nauseam, and I doubt if there is anything to be added to
the evidence in the blue-books.
The idee fixe of the British public, fishermen, M.P.'s and ignorant
persons generally is that all small fish, if you do not catch them,
grow up into big fish. They cannot be got to understand that the
wholesale destruction of the immature is the necessary part of the
general order of things, from codfish to men.
You seem to have some very interesting things to talk about at the
Royal Institution.
Do you see any chance of educating the white corpuscles of the human
race to destroy the theological bacteria which are bred in parsons?
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 19, 1889.
My dear Donnelly,
The Vice-President's letter has brought home to me one thing very
clearly, and that is, that I had no business to sign the Report. Of
course he has a right to hold me responsible for a document to which my
name is attached, and I should look more like a fool than I ever wish
to do, if I had to tell him that I had taken the thing entirely on
trust. I have always objected to the sleeping partnership in the
Examination; and unless it can be made quite clear that I am nothing
but a "consulting doctor," I really must get out of it entirely.
Of course I cannot say whether the Report is justified by the facts or
not, when I do not know anything about them. But from my experience of
what the state of things used to be, I should say that it is, in all
probability, fair.
The faults mentioned are exactly those which always have made their
appearance, and I expect always will do so, and I do not see why the
attention of the teachers should not as constantly be directed to them.
You talk of Eton. Well, the reports of the Examiners to the governing
body, year after year, had the same unpleasing monotony, and I do not
believe that there is any educational body, from the Universities
downwards, which would come out much better, if the Examiners' reports
were published and if they did their duty.
I am unable to see my way (and I suppose you are) to any better method
of State encouragement of science teaching than payment by results. The
great and manifest evil of that system, however, is the steady pressure
which it exerts in the development of every description of sham
teaching. And the only check upon this kind of swindling the public
seems to me to lie in the hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster
so, ages ago, when he talked to me about the gradual increase of the
expenditure, and I have been confirmed in my opinion by all subsequent
experience. What the people who read the reports may say, I should not
care one twopenny d-- if I had to administer the thing.
Nine out of ten of them are incompetent to form any opinion on an
educational subject; and as a mere matter of policy, I should, in
dealing with them, be only too glad to be able to make it clear that
some of the defects and shortcomings inherent in this (as in all
systems) had been disguised, and that even the most fractious of
Examiners had said their say without let or hindrance.
It is the nature of the system which seems to me to demand as a
corrective incessant and severe watchfulness on the part of the
Examiners, and I see no harm if they a little overdo the thing in this
direction, for every sham they let through is an encouragement to other
shams and pot-teaching in general.
And if the "great heart" of the people and its thick head can't be got
to appreciate honesty, why the sooner we shut up the better. Ireland
may be for the Irish, but science teaching is not for the sake of
science teachers.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 3.6.
1889-90.
From the middle of June to the middle of September, Huxley was in
Switzerland, first at Monte Generoso, then, when the weather became
more settled, at the Maloja. Here, as his letters show, he
"rejuvenated" to such an extent that Sir Henry Thompson, who was at the
Maloja, scoffed at the idea of his ever having had dilated heart.]
Monte Generoso, Tessin, Suisse, June 25, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I am quite agreed with the proposed arrangements for the x, and hope I
shall show better in the register of attendance next session.
When I am striding about the hills here I really feel as if my
invalidism were a mere piece of malingering. When I am well I can walk
up hill and down dale as well as I did twenty years ago. But my margin
is abominably narrow, and I am at the mercy of "liver and lights."
Sitting up for long and dining are questions of margin.
I do not know if you have been here. We are close on 4000 feet up and
look straight over the great plain of North Italy on the one side and
to a great hemicycle of mountains, Monte Rosa among them, on the other.
I do not know anything more beautiful in its way. But the whole time we
have been here the weather has been extraordinary. On the average,
about two thunderstorms per diem. I am sure that a good meteorologist
might study the place with advantage. The barometer has not varied
three-twentieths of an inch the whole time, notwithstanding the storms.
I hear the weather has been bad all over Switzerland, but it is not
high and dry enough for me here, and we shall be off to the Maloja on
Saturday next, and shall stay there till we return somewhere in
September. Collier and Ethel will join us there in August. He is none
the worse for his scarlatina.
"Aged Botanist?" marry come up! [Sir J. Hooker jestingly congratulated
him on taking up botany in his old age.] I should like to know of a
younger spark. The first time I heard myself called "the old gentleman"
was years ago when we were in South Devon. A half-drunken Devonian had
made himself very offensive, in the compartment in which my wife and I
were travelling, and got some "simple Saxon" from me, accompanied, I
doubt not, by an awful scowl "Ain't the old gentleman in a rage," says
he.
I am very glad to hear of Reggie's success, and my wife joins with me
in congratulations. It is a comfort to see one's shoots planted out and
taking root, though the idea that one's cares and anxieties about them
are diminished, we find to be an illusion.
I inclose cheque for my contributions due and to come. [For the x
Club.] If I go to Davy's Locker before October, the latter may go for
consolation champagne!
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[He writes from the Maloja on August 16 to Sir M. Foster, who had been
sitting on the Vaccination Commission:--]
I wonder how you are prospering, whether you have v
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