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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15429-8.txt b/15429-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..441db8c --- /dev/null +++ b/15429-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4310 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Henry Huxley, by Leonard Huxley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thomas Henry Huxley + A Character Sketch + +Author: Leonard Huxley + +Release Date: March 21, 2005 [EBook #15429] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, S.R.Ellison and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LIFE-STORIES OF FAMOUS MEN + + + + +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + + + + + ISSUED FOR THE + RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, + LIMITED + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry: Frontispiece] + + + + LIFE-STORIES OF FAMOUS MEN + + + + THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + + A CHARACTER SKETCH + + + BY + + LEONARD HUXLEY, LL.D. + + + LONDON: + WATTS & CO., + 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4 + 1920 + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + I. INTRODUCTORY 1 + II. EARLY DAYS 2 + III. MEDICAL TRAINING 13 + IV. VOYAGE OF THE "RATTLESNAKE" AND ITS SEQUEL 17 + V. LEHRJAHRE 23 + VI. VERACITY AND AGNOSTICISM 29 + VII. CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN" 37 + VIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES 43 + IX. POPULAR EDUCATION 51 + X. EDUCATION; ESPECIALLY OF TEACHERS AND WOMEN 60 + XI. METHODS OF WORK 65 + XII. SCIENCE AND ETHICS 72 + XIII. MORALITY AND THE CHURCH 80 + XIV. LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS 84 + XV. CHARLES DARWIN 92 + XVI. HOOKER, FORBES, TYNDALL, SPENCER 100 + XVII. IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE 111 + XVIII. SOME LETTERS AND TABLE-TALK 117 + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + ELLIOTT AND FRY _Frontispiece_ + + FROM A DAGUERROTYPE MADE IN 1846 _To face p._20 + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + MAULL AND POLYBLANK, 1857 _To face p._44 + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + DOWNEY, 1890 _To face p._102 + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +The object of a full-dress biography is to present as complete +a picture as may be of a man and his work, the influence of his +character upon his achievement, the struggle with opposing influences +to carry out some guiding purpose or great idea. With abundant +documents at hand the individual development, the action of events +upon character, and of character upon events, can be shown in the +spontaneous freedom of letters, as well as in considered publications. +But this little book is not a full-dress biography, although it may +induce readers to turn to the larger _Life and Letters_, in which +(or in the _Aphorisms and Reflections of T.H. Huxley_) facts and +quotations can be turned up by means of the index; it is designed +rather as a character sketch, to show not so much the work done as +what manner of man Huxley was, and the spirit in which he undertook +that work. It will not be a history of his scientific investigations +or his philosophical researches; it will be personal, while from the +personal side illustrating his attitude towards his scientific and +philosophical thought. + + + + +II + +EARLY DAYS + + +Thomas Henry Huxley was born ten years after Waterloo, while the +country was still in the backwash of the long-drawn Napoleonic wars. +It was a time of material reconstruction and expansion, while social +reconstruction lagged sadly and angrily behind. The year of his birth +saw the first railway opened in England; it was seven years before +electoral reform began, with its well-meant but dispiriting sequel +in the new Poor Law. The defeat of the political and aggressive cause +which had imposed itself upon the revolutionary inspiration of freedom +strengthened the old orthodoxies here. Questioning voices were raised +at their proper peril. + +Thomas Henry was the seventh child of George Huxley and Rachel +Withers, his wife. He was born on May 4, 1825, at half-past nine in +the morning, according to the entry in the family Bible, at Ealing, +where his father was senior assistant-master in the well-known school +of Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford. The good doctor, who +had succeeded his father-in-law here in 1791, was enough of a public +character to have his name parodied by Thackeray as Dr. Tickleus. + +"I am not aware," writes Huxley playfully in an autobiographical +sketch, + + that any portents preceded my arrival in this world; but in + my childhood I remember hearing a traditional account of the + manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of great + practical value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in + consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same + reason, probably, a neighbouring bee-hive had swarmed, and the + new colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way + into the room when the horrified nurse shut down the sash. If + that well-meaning woman had only abstained from her ill-timed + interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and + I should have been endowed with that mellifluous eloquence + which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth, + capacity, or honest work, to the highest places in Church and + State. But the opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged + to content myself through life with saying what I mean in the + plainest of plain language, than which, I suppose, there is no + habit more ruinous to a man's prospects of advancement. + +The fact that he received the name of the doubting apostle was by no +means one of those superhuman coincidences in which some naive people +see portents. In later years my father used to make humorous play +with its appropriateness, but in plain fact he was named after his +grandfather, Thomas Huxley. I have not traced the origin of the Henry. + +Both parents were of dark complexion, and all the children were +dark-haired and dark-eyed. The father was tall, and, I believe, well +set-up: a miniature shows him with abundant, brown, curling hair +brushed high above a good forehead, giving the effect, so fashionable +in 1830, of a high-peaked head. The features are well cut and regular; +the nose rather long and inclined to be aquiline; the cheeks well +covered; the eyes, under somewhat arched brows, expressive and +interesting. Outwardly, there is a certain resemblance traceable +between the miniature and a daguerrotype of Huxley at nineteen; +but the debt, physical and mental, owed to either parent is thus +recorded:-- + + Physically, I am the son of my mother so completely--even + down to peculiar movements of the hands, which made their + appearance in me as I reached the age she had when I noticed + them--that I can hardly find any trace of my father in myself, + except an inborn faculty for drawing, which, unfortunately + in my case, has never been cultivated; a hot temper, and + that amount of tenacity of purpose which unfriendly observers + sometimes call obstinacy. + + My mother was a slender brunette, of an emotional and + energetic temperament, and possessed of the most piercing + black eyes I ever saw in a woman's head. With no more + education than other women of the middle classes in her day, + she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most distinguishing + characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If one + ventured to suggest that she had not taken much time to arrive + at any conclusion, she would say: "I cannot help it; things + flash across me." That peculiarity has been passed on to me + in full strength; it has often stood me in good stead; it + has sometimes played me sad tricks, and it has always been a + danger. But, after all, if my time were to come over again, + there is nothing I would less willingly part with than my + inheritance of mother-wit. + +Restless, talkative, untiring to the day of her death, she was at +sixty-six "as active and energetic as a young woman." To her he was +devoted. + + As a child my love for her was a passion. I have lain awake + for hours crying because I had a morbid fear of her death; + her approbation was my greatest reward, her displeasure my + greatest punishment. + +About his childhood, he writes, + + I have next to nothing to say. In after years my mother, + looking at me almost reproachfully, would sometimes say, "Ah! + you were such a pretty boy!" whence I had no difficulty in + concluding that I had not fulfilled my early promise in the + matter of looks. In fact, I have a distinct recollection of + certain curls of which I was vain, and of a conviction that + I closely resembled that handsome, courtly gentleman, Sir + Herbert Oakley, who was vicar of our parish, and who was as a + god to us country folk because he was occasionally visited + by the then Prince George of Cambridge. I remember turning my + pinafore wrong side forwards in order to represent a surplice, + and preaching to my mother's maids in the kitchen as nearly as + possible in Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday morning, when + the rest of the family were at church. That is the earliest + indication of the strong clerical affinities which my friend + Mr. Herbert Spencer has always ascribed to me, though I fancy + they have, for the most part, remained in a latent state. + +He was not a precocious child, nor pushed forward by early +instruction. His native talent for drawing, had it been cultivated, +might have brought him into the front rank of artists; but on the +perverse principle, then common, that training is either useless to +native capacity or ruins it, he remained untaught, and his vigorous +draughtsmanship, invaluable as it was in his scientific career, never +reached its full technical perfection. But the sketches which he +delighted to make on his travels reveal the artist's eye, if not his +trained hand. + +His regular schooling was of the scantiest. For two years, from the +age of eight to ten, he was at the Ealing school. It was a semi-public +school of the old unreformed type. What did a little boy learn there? +The rudiments of Latin, of arithmetic, and divinity may be regarded as +certain. Greek is improbable, and, in fact, I think my father had no +school foundation to build upon when he took up Greek at the age of +fifty-five in order to read in the original precisely what Aristotle +had written, and not what he was said to have written, about his +dissection of the heart. + +For the rest, his experience of such a school, before Dr. Arnold's +reforming spirit had made itself felt over the country, is eloquent +testimony to the need of it. + + Though my way of life [he writes] has made me acquainted + with all sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to the + lowest, I deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at + school was the worst I have ever known. We boys were average + lads, with much the same inherent capacity for good and evil + as any others; but the people who were set over us cared about + as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they were + baby-farmers. We were left to the operation of the struggle + for existence among ourselves; bullying was the least of the + ill practices current among us. + +One bright spot in these recollections was the licking of an +intolerable bully, a certain wild-cat element in him making up for +lack of weight. But, alas for justice, "I--the victor--had a black +eye, while he--the vanquished--had none, so that I got into disgrace +and he did not." A dozen years later he ran across this lad in +Sydney, acting as an ostler, a transported convict who had, moreover, +undergone more than one colonial conviction. + +This brief school career was ended by the break-up of the Ealing +establishment. After Dr. Nicholas's death, his sons tried to carry on +the school; but the numbers fell off, and George Huxley, about 1835, +returned to his native town of Coventry as manager of the Coventry +Savings Bank, while his daughters eked out the slender family +resources by keeping school. + +Meantime, it does not seem that the boy Tom, as he was generally +called, received much regular instruction. On the other hand, he +learned a great deal for himself. He had an inquiring mind, and a +singularly early turn for metaphysical speculation. He read everything +he could lay hands on in his father's library. We catch a glimpse +of him at twelve, lighting his candle before dawn, and, with blanket +pinned round his shoulders, sitting up in bed to read Hutton's +_Geology_. We see him discussing all manner of questions with his +parents and friends; and, indeed, his eager and inquiring mind made it +possible for him to have friends considerably older than himself. One +of these was his brother-in-law, Dr. Cooke of Coventry, who married +his sister Ellen in 1839. Through Dr. Cooke he became, as a boy, +interested in human anatomy, with results that deeply affected his +career for good and for evil. + + The extraordinary attraction [he writes] I felt towards the + intricacies of living structure proved nearly fatal to me at + the outset. I was a mere boy--I think between thirteen and + fourteen years of age--when I was taken by some older student + friends of mine to the first _post-mortem_ examination I ever + attended. All my life I have been most unfortunately sensitive + to the disagreeables which attend anatomical pursuits, but on + this occasion my curiosity overpowered all other feelings, + and I spent two or three hours in gratifying it. I did not cut + myself, and none of the ordinary symptoms of dissection-poison + supervened; but poisoned I was somehow, and I remember sinking + into a strange state of apathy. By way of a last chance, I + was sent to the care of some good, kind people, friends of + my father's, who lived in a farmhouse in the heart of + Warwickshire. I remember staggering from my bed to the window, + on the bright spring morning after my arrival, and throwing + open the casement. Life seemed to come back on the wings of + the breeze, and to this day the faint odour of wood-smoke, + like that which floated across the farmyard in the early + morning, is as good to me as the "sweet south upon a bed of + violets." I soon recovered; but for years I suffered from + occasional paroxysms of internal pain, and from that time + my constant friend, hypochondriacal dyspepsia, commenced his + half-century of co-tenancy of my fleshly tabernacle. + +In this life-long recurrence of suffering he was like his great friend +and leader, Darwin. Each worked to his utmost under a severe handicap, +which, it must be remembered, in Darwin's case, was by far the +more constant and more disabling, though, happily, an ample fortune +absolved him from the troubles of pecuniary stress. + +Years afterwards, one of these "good, kind friends" calls up the +picture of "Tom Huxley looking so thin and ill, and pretending to make +hay with one hand, while in the other he held a German book." + +How did he come thus early to teach himself German, a study which was +to have undreamed-of consequences in his future? He learned it so well +that, while still a young man, he could read it--rare faculty--almost +as swiftly as English; and he was one of the swiftest readers I have +known. Thus equipped, he had the advantage of being one of the +few English men of science who made it a practice to follow German +research at first hand, and turn its light upon their own work. + +The learning of German was one half of the debt he owed to Carlyle, +the other being an intense hatred of shams of every sort and kind. He +had begun to read the fiery-tongued prophet in his earliest teens, and +caught his inspiration at once. _Sartor Resartus_ was for many years +his Enchiridion (he says), while the translations from the German, the +references to German literature and philosophy, fired him to read the +originals. + +As to other languages, his testimonials in 1842 record that he reads +French with facility, and has a fair knowledge of Latin. Thus he took +the _Suites à Buffon_ with him on the _Rattlesnake_ as a reference +book in zoology. As to Latin, he was not content with a knowledge of +its use in natural science. Beyond the minimum knowledge needful +to interpret, or to confer, the "barbarous binomials" of scientific +nomenclature, he was led on to read early scientific works published +in Latin; and in philosophy, something of Spinoza; and later, +massive tomes of the Fathers, whether to barb his exquisite irony in +dissecting St. George Mivart's exposition of the orthodox Catholic +view of Evolution, or in the course of his studies in Biblical +criticism. Of Greek, mention has already been made. He employed his +late beginnings of the language not only to follow Aristotle's work +as an anatomist, but to aid his studies in Greek philosophy and New +Testament criticism, and to enjoy Homer in the original. In middle +life, too, he dipped sufficiently into Norwegian and Danish to grapple +with some original scientific papers. When he was fifteen, Italian as +well as German is set down by him in his list of things to be +learnt, though for some time the pressure of preparing for the London +matriculation barred the way; and on the voyage of the _Rattlesnake_ +he spent many hours making out Dante with the aid of a dictionary. +No doubt, also, he must have read some Italian poetry with his wife +during their engagement and early married days, for she had a fair +acquaintance with Italian, as well as equalling his knowledge of +German. When he was past sixty and ill-health, cutting short his old +activities, had sent him to seek rest and change in Italy, he took +up Italian again, and plunged into the authorities on the very +interesting prehistoric archæology of Italy. + +To return to his early development. There is extant a fragmentary +little journal of his, begun when he was fifteen, and kept irregularly +for a couple of years. Here the early bent of his mind is clearly +revealed; it prefigures the leading characteristics of his mature +intellect. He jots down any striking thought or saying he comes across +in the course of his reading; he makes practical experiments to test +his theories; above all, his insatiable curiosity to find out the +"why" and "how" of things makes him speculate on their causes, and +discuss with his friends the right and wrong of existing institutions. + +This curiosity to make out how things work is common to most healthy +boys; to probe deep into the reasoned "why" is rare. It makes the +practical mechanic into the man of science. Possessing both these +qualities as he did, it is easy to understand his own description of +his early ambitions:-- + + As I grew older, my great desire was to be a mechanical + engineer, but the fates were against this; and, while very + young, I commenced the study of medicine under a medical + brother-in-law. But, though the Institute of Mechanical + Engineers would certainly not own me, I am not sure that I + have not all along been a sort of mechanical engineer _in + partibus infidelium_. I am now occasionally horrified to think + how little I ever knew or cared about medicine as the art of + healing. The only part of my professional course which + really and deeply interested me was physiology, which is + the mechanical engineering of living machines; and, + notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper + business, I am afraid there is very little of the genuine + naturalist in me. I never collected anything, and species + work was always a burden to me; what I cared for was the + architectural and engineering part of the business, the + working out the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands + and thousands of diverse living constructions, and the + modifications of similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends. + +One or two typical extracts may be given from the _Journal_, which +opens with a quotation from Novalis: "Philosophy can bake no bread; +but it can prove for us God, freedom, and immortality. Which, now, is +more practical, Philosophy or Economy?" Later comes a quotation from +Lessing, which involved a cardinal principle that he claimed for +himself, and demanded of his pupils: accept no authority without +verifying it for yourself:-- + + I hate all people who want to found sects. It is not error, + but sects--it is not error, but sectarian error, nay, and even + sectarian truth, which causes the unhappiness of mankind. + +Electricity interests him specially; among other experiments, +while theorizing upon them, he makes a galvanic battery "in view +of experiment to get crystallized carbon: got it deposited, but not +crystallized." + +He is a young Radical in his opposition to anything like injustice, +though frankly admitting that youth is not infallible. One of his +boyish speculations was as to what would become of things if their +qualities were taken away. While on this quest, he got hold of Sir +William Hamilton's _Logic_, and read it to such good effect that when, +years afterwards, he sat down to the greater philosophers, he found +that he already had a clear notion of where the key of metaphysics +lay. The following extract from the _Journal_ shows that he already +had a characteristic point of view:-- + + Had a long talk with my mother and father about the right to + make Dissenters pay church rates, and whether there ought to + be any Establishment. I maintain that there ought not in both + cases--I wonder what will be my opinion ten years hence? I + think now that it is against all laws of justice to force + men to support a church with whose opinions they cannot + conscientiously agree. The argument that the rate is so small + is very fallacious. It is as much a sacrifice of principle to + do a little wrong as to do a great one. + +His friend, George Anderson May, with whom the boy of fifteen has "a +long argument on the nature of the soul and the difference between +it and matter," was then a man of six and twenty, in business at +Hinckley. + + I maintained that it could not be proved that matter is + _essentially_, as to its base, different from soul. Mr. M. + wittily said soul was the perspiration of matter. + + We cannot find the absolute basis of matter; we only know it + by its properties; neither know we the soul in any other way. + _Cogito ergo sum_ is the only thing that we _certainly_ know. + + Why may not soul and matter be of the same substance (i.e., + basis whereon to fix qualities; for we cannot suppose a + quality to exist _per se_, it must have a something to + qualify), but with different qualities? + +Hamilton's analysis of the Absolute, once learned, was never +forgotten. It was a philosophic touchstone, understood by the +boy, applied by the man. With the Absolute, an entity stripped of +perceptible qualities, an "hypostatized negation," he could have no +traffic. The Cartesian motto of thought as the essence of existence +became another fixed point for him, and his last questioning phrase +half suggests the line of reasoning which, as he afterwards put +it, asserts that, philosophically speaking, materialism is but +spiritualism turned inside out. + + + + +III + +MEDICAL TRAINING + + +At fifteen and a-half he began his medical training. Engineering, it +seems, was not within his parents' purview; the boy was thoughtful +and scientific; medicine was then the only avenue for science, and +medicine loomed large on their horizon, for two of their daughters +had married doctors. Of these, Dr. Cooke had already begun to give him +instruction in anatomy; it looked as though destiny had marked out his +career. + +In those days, the future doctor began by being apprenticed to a +regular practitioner; he picked up a great deal from compounding +medicines, watching out-patients in the surgery, and attending simple +cases, especially if he had a capable man to work under. At the same +time he prepared for his future examinations, and got ready to walk +the hospitals. + +This apprenticeship was a strongly formative period in Huxley's life. +He was bound to Dr. Chandler, of Rotherhithe, and joined him in this +quarter of poverty and struggle on January 7, 1841. The little journal +shows him busy with all the subjects of the London Matriculation: +History ancient and modern, Greek, Latin, English Grammar, Chemistry, +Mathematics, Physics, with German also and Physiology, besides +experimental work in natural science, philosophical analysis, and a +copious course of Carlyle. + +But this book-work was the least of the influences acting upon +him. Dr. Chandler had charge of the parish doctoring, and the boy's +experiences among the poor in the dock region of the East End left an +ineffaceable mark. It was a grim, living commentary on his Carlyle. +For the rest of his life the cause of the poor appealed vividly to +him, because he had at least seen something of the way in which the +poor lived. People who were suffering from nothing but slow starvation +would come to him for medical aid. One scene above all was burnt into +his memory: a sick girl in a wretched garret, the boy visitor saying +as gently as he could that her sole need was better food, and the +sister of the starved child who turned upon him with a kind of choking +passion, and, pulling from her pocket a few pence and half-pence and +holding them out, cried: "That is all I get for six-and-thirty hours' +work, and you talk about giving her proper food." + +When, after a full year, he left Rotherhithe for the north of London, +to be apprenticed--as his elder brother, James, had already been +apprenticed--to his other medical brother-in-law, Dr. Scott, he saw +more of this teeming, squalid life in the filthy courts and alleys +through which he used to pass on his way to the library of the College +of Surgeons. + +What, in later life, he tried to do to better this state of things +was not the usual philanthropic work, but the endeavour to +bring intellectual light to the ignorant toilers, to strip away +make-believe, and provide some machinery by which to catch and utilize +capacity. + +Great was the change from the surroundings of Rotherhithe to the home +atmosphere of the Scotts. He was now with his favourite sister Eliza, +his senior by twelve years, who was a second mother to him. Her +sympathy and encouragement did much for him; her belief in the future +of "her boy" was redoubled upon his first public success when, at the +age of seventeen, he won the second prize, the silver medal of the +Apothecaries' Company, in a competitive examination in botany. "For a +young hand," he tells us, "I worked really hard from eight or nine in +the morning until twelve at night, besides a long, hot summer's walk +over to Chelsea, two or three times a week, to hear Lindley. A great +part of the time--_i.e._, June and July--I worked till sunrise. The +result was a sort of ophthalmia, which kept me from reading at night +for months afterwards." + +The lively and amusing description of the examination and its sequel +is given in full in the _Life_; suffice it to say that when four +o'clock came and only two competitors were left writing hard, and not +half through the paper, they were allowed to go on by general consent. +By eight o'clock the seventeen-year-old came to an end; the older man +went on until nine. This was John Ellerton Stocks, afterwards M.D. and +a distinguished traveller and botanist in India. To him fell the first +prize; the boy, to his own astonishment and the wild delight of his +sister, won the second. + +In October, 1812, a couple of months after this success, both he and +his brother James entered Charing Cross Hospital as free scholars. +Here he worked very hard--when it pleased him--took up all sorts of +pursuits and dropped them again, and read everything he could lay +hands upon, including novels. The one instructor by whom he was really +impressed, and for whom he did his utmost, was Wharton Jones, lecturer +on physiology. "He was extremely kind and helpful to the youngster, +who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had any right to +do." Wharton Jones assuredly was one of those born teachers who love +to give time and all to a keen and promising pupil. It is good to +know that the bread he cast upon the waters returned to him after many +days. Wharton Jones, too, was responsible for the publication of the +young man's first scientific paper, in the _Medical Gazette_ of 1845. +Investigating things for himself, the student of nineteen had found +a hitherto undiscovered membrane in the root of the human hair, which +received the name of Huxley's layer. + +No doubt his work was, as he confesses, not systematically spread over +his various subjects; and his energy was fitful, though it was energy +that struck his contemporaries, who gave the name of the "Sign of +the Head and Microscope" to the familiar silhouette of him as he sat +before a window poring over his dissections, while they swarmed out +into the quadrangle after lectures. + +He achieved brilliant successes as a student. In 1843 he won the first +prize in Chemistry, with a note that his "extraordinary diligence +and success in the pursuit of this branch of science do him infinite +honour," as well as the first prize in Anatomy and Physiology. He +was only twenty when, in 1845, he went up for his M.B. at London +University, and won a gold medal in his favourite subjects of Anatomy +and Physiology, being second in that section. + +Early in 1846, being still too young to qualify at the College of +Surgeons, yet confronted by the imperative necessity for earning his +own bread, he applied, at the suggestion of his fellow-student, +Lyon Playfair, for service as a naval surgeon, passed the necessary +examination, and went to Haslar. His official chief, old John +Richardson, of Arctic fame, silently kept an eye upon him, and, +failing to get him one of the coveted resident appointments, kept him, +all unaware and ill-content, at Haslar till something worthy of his +scientific abilities should turn up. Seven months passed; then +came the chance of sailing on the surveying and exploring ship +_Rattlesnake_, under Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., brother of the more +famous Dean, who was in want of an assistant-surgeon with a turn for +science. + + + + +IV + +THE VOYAGE OF THE _RATTLESNAKE_, AND ITS SEQUEL + + +The three friends, Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley, were alike in this, +that each in his turn began his career with a great voyage of +scientific discovery in one of H.M. ships. Darwin was twenty-two when +the _Beagle_ sailed for the Straits of Magellan; Hooker, also, was +twenty-two when he sailed for the Antarctic with Ross on the _Erebus_; +Huxley was but twenty-one when he set forth with Owen Stanley for +Australian waters to survey the Great Barrier Reef and New Guinea. +Each found in the years of distant travel a withdrawal from the +distracting bustle of ordinary life, which enabled him to concentrate +upon original work and to reflect deeply, unhampered by current +doctrines; each came back, not only deeply impressed by the elemental +problems of life, but "salted" with the sea and the discipline of the +sea. + + It was good to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the + realities of existence by living on bare necessaries; to find + how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one + woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for + canopy, and cocoa and weevily biscuit the sole prospect for + breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake + of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the + bottom and I along with it. + +Huxley was not so well situated as either Darwin, the well-to-do +amateur who was naturalist to the expedition, or Hooker, the son of +a distinguished botanist, receiving many privileges from his father's +friend, Captain Ross, while officially he was but an assistant-surgeon +and second naturalist. Huxley had neither friends nor influence beyond +the simple recommendation of "old John" Richardson. Macgillivray, the +naturalist, and the Captain himself had scientific interests, but not +so the other officers, who disliked seeing the decks messed by the +contents of the tow-net. Yet they were "as good fellows as sailors +ought to be, and generally are," though they did not understand why he +should be so zealous in pursuit of the objects which his friends +the middies christened "Buffons," after his volume of the _Suites à +Buffon_. As assistant-surgeon he messed with the middies, but his good +spirits and fun and freedom from any assumption of superiority made +the boys his good comrades. + +From the first he was very busy, glorying in the prospect of being +able to give himself up to his favourite pursuits, without thereby +neglecting the proper duties of life. A twenty-eight gun frigate was +anything but a floating palace. The _Rattlesnake_ was badly fitted +out, and always leaky; the lower deck gave a head-space of four feet +ten, which was cramping to a man of five feet eleven; but he had the +run of the commodious chart-room, as arranged for a surveying ship, +and would have had the run of the library if Captain Stanley's +requisition for books had not been "overlooked" by a parsimonious +Admiralty. His tiny cabin was light enough to work in on a dull day; +but as for the possibility of making a scientific collection, it was +but seven feet by six, by five feet six inches high, and infested with +cockroaches to boot. + +His work took shape in a mass of drawings and descriptions from the +dissection of the perishable marine organisms of the tropical seas, +and, yet more important, in the new classification he established upon +anatomical grounds. His first papers were sent to the Linnean Society +by Captain Stanley; the later and more important he sent himself to +Edward Forbes, the most interested and helpful of the biologists +to whom he had been introduced before he left England. To his angry +disappointment, no news of them, no acknowledgment even, reached him +on the other side of the world; it was not till he returned, after the +four years of his voyage, that he found they had been published by +the Royal Society, and had established his reputation as a first-rate +investigator. But, though with much difficulty the scientific +authorities enabled him to secure the promised Government grant for +his book, and a temporary billet ashore while he worked at it, he was +only able to publish his _Oceanic Hydrozoa_; a vast quantity of his +researches remained unpublished, and subsequent investigators, going +over the same ground, won the credit for them. + +The other scientific interest strongly aroused on the voyage was +anthropology. The cruise of the _Rattlesnake_ provided one of the last +opportunities of visiting tribes who had never before seen a white +man. The young surgeon made a point of getting into touch with these +primitive people at Cape York, and in the islands off New Guinea. +He made a preliminary exploration through the uncharted bush of +Queensland with the ill-fated Kennedy, and all but accompanied him on +his disastrous journey to Cape York, when of all the party only two +were rescued, through the devotion of the faithful native guide. He +exchanged names, and therefore affinities, with a friendly native of +the Louisiades, and learned much at first hand as to their physical +and mental characteristics, which stimulated his subsequent +anthropological work. + +The Australian voyage, then, provided a magnificent field for original +research and original thought: the unknown naval surgeon returned from +it to find himself recognized as one of the coming men. Contact +with the larger world had broadened his outlook; the touch of naval +discipline concentrated his powers. But Australia gave him another +gift. He met at Sydney his future wife. The young couple fell in love +almost at first sight, and became engaged. They were of the same age, +22; they hoped to get married when he was promoted to the rank of full +surgeon; they were destined to wait seven-and-a-half years before she +returned home to fulfil his early jesting prophecy of making her a +Frau Professorin. Here, again, was stern disciplining on the part +of destiny. For the first years they were able to meet during the +intervals between the long surveying cruises of the ship; they cheated +the months of separation by keeping journals for each other. But for +nearly five years they were parted by twelve thousand miles of sea, +and, worse, by slow sailing ships, when letters would take five months +or more to receive an answer, which by that time might be entirely at +cross purposes with the changed aspect of affairs. The possibilities +of estrangement were incalculable. Their lives were developing on +entirely different lines. He had been admitted to the inmost circle of +men of science as an intellectual peer; he was elected F.R.S. when +he was barely twenty-six, and received the Royal Medal the following +year, as well as being chosen to serve on the Council of the Society; +he wrote; he lectured at the Royal Institution. And yet, with all the +support of the leaders in science, he could not find any post wherein +to earn his bread and butter. He stood for professorships at +Toronto, at Sydney, at Aberdeen, Cork and King's College, London. +The Admiralty, in March, 1854, even refused further leave for the +publication of the scientific work to do which he had been sent out. +He took the bull by the horns, and, rather than return to the hopeless +routine of a naval surgeon, let the Admiralty fulfil their threat to +deprive him of his appointment, and the slender pay which was his +only certain support. His scientific friends besought him to hold on; +something must come in his way, and a brilliant career was before him; +but was he justified, he asked himself again and again, in pursuing +the glorious phantom, so miserably paid at the best, instead of taking +up some business career, perhaps in Australia, and ending the cruel +delay which bore so hardly upon the woman he loved? Yet would not this +be a desertion of his manifest duty, his intellectual duty to himself +and to Science? He knew full well that there was only one course which +could bring him either hope or peace, and yet, between the two calls +upon him, he never knew which course he would ultimately follow. + +[Illustration: From a Daguerrotype made in 1846] + +For her there was no such mental development. Assuredly she kept up +her literary pursuits, her study of German, in which they had found +common ground of interest, for she had spent two years at school in +Germany; but she was cribbed and cabined by the ups and downs of early +colonial life, and the fluctuating ventures upon which her father +delighted to embark; there was, naturally, no possibility of her +moving in the stimulating intellectual society which was his, and +hope deferred wore upon her as the laurels of scientific success were +consistently followed by failure in all solid prospects. Yet neither +possible misunderstandings, nor actual disappointments, had power to +shake the foundations of their mutual trust, and the inspiration of +the ideal which each built on the other's so different character; the +one more compact of fire, the other more of noble patience, different, +but alike in a largeness of soul and freedom from pettiness, which +made their forty years of united life something out of the common. She +believed in him; in the darkest season of disappointment she bade him +remember that a man should pursue those things for which he is most +fitted, let them be what they will. Her "noble and self-sacrificing" +words brought him comfort, and banished "the spectre of a wasted +life that had passed before him--a vision of that servant who hid his +talent in a napkin and buried it." + +At last the gleams of promise, which had begun to gather, broke +through the clouds. On the sudden death of Professor Jamieson, his +good friend Edward Forbes was called away in the spring of 1854 to +take the Edinburgh professorship. At a few days' notice Huxley was +lecturing as Forbes's substitute at the Royal School of Mines. In July +he was appointed permanently, with a salary for his course of £100 +a year. A few days later his income was doubled. Forbes had held two +lectureships; the man who had accepted the other drew back, and it +was given to Huxley. In August he was "entrusted with the Coast Survey +Investigations under the Geological Survey," becoming the regular +Naturalist to the Survey the following year, with pay of £200, +afterwards increased to £400, rising to £600. The way was clear; the +Heathorn family had already determined to come home. Miss Heathorn had +been very ill; she was still far from strong, and, indeed, one gloomy +doctor only gave her six months to live. The lover defied him: "I +shall marry her all the same;" but the gloomy doctor was alone in his +opinion, and, indeed, she lived till she was nearly eighty-nine. The +marriage, which was to bring so much active happiness in a life of +much struggle and stress, was celebrated on July 1, 1855. They had +become engaged at twenty-two; they had waited and striven for eight +years; they were rewarded by forty years of mutual love and support. + + + + +V + +LEHRJAHRE + + +The award of the Royal Medal was felt by Huxley to be a turning-point. +It was something which convinced the "practical" people who used to +scoff at his "dreamy" notions, and brought them to urge him on a more +"dreamy" course than ever he dreamed of. "However," he remarks, "I +take very much my own course now, even as I have done before--Huxley +all over." Without being blinded by any vanity, he saw in the award +and the general estimate in which it was held a finger-post showing +as clearly as anything can what was the true career lying open before +him. Ambitious in the current sense of worldly success he was not. The +praise of men stirred a haunting mistrust of their judgment and his +own worthiness. Honours he valued as evidences of power; but no more. +What possessed him was, as he confessed in a letter meant only for +the eye of his future wife, "an enormous longing after the highest and +best in all shapes--a longing which haunts me and is the demon which +ever impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I am doing +his behests." With the sense of power stirring within him, he +refused to be beholden to any man. Patronage he abhorred in an ago +of patronage. He was ready to accept a helping hand from any one who +thought him capable of forwarding the great cause in ever so small a +way; but on no other terms. If the time had come to speak out on any +matter, he was resolved to let no merely personal influence restrain +him. He cared only for the praise or blame of the understanding few. +Whatever the popular judgment, he knew there was a work to be done and +that he had power to do it; and this was his personal ambition--to +do that work in the world, and to do it without cant and humbug and +self-seeking. Such were the aims that, newly returned to England, he +confides to the sister who had ever prophesied great things of "her +boy"; and in the end he made good the works spoken so boldly, yet +surely in no mere spirit of boasting. He "left his mark somewhere, +clear and distinct," without taint of the insincerities which he had +an almost morbid dread of discovering in any act of his own. + +It was not every one who could dare to range so far and wide as Huxley +did from the original line of investigation he had taken up. Friends +warned him against what appeared to be a scattering of his energies. +If he devoted himself to that morphology of the Invertebrates in which +his new and illuminating conceptions had promptly earned the Royal +Medal, he would easily be the first in his field. But what he did was +in great part of set purpose. He was no mere collector of specimens, +no mere describer of species. He sought the living processes which +determined natural groups; the theories he formed needed verification +in various directions. These excursions from the primary line of +research were of great value in broadening the basis of his knowledge. +He also deliberately set aside the years 1854-60 as a period in which +to make himself master of the branches of science cognate to his own, +so that he should be ready for any special pursuits in any of them. +For he did not know what was to be his task after the work that had +fallen to him, not of his own choice, at the School of Mines. He was +to ground himself in each department by monographic work, and by +1860 might fairly look forward to fifteen or twenty years of +"Meisterjahre," when, with the comprehensive views arising from such +training, it should be possible to give a new and healthier direction +to all biological science. Meanwhile, opportunities must be seized at +the risk of a reputation for desultoriness. + +But the irony of circumstances diverted much of his energy into yet +more diverse fields. When Sir Henry de la Beche first offered him the +posts of Palæontologist and Lecturer on Natural History vacated by +Professor Forbes, he says:-- + + I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter + only provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for + fossils, and that I should give up Natural History as soon as + I could get a physiological post. But I held the office + for thirty-one years, and a large part of my work has been + palæontological. + +Palæontology was his business, and he became a Master in it also, +with the result that he forged himself a mighty weapon for use in the +struggle over the Origin of Species. + +In one of his later Essays he compares the study of human physiology +to the Atlantic Ocean:-- + + Like the Atlantic between the Old and the New Worlds, its + waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter and of mind; + its tributary streams flow from both; through its waters, as + yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if + such there be, from the one to the other; far away from that + North-West Passage of mere speculation in which so many brave + souls have been helplessly frozen up. + +Such was the spirit in which, after his long day's work, he added to +his labours in physical science a search in another, and to his notion +a cognate province of thought and speculation. Many a sleepless night +in these years the candle was lighted beside his bed, and for a couple +of hours after midnight he would devour works on philosophy--English, +German, and French, and occasionally Latin. To a mind at once +constructive and intensely critical of unsound construction he added a +quality possessed by few professed philosophers--a large knowledge of +the workings of life, of the human thinking machine, in addition +to various other branches of physical science. As he put it, the +laboratory is the forecourt to the temple of philosophy. For the +method of the laboratory is but the strict application of the one +sound and fruitful mode of reasoning--the method of verification by +experiment. Evidence must be tested before being trusted. The first +duty of such a method is to question in order to find good reason; +Goethe's "tätige Skepsis," a scepticism or questioning which seeks to +overcome itself by finding good standing-ground beyond. Authority as +such is nothing till verified anew. The creeds of ancient sages, the +dogmas of more modern date, must equally bear the light of widening +knowledge and the tests that prove the gold or clay of their +foundations, the stability of the successive steps by which they +proceed. + +In all this reading Huxley found nothing to shake what he had learnt +long before from Hamilton--the limits set to human knowledge and +the impossibility of attaining to the ultimate reality behind the +phenomena presented to our cognition. The problems of philosophy, set +forth with unsurpassed clearness for all who will read in our great +English writers, were not solved by soaring into intellectual mists. +To those who declared they had attained this ultimate knowledge by +their own inner light or through an alleged revelation in historical +experience, the question remained to be put: How do you verify your +assertion? Is the historical evidence on which you build trustworthy? +And if in certain departments this evidence is clearly untenable, +what guarantee have you that in other departments evidence of similar +character is tenable? The fine-spun abstractions of the Platonists +and their kin, unchecked by a natural science which had not yet the +appliances necessary for its growth; the orthodoxies of the various +churches, so singularly differentiated in the course of development +from the simplicity of their nominal founder--these were based upon +assumptions for which the seeker after reasoned evidence could find no +valid support. Ten years before he coined the word "Agnostic" to label +his attitude towards the unproved, whether likely or unlikely, in +contradistinction to the Gnostics, who professed to "know" from within +apart from external proof, Huxley described the Agnostic position he +had already reached--the position of suspending judgment where actual +proof is not possible; the attitude of mind which regards the words +"I believe" as a momentous assertion, not to be uttered on incomplete +grounds. Writing to Charles Kingsley in 1860, he says:-- + + I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no + reason for believing in it; but, on the other hand, I have no + means of disproving it. + + Pray understand that I have no à priori objections to the + doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature + can trouble himself about à priori difficulties. Give me such + evidence as would justify me in believing anything else, and + I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half + so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the + indestructibility of matter. Whoso clearly appreciates + all that is implied in the falling of a stone can have + no difficulty about any doctrine simply on account of its + marvellousness. But the longer I live the more obvious it is + to me that the most sacred act of a man's life is to say + and to feel, "I believe such and such to be true." All the + greatest rewards, and all the heaviest penalties of existence, + cling about that act. The universe is one and the same + throughout; and if the condition of my success in unravelling + some little difficulty of anatomy or physiology is that I + shall rigorously refuse to put faith in that which does not + rest on sufficient evidence, I cannot believe that the great + mysteries of existence will be laid open to me on other terms. + It is of no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. + I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the + inverse square, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon + weaker convictions. I dare not if I would. + +From such a point of view intellectual veracity takes on a moral +aspect; indeed, it is a pillar of morality. Disregard of it has led +to incalculable social wrong and individual suffering, oppressions and +persecutions, unprogressive obscurantism, joined with perverted ideals +and intellectual arrest. "Ecrasez l'infâme," cried the reforming +Voltaire; his "infamous" was very much this perverting influence, +exaggerated and armed with power, which had made the great +organization of the Roman Church in his time a monstrous instrument of +autocratic tradition, cruel, rapacious, blindly intolerant, jealous +of light and liberty. In England the growth of political liberty had +deprived the darkest lights of the Church of almost all power for +active interference in the administration of the State, though the +pressure of traditionalism exercised itself less crudely, if scarce +less surely, in the Universities, the Press, religious opinion, and +the army of conventional respectability. So strong was it in social +influence that a man, openly professing to make a guide of his reason +instead of his parson, was liable to be pushed outside the pale. + + + + +VI + +VERACITY AND AGNOSTICISM + + +One of the most ticklish of all subjects to handle at this period was +the position of the human species in zoological classification. "It +was a burning question in the sense that those who touched it were +almost certain to burn their fingers severely." In the fifties Sir +William Lawrence had been well-nigh ostracized for his book _On +Man_, "which now might be read in a Sunday-school without surprising +anybody." When Huxley submitted the proofs of _Man's Place in Nature_ +to "a competent anatomist, and good friend of his," asking him, if he +could, to point out any errors of fact, the friend--it was Lawrence +himself--declared he could find none, but gave an earnest warning as +to the consequences of publication. Here was one of the cases +where Huxley's firm resolution applied--to speak out if necessary, +regardless of consequences; indeed, he felt sure that all the evil +things prophesied would not be so painful to him as the giving up +that which he had resolved to do upon grounds which he conceived to be +right. As he wrote later (in 1876):-- + + It seemed to me that a man of science has no _raison d'être_ + at all unless he is willing to face much greater risks than + these for the sake of that which he believes to be true; and + further, that to a man of science such risks do not count for + much--they are by no means so serious as they are to a man of + letters, for example. + +The book was published, and the friend's forecast was amply justified. + + The Boreas of criticism blew his hardest blasts of + misrepresentation and ridicule for some years, and I was even + as one of the wicked. Indeed, it surprises me at times to + think how any one who had sunk so low could since have emerged + into, at any rate, relative respectability. Personally, like + the non-corvine personages in the Ingoldsby legend, I did not + feel "one penny the worse." Translated into several languages, + the book reached a wider public than I had ever hoped + for; being largely helped, I imagine, by the Ernulphine + advertisements to which I referred. It has had the honour of + being freely utilized without acknowledgment by writers of + repute; and, finally, it achieved the fate, which is the + euthanasia of a scientific work, of being enclosed among the + rubble of the foundations of later knowledge, and forgotten. + + To my observation, human nature has not sensibly changed + during the last thirty years. I doubt not that there are + truths as plainly obvious, and as generally denied, as + those contained in _Man's Place in Nature_, now awaiting + enunciation. If there is a young man of the present generation + who has taken as much trouble as I did to assure himself that + they are truths, let him come out with them, without troubling + his head about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. + _Veritas praevalebit_--some day; and even if she does not + prevail in his time, he himself will be all the better and + wiser for having tried to help her. And let him recollect + that such great reward is full payment for all his labour and + pains. + +To speak out thus was one side of his passion for veracity. When it +was a matter of demonstrable truth, he refused to be intimidated by +great names. Already, in his Croonian lecture of 1858, "On the +Theory of the Vertebrate Skull," he had challenged, and by direct +morphological investigation overthrown, the theory of Oken, adopted +and enlarged upon by Owen, that the adult skull is a modified +vertebral column. Again, the great name of Owen, that jealous king of +the anatomical world, had in 1857 supported the assertion, so contrary +to the investigations of Huxley himself and of other anatomists, that +certain anatomical features of the brain are peculiar to the genus +_Homo_, and are a ground for placing that genus separately from all +other mammals--in a division, Archencephala, apart from and superior +to the rest. Huxley thereupon re-investigated the whole question, and +soon satisfied himself that these structures were not peculiar to man, +but are common to all the higher and many of the lower apes. This led +him to study the whole question of the structural relations of man to +the next lower existing forms. Without embarking on controversy, he +embodied his conclusions in his teaching. + +Thus, in 1860, he was well prepared to follow up Darwin's words in the +_Origin of Species_, "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and +his history," and to furnish proofs in the field of Development and +Vertebrate Anatomy, which were not among Darwin's many specialities. + +When Owen, at the Oxford meeting of the British Association, repeated +his former assertions, he publicly took up the challenge. On the +technical side, a series of dissections undertaken by himself, +Rolleston, and Flower displayed the structures for all to see; on the +popular side, Huxley delivered in 1860 a course of public lectures +which were the basis of his book, _Man's Place in Nature_, above +mentioned. + +Here the principle is actively exemplified: speak out fearlessly at +the right moment to strike down that which is demonstrably false. It +is the counterpart to the other aspect of veracity which will not say +"I believe" to an unverified assertion. These two aspects of the +same principle, as has been seen, developed hand in hand in his early +career; but it was the active challenge to ill-based authority which, +by its courage, not to say audacity, first attracted public notice +and public abuse. The other, the apparently negative aspect, came into +general notice only after 1869. Its very reserves, however, resting on +a statement of reasons for finding the testimony to certain doctrines +insufficient, had long provoked assaults from the upholders of these +doctrines, which made no less call upon his courage and endurance. +As a philosophic position, however, it was not formally and publicly +defined until, in the debates of the Metaphysical Society founded in +that year, he invented for himself the label of Agnostic. The Society +was composed of distinguished men, representing almost every shade of +opinion and intellectual occupation; University professors, statesmen, +lawyers, bishops and deans, a Cardinal, a poet; men of science and +men of letters; Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Positivists, +Freethinkers. + +The story is told in his article on "Agnosticism," written in 1889 +(_Collected Essays_, v, 237). After describing how it came about that +his mind "steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and +Kant," so well stated by the latter as follows:-- + + The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of + pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves + not as an organon for the enlargement (of knowledge), but as + a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering + truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error-- + +he proceeds:-- + + When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask + myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a + materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I + found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was + the answer, until, at last, I came to the conclusion that + I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations + except the last. The one thing in which most of these good + people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed + from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain + "gnosis"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem + of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a + pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. + And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself + presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion.... + + This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a + place among the members of that remarkable confraternity + of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and + pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of + philosophical and theological opinion was represented + there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my + colleagues were _-ists_ of one sort or another; and, however + kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of + a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of + the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox + when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he + presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So + I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the + appropriate title of "Agnostic." It came into my head as + suggestively antithetic to the "Gnostic" of Church history, + who professed to know so much about the very things of which I + was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading + it at our Society to show that I, too, had a tail like the + other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when + the _Spectator_ had stood godfather to it, any suspicion + in the minds of respectable people that a knowledge of its + parentage might have awakened was, of course, completely + lulled. + +Of his share in the debates the late Prof. Henry Sidgwick gives the +following account:-- + + There were several members of the Society with whose + philosophical views I had, on the whole, more sympathy; but + there was certainly no one to whom I found it more pleasant + and more instructive to listen. Indeed, I soon came to the + conclusion that there was only one other member of our Society + who could be placed on a par with him as a debater, on the + subjects discussed at our meetings; and that was, curiously + enough, a man of the most diametrically opposed opinion--W. G. + Ward, the well-known advocate of Ultramontanism. Ward was by + training, and perhaps by nature, more of a dialectician; + but your father was unrivalled in the clearness, precision, + succinctness, and point of his statements, in his complete and + ready grasp of his own system of philosophical thought, and + the quickness and versatility with which his thought at once + assumed the right attitude of defence against any argument + coming from any quarter. I used to think that while others of + us could perhaps find, on the spur of the moment, _an_ answer + more or less effective to some unexpected attack, your father + seemed always able to find _the_ answer--I mean the answer + that it was reasonable to give, consistently with his general + view, and much the same answer that he would have given if he + had been allowed the fullest time for deliberation. + + The general tone of the Metaphysical Society was one of + extreme consideration for the feelings of opponents, and your + father's speaking formed no exception to the general harmony. + At the same time, I seemed to remember him as the most + combative of all the speakers who took a leading part in + the debates. His habit of never wasting words, and the edge + naturally given to his remarks by his genius for clear and + effective statement, partly account for this impression; + still, I used to think that he liked fighting, and + occasionally liked to give play to his sarcastic + humour--though always strictly within the limits imposed by + courtesy. I remember that on one occasion, when I had read + to the Society an essay on "The Incoherence of Empiricism," I + looked forward with some little anxiety to his criticisms; + and when they came I felt that my anxiety had not been + superfluous; he "went for" the weak points of my argument in + half-a-dozen trenchant sentences, of which I shall not + forget the impression. It was hard hitting, though perfectly + courteous and fair. + +The paper to be read at each meeting of the Society was printed +and circulated in advance, so that all might be prepared with their +arguments. Discussion followed the dinner at which the members met. +Of these papers Huxley contributed three, the titles of which +sufficiently indicate the fundamental points on which his criticism +played, questioning current axioms in its search for trustworthy +evidence of their validity. The first (1869) was on "The Views of +Hume, Kant, and Whately on the Logical Basis of the Doctrine of +the Immortality of the Soul," showing that these thinkers agreed in +holding that no such basis is given by reasoning apart, for instance, +from revelation. The argument is summarized in the essay on Hume +(_Coll. Ess._, vi, 201; 1878). + +The second was "Has a Frog a Soul? and if so, of what Nature is that +Soul?" (1870), a physiological discussion as to the seat of those +purposive actions of which the animal is capable after it has lost +ordinary volition and consciousness by the removal of the front part +of its brain. Are these things attributes of the soul, and are +they resident not even in the brain, but in the spinal marrow? If +metaphysics starts from psychology, psychology itself depends greatly +upon physiology; current theories need reconsideration. This paper +was the starting-point for his larger essay on "Animals as Automata," +delivered as an address before the British Association in 1874. + +The third paper (1876) was on "The Evidence of the Miracle of the +Resurrection," as to which he, so to say, moved the previous question, +arguing that there was no valid evidence of actual death having taken +place. The paper was the result of an invitation on the part of some +of his metaphysical opponents. As he rejected the miraculous, they +asked him to write on a definite miracle, and explain his reasons for +not accepting it. He chose this subject because, in the first place, +it was a cardinal instance; and, in the second, that as it was a +miracle not worked by Christ himself, a discussion of its genuineness +could not possibly suggest personal fraud and so inflict gratuitous +pain upon believers in it. The question of the fundamentals of +Christian evidences had long been in his mind; it was no new subject +to him when in the eighties, debarred by his health from physiological +researches, he extended his work on Biblical studies. + +If the Metaphysical Society effected nothing else, it brought about +a personal _rapprochement_ between the representatives of opposing +schools of thought. It became clear to the older school that the new +thinkers had by no means failed, as they suspected, to examine the +older doctrines. Theirs was not dishonest doubt, but a strong demand +for better evidence. If the Society itself "died of too much love," it +may well have contributed to the greater amenity of public discussion +as the years passed, and the diminution of the former rabid +denunciations which waned as the new doctrines spread, and were even +absorbed and digested by their former antagonists. + + + + +VII + +CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN" + + +The piercing clearness of mind described by Prof. Sidgwick, which +could not express itself otherwise than trenchantly and drove straight +at the heart of the subject, gave Huxley the popular reputation of +being above all things a controversialist. Naturally enough, the +public knew little and cared less for the unspectacular researches +among the Invertebrates, which had won such high scientific fame. +They were only stirred when the results of study in geology, in +fossil forms and simian anatomy, clashed with long-established +popular conceptions. There was also a gladiatorial delight in watching +controversy not simply abstract, but fanned by personal conviction, +which marked the champions above all as good fighters. + +It must be noted, however, that, vigorous as he was in carrying war +into the enemy's country, on two occasions only did Huxley set forth +without being first personally attacked. One was his review of +the _Vestiges of Creation,_ when he was irritated by the writer's +"prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind." + + If it had any influence on me at all [he writes], it set me + against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of + conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I + wrote on the _Vestiges_ while under that influence (1854). + +The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the +account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply +to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Réville and his applications of +scientific methods to the problem. + +Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical +subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To +demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of +the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and +educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose +slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions +involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a +breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to +superior knowledge of the spiritual world. + +It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these +controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound +and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry, +and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to +admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is +prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest +beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch +as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy +are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the +anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on +opinions worthy of all respect. + +For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to +push his researches into the history and origin of the world and its +life, he invariably ran up against a sign-board with the notice, "No +Thoroughfare--By Order--Moses." Geology and Biology were shut in by a +ring-fence; the universe beyond was a Forbidden Land, guarded by the +Lamas of ecclesiastical authority. + +The first great clash with this authority, which focussed attention +upon the scientific struggle for freedom of thought, was that which +followed the publication of the _Origin of Species_ at the end of +1859, and culminated in the debate with the Bishop of Oxford at the +Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860. A fierce but more +limited struggle for freedom of criticism within the pale of the +Church was to follow the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ (1860) +and Bishop Colenso's examination of the Pentateuch in 1862 and +onwards. + +The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on +thought at large. Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the +book to the public. The reviewer of the _Times_, knowing nothing about +the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the +opening paragraphs himself. But it was his retort to the Bishop of +Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the +challenge of authority was to be taken up. The story is well known; +how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to +"smash Darwin." Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also +reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical +degree. He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently +had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at +Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day, +but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop's _Quarterly_ article +that was published a few days later. + +After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the +chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in +order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and +"spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and +unfairness," wrote Hooker. + + He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such + dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned + periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President + for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific + purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart.... In a + light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there + was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what + rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist + with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through + his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent + from a monkey. + +Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific +discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the +opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an +audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow +closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and +that ridicule is a two-edged weapon. As he spoke these words +Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and +whispered: "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." + +The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did +not rise until the meeting called for him. Then he "slowly and +deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet +and very grave." He began with a general statement in defence of +Darwin's theory. "I am here only in the interests of science, and +I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august +client." Darwin's theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural +History, as the undulatory theory was of the phenomena of light. No +one objected to the latter because an undulation of light had never +been arrested and measured. Darwin offered an explanation of facts, +and his book was full of new facts, all bearing on his theory. Without +asserting that every part of that theory had been confirmed, he +maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species +which had yet been offered. As to the psychological distinction +between men and animals, and the question of the Creation: "You say +that development drives out the Creator; but you assert that God made +you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece +of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case." Nobody +could say at what moment of the history of his development man became +consciously intelligent. The whole question was not so much one of a +transmutation or transition of species as of the production of forms +which became permanent. The Ancon sheep was not produced gradually; +it originated in the birth of the original parent of the whole stock, +which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection. + +But if the question were to be treated, not as a matter for the calm +investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if he were +asked whether he would choose to be descended from the poor animal of +low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as we pass, +or from a man endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who +should use these gifts to discredit and crush humble seekers after +truth, he must hesitate what answer to make. + +The actual words were not taken down at the time; they were finely +eloquent, and gained effect from the clear, deliberate utterance; but +the nearest approach to them was recorded in a letter of J.R. Green, +the future historian, written immediately after the meeting:-- + + I asserted--and I repeat--that a man has no reason to be + ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were + an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it + would rather be a _man_--a man of restless and versatile + intellect--who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in + his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions + with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them + by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his + hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions + and skilled appeals to religious prejudice. + +[Footnote 1: Referring to this letter afterwards, my father felt +certain that he had never used the word "equivocal." In this he was +borne out by Prof. Victor Carus and Prof. Farrar, who were present.] + +The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been +coldly received--no more than a cheer of encouragement from his +immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he +finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the +other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's +weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out. +As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated +public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main +scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side. +The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was, +he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his +own. + + + + +VIII + +PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES + + +For Huxley, one result of the affair was that he became universally +known, and not merely as he had been known to his immediate circle, +as the most vigorous defender of Darwin--"Darwin's bulldog," as he +playfully called himself. Another result was that he changed his idea +as to the practical value of the art of public speaking. Walking away +from the meeting with that other hater of speech-making, Hooker, he +declared that he would thenceforth carefully cultivate it, and try to +leave off hating it. The former resolution he carried out faithfully, +with the result that he became one of the best speakers of his +generation; in the latter he never quite succeeded. The nervous horror +before making a public address seldom wholly left him; he used to +say that when he stepped on the platform at the Royal Institution and +heard the door click behind him, he knew what it must be like to be +a condemned man stepping out to the gallows. Happily, no sign of +nervousness ever showed itself; he gave the appearance of being +equally master of himself and of his subject. His voice was not +strong, but he had early learnt the lesson of clear enunciation. There +were two letters he received when he began lecturing, and which he +kept by him as a perpetual reminder, labelled "Good Advice." One was +from a "working man" of his Monday evening audience in Jermyn Street, +in 1855; the other, undated, from Mr. Jodrell, a great benefactor of +science, who had heard him at the Royal Institution. These warned him +against his habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, which might suit +a knot of students gathered round his table, but not a large audience; +of running his words, especially technical terms, together, and of +pouring out unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed. These early faults +were so glaring that one institute in St. John's Wood, after hearing +him, petitioned "not to have that young man again." He worked hard +to cure himself, and the later audiences who flocked to his lectures +could never have guessed at his early failings. The flow was as clear +and even as the arrangement of the matter was lucid; the voice was +not loud, but so distinct that it carried to the furthest benches. +No syllable was slurred, no point hurried over. All this made for +the lucid and comprehensible; well-chosen language and fine utterance +shaped a perfect vehicle of thought. But it was the lucidity of the +thought itself, thus expressed, that gave his lectures their quality. +A clever and accomplished lady once, in intimate conversation, asked +Mrs. Huxley what the reason could be that every one praised her +husband so highly as a lecturer. "I can't understand it. He just lets +the subject explain itself, and that's all." Profound, if unintended, +compliment. It was his power of seeing things clearly, stripped of +their non-essentials, that enabled him to make others see them +clearly also. Nor did he forget the saying of that prince of popular +expositors, Faraday, who, when asked, "How much may a popular lecturer +suppose his audience knows?" replied emphatically, "Nothing." This +same faculty, no doubt, was that which enabled him to write such +admirable elementary text-books--a task which he regarded as one of +the most difficult possible. + +A notable description of his public lecturing in the seventies and +early eighties is given by G. W. Smalley, correspondent of the _New +York Tribune_, in his "London Letters":-- + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Maull and Polyblank, 1857; To face +p. 44] + + I used always to admire the simple and businesslike way in + which Huxley made his entry on great occasions. He hated + anything like display, and would have none of it. At the Royal + Institution, more than almost anywhere else, the lecturer, + on whom the concentric circles of spectators in their steep + amphitheatre look down, focuses the gaze. Huxley never seemed + aware that anybody was looking at him. From self-consciousness + he was, here as elsewhere, singularly free, as from + self-assertion. He walked in through the door on the left as + if he were entering his own laboratory. In these days he bore + scarcely a mark of age. He was in the full vigour of manhood, + and looked the man he was.... With a firm step and easy + bearing he took his place, apparently without a thought of the + people who were cheering him. To him it was an anniversary. He + looked, and he probably was, the master. Surrounded as he + was by the celebrities of science and the ornaments of London + drawing-rooms, there was none who had quite the same kind + of intellectual ascendancy which belonged to him. The square + forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the + deep, flashing dark eyes, the impression of something more + than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of + solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising + from the serene consciousness of his strength--all this + belonged to Huxley, and to him alone. The first glance + magnetized his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed + to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on + occasion to use it. The hair swept carelessly away from the + broad forehead and grew rather long behind, yet the length did + not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in + everything--look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing + of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, + he had, nevertheless, the secret of the highest art of all, + whether in oratory or whatever else--he had simplicity. The + force was in the thought and the diction, and he needed no + other. The voice was rather deep, low, but quite audible; at + times sonorous, and always full.... His manner here, in the + presence of this select and rather limited audience--for the + theatre of the Royal Institution holds, I think, less than + a thousand people--was exactly the same as before a great + company whom he addressed at Liverpool, as President of the + British Association for the Advancement of Science. I remember + going late to that and having to sit far back, yet hearing + every word easily; and there, too, the feeling was the + same--that he had mastered his audience, taken possession of + them, and held them to the end in an unrelaxing grip, as a + great actor at his best does. There was nothing of the + actor about him, except that he knew how to stand still; but + masterful he ever was. + +Equally perfect of their kind were his class lectures, which made a +deep and lasting impression on his students. In the words of Jeffery +Parker, afterwards his assistant:-- + + His lectures were like his writings, luminously clear, without + the faintest disposition to descend to the level of his + audience; eloquent, but with no trace of the empty rhetoric + which so often does duty for that quality; full of a high + seriousness, but with no suspicion of pedantry; lightened by + an occasional epigram or flashes of caustic humour, but with + none of the small jocularity in which it is such a temptation + to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to him one felt that + comparative anatomy was worthy of the devotion of a life, and + that to solve a morphological problem was as fine a thing + as to win a battle. He was an admirable draughtsman, and his + blackboard illustrations were always a great feature of his + lectures, especially when, to show the relation of two animal + types, he would, by a few rapid strokes and smudges, evolve + the one into the other before our eyes. He seemed to have + a real affection for some of the specimens illustrating his + lectures, and would handle them in a peculiarly loving manner. + When he was lecturing on man, for instance, he would sometimes + throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside him + and take its hand, as if its silent companionship were an + inspiration. To me, his lectures before his small class at + Jermyn Street or South Kensington were almost more impressive + than the discourses at the Royal Institution, where, for + an hour and a-half, he poured forth a stream of dignified, + earnest, sincere words in perfect literary form, and without + the assistance of a note. + +It was no wonder that he was clear and exact in his class lectures, +for he based what he had to say on his own experiment and observation, +and was at pains to verify experimentally the observations of others +which came within his field. Without verification he would not rely +upon them. Indeed, he was so careful to give nothing at second hand +that one of his scientific friends gently reproached him for wasting +his time in re-investigating matters already worked over by competent +observers. "Poor ----," he remarked afterwards, "if that is his own +practice, his work will never live." Of his most important public +addresses, two may be noted as especial _tours de force_. On each +occasion it was specially necessary to speak by the book, but at the +last moment it was impossible to use the carefully prepared notes. One +was the address on the complex and difficult subject of "Animals as +Automata," at the Belfast meeting of the British Association in 1874, +when the atmosphere was electrical after a Presidential address by +John Tyndall which set theologians in an uproar. Years afterwards he +described the incident to Sir E. Ray Lankester:-- + + I knew that I was treading on very dangerous ground, so I + wrote out uncommonly full and careful notes, and had them in + my hand when I stepped on to the platform. + + Then I suddenly became aware of the bigness of the audience, + and the conviction came upon me that, if I looked at my notes, + not one half would hear me. It was a bad ten seconds, but I + made my election and turned the notes face downwards on the + desk. + + To this day I do not exactly know how the thing managed to + roll itself out; but it did, as you say, for the best part of + an hour and a-half. + + There's a story _pour vous encourager_ if you are ever in a + like fix. + +The other was his address at the opening of the John Hopkins +University at Baltimore in 1876. Late on the preceding afternoon he +returned very tired from an expedition to Washington, to find that a +formal dinner and reception awaited him in the evening. He snatched +an hour or two of rest, when a New York reporter arrived demanding the +text of the address, which had to be sent to New York for simultaneous +publication with the Baltimore papers. Now the address was not written +out; it was to be delivered from notes only. From these notes, then, +he delivered it _in extenso_ to the reporter, who took it down in +shorthand, and promised to let him have a copy to lecture from next +morning. But the fair copy did not come till the last moment. To his +horror he found this was written out upon "flimsy," from which it +would be impossible to read properly. Again he turned it down on the +desk and boldly trusted to memory. This second version was taken down +verbatim by the Baltimore reporters in their turn. What if it did not +tally with the New York version? As a matter of fact, it was +almost identical, save for a few curious discrepancies, apparent +contradictions between professed eye-witnesses which the ingenious +critic might perfectly well use to prove that both accounts were +fictitious, and that the pretended original was never delivered under +the conditions alleged. + +Mention has been made of his lectures to working men. Of these his +assistant and successor, Professor G.B. Howes, wrote:-- + + Great as were his class lectures, his working-men's were + greater. Huxley was a great believer in the _distillatio per + ascensum_ of scientific knowledge and culture, and spared + no pains in approaching the artisan and so-called "working + classes." He gave the workmen of his best. The substance of + his _Man's Place in Nature_, one of the most successful and + popular of his writings, and of his _Crayfish_, perhaps the + most perfect zoological treatise ever published, was first + communicated to them. In one of the last conversations I + had with him, I asked his views on the desirability of + discontinuing the workmen's lectures at Jermyn Street, since + the development of working men's colleges and institutes + is regarded by some to have rendered their continuance + unnecessary. He replied, almost with indignation: "With our + central position and resources, we ought to be in a position + to give the workmen that which they cannot get elsewhere"; + adding that he would deeply deplore any such discontinuance. + +He had begun these in 1855, the second year of his appointment at the +Royal School of Mines. On February 27 of that year he wrote to his +friend Dr. Dyster:-- + + I enclose a prospectus of some People's Lectures (_Popular_ + Lectures I hold to be an abomination unto the Lord) I am about + to give here. I want the working classes to understand that + Science and her ways are great facts for them--that physical + virtue is the base of all other, and that they are to be clean + and temperate and all the rest, not because fellows in black + with white ties tell them so, but because these are plain and + patent laws of nature which they must obey "under penalties." + + I am sick of the _dilettante_ middle class, and mean to try + what I can do with these hard-handed fellows who live among + facts. + +And in May, after referring to his Preliminary Course and the +earnestness and attention of his audience, he adds that he has begun +his similar course to working men exclusively--a series of six, given +in turn by each Professor:-- + + The theatre holds 600, and is crammed full. I believe in the + fustian, and can talk better to it than to any amount of gauze + and Saxony; and to a fustian audience (but to that only) I + would willingly give some when I come to Tenby [Dr. Dyster's + home]. + +Moreover, he took a practical interest in the corresponding movement +set afoot by F.D. Maurice, and gave occasional addresses at the +Working Men's College between 1857 and 1877, the last of which was +that delightful discourse on science as "trained and organized common +sense" which bears the alluring title of "The Method of Zadig." + + + + +IX + +POPULAR EDUCATION + + +These lectures to working men, no less than his profound interest and +exhausting work on behalf of popular education, illustrate his intense +belief that science is not solely a thing of the laboratory, but a +vital factor in right living. It was still true that the people perish +for want of knowledge. And as he said when talking of posthumous fame: +"If I am to be remembered at all, I should like to be remembered as +one who did his best to help the people." + +Nor did he lack appreciation among those whom he tried thus to aid. +Professor Mivart tells the following story:-- + + I recollect going [in 1874] with him and Mr. John Westlake, + Q.C., to a meeting of artisans in the Blackfriars Road, to + whom he gave a friendly address. He felt a strong interest in + working men, and was much beloved by them. On one occasion, + having taken a cab home, on his arrival there, when he held + out his fare to the cabman, the latter replied: "Oh no, + Professor; I have had too much pleasure and profit from + hearing you lecture to take any money from your pocket; proud + to have driven you, Sir!" + +Another story is told by Mr. Raymond Blaythwayt:-- + + Only to-day I had a most striking instance of sentiment come + beneath my notice. I was about to enter my house, when a + plain, simply dressed working man came up to me with a note in + his hand, and, touching his hat, he said: "I think this is for + you, Sir"; and then he added: "Will you give me the envelope, + Sir, as a great favour?" I looked at it, and, seeing it bore + the signature of Professor Huxley, I replied: "Certainly I + will; but why do you ask for it?" "Well," said he; "it's got + Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me + to show my mates and keep for my children. He has done me and + my like a lot of good; no man more." + +In these special lectures of his very best and in his other essays, +which, however far-reaching, were always intelligible to plain +readers, may be seen one side of his desire to spread clear thinking +among the less instructed masses; another was his work on the first +School Board. By 1870 his health was already shaken by the heavy work +which filled his days and nights; nevertheless, whatever the cost in +time and labour and health, he felt it imperative to try, with all his +power, to give rational shape to the new lines of universal education, +and to revivify it with the fresh breath of the new renascence in +aim and method. Science must be represented in the new Parliament +of Education, and there was no one else ready to undertake the part. +Moreover, he had already enjoyed some practical experience of the +workings of elementary education while examiner under the Science and +Art Department, the establishment of which he considered + + a measure which came into existence unnoticed, but which will, + I believe, turn out to be of more importance to the welfare of + the people than many political changes over which the noise of + battle has rent the air. + +On the proper working of the new Act depended the physical, moral, and +intellectual betterment of the nation; in particular, "book-learning" +needed to be tempered with not merely handcraft, but with something +of the direct knowledge of nature; for in itself, if properly applied, +this is an admirable instrument of education, and by its method +promotes an attitude of mind capable of understanding the reasons for +the vast changes at work in human thought. + +Accordingly, he stood as a candidate for Marylebone, and, without +canvassing, for which he had neither time nor inclination, he was +elected second on the list. He had addressed several meetings, and, +as an amplification of his election address, he included extracts from +his forthcoming article, "The School Boards: What They Can Do, and +What They May Do," which were sent to the papers by the editor of +the _Contemporary Review_. (See _Coll. Ess._, iii, 374.) Here was +his programme, a great part of which he saw carried out:--Physical +training, for health and as a basis for further training; Domestic +training, especially for girls; Moral training, in a knowledge of +moral and social laws, and an engaging of the affections for what is +good instead of what is evil; Intellectual training, in knowledge and +the means of acquiring knowledge, alike for practical purposes and for +recreation. + +The opponents of popular education raised their still familiar outcry +about "cramming children full of nonsense" and "unfitting them for +the state of life to which they were called." But one cannot say what +state of life they may be called to without opportunity of testing +their capacities, and as for cramming them with nonsense, such a +scheme, if properly carried out, ought rather to expel nonsense. Above +all, it set the interests of humanity above the mere development of +skill, which would simply turn the child of man into the subtlest +beast of the field. + +True education, he declared, was impossible without "religion," the +unchanging essence of which lies in the love of some ethical ideal to +govern and guide conduct, "together with the awe and reverence which +have no kinship with base fear, but rise whenever one tries to pierce +below the surface of things, whether they be material or spiritual." + +It was in this sense that he advocated Bible-reading in +schools--simple Bible-reading, without theological gloss. On the one +hand, this was the only workable plan under existing circumstances. +True, that he would not have employed the Bible as the agency for +introducing the religious and ethical idea in a system that could +begin with a clean slate. He believed that the principle of strict +secularity in State education is sound and must ultimately prevail. +But moral instruction must not be too rudely divorced from the system +of belief current among the generality; and the Bible had been the +instrument of the clergy of all denominations, to whose efforts the +mass of half-instructed people owed such redemption from ignorance and +barbarism as they possessed. Make all needful deductions, and there +remains a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur, interwoven with +three centuries of our history. The Bible, as English literature, as +old-world history, as moral teaching, as the Magna Charta of the poor +and of the oppressed, the most democratic book in the world, could not +be spared. The mass of the people should not be deprived of the +one great literature which is open to them; not shut out from the +perception of their relations with the whole past history of civilized +mankind, nor from an unpriestly view of Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth, +purged of the accretions of centuries. Accordingly, he supported Mr. +W.H. Smith's motion for Bible-reading, even against the champions of +immediate secularization; but for Bible-reading under such regulations +as would carry out for the children the intention of Mr. W.E. +Forster, the originator of the Education Act, that "in the reading and +explanation of the Bible... no efforts will be made to cram into their +poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents +them from understanding." + +But the compromise was not permanently satisfactory. In 1893-94 the +clerical party on the School Board "denounced" the treaty agreed to +in 1871, and up till then undisputed, in the expectation of securing +a new one more favourable to themselves; and the _Times_, hurrying to +their support, did not hesitate to declare in a leading article that +"the persons who framed the rule" respecting religious instruction +intended to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as +the Incarnation. + +In a letter to the _Times_ Huxley replied (April 29, 1893):-- + + I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers + of the rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such + interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have + opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability. + + In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an + article in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled "The School + Boards--what they can do and what they may do," in which + I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such + teaching as it is now proposed to include. + +And this contention he supported by the quotation from Mr. W.E. +Forster, given above. + +Further, in October, 1894, he replied as follows to a correspondent +who had asked him whether flat adhesion to the compromise had not +made nonsense of a certain Bible lesson, which was the subject of much +comment:-- + + I am at one with you in hating "hush up" as I do all other + forms of lying; but I venture to submit that the compromise + of 1871 was not a "hush up." If I had taken it to be such, I + should have refused to have anything to do with it.... + + There has never been the slightest ambiguity about my position + in the matter; in fact, if you will turn to one paper on the + School Board written by me before my election in 1870, I + think you will find that I anticipated the pith of the present + discussion. + + The persons who agreed to the compromise did exactly what all + sincere men who agree to compromise do. For the sake of + the enormous advantage of giving the rudiments of a decent + education to several generations of the people, they accepted + what was practically an armistice in respect of certain + matters about which the contending parties were absolutely + irreconcilable. + +To return to his activity on the School Board. His vigorous work as +chairman of the committee appointed to frame an educational scheme was +marked by great breadth of view. He desired the elementary schools +to be linked at the one end with infant schools; at the other with +continuation schools and some scheme for technical education. A +perfect scheme would provide what he first called a ladder from the +gutter to the university, whereby children of exceptional capacity +might reach the places for which nature had fitted them. His sense of +fitness would have welcomed even more warmly some system whereby the +incompetent born into the higher strata of the social organism should +be automatically graded down to the positions more appropriate to +their wits and character. But this is an ideal only possible in +Plato's State, where philosophers are kings and possess superhuman +power of intuition. + +Sincerity is sometimes impracticable. But here sincerity was combined +with common-sense practicality, and even an opponent like Lord +Shaftesbury was impelled to write in his journal:--"Professor Huxley +has this definition of morality and religion: 'Teach a child what is +wise: that is _morality_. Teach him what is wise and beautiful: that +is _religion!_' Let no one henceforth despair of making things clear +and of giving explanations!" + +He did not, however, disguise his fundamental opposition to +Ultramontanism, that intellectual and social _imperium in imperio_, +with its basic hostility to the free scientific spirit. This he had +already expressed in his "Scientific Education" (_Coll. Ess._, iii, +111), an address of 1869, and he repeated it towards the end of his +service on the School Board when opposing a bye-law that the Board +should pay over direct to denominational schools the fees for poor +children--to schools, that is, outside the Board's control. He opposed +it partly because it would assuredly lead to repeated contests on +the Board; partly because it would give a handle to that party whose +system, as set forth in the syllabus, of securing complete possession +of the minds of their flock, was destructive of all that was highest +in the nature of mankind and inconsistent with intellectual and +political liberty. + +The committee did excellent work in systematizing important matters +and leaving minor arrangements to the local managers; in apportioning +essential and discretionary subjects, and--what was of special +interest to its chairman--the teaching of elementary geography +and elementary social economy, and in particular the systematized +object-lessons, embracing a course of elementary construction in +physical science, and serving as an introduction to the courses for +the examinations under the Science and Art Department. Science, as he +declared, was assuming such a position alike in practical life and in +thought that any one totally ignorant of it would be at a disadvantage +in both spheres. Moreover, the proposed technical schools--for applied +science, that is--must suffer if they had to deal with pupils who had +no preliminary grounding in the principles of physical science. His +early advocacy of music and drawing, not to produce artists, but to +develop personality, also bore some fruit. The man of science, too, +was found defending Latin as a discretionary subject, alternatively +with a modern language. Latin was the gate to many things, and, apart +from the question of overloading the curriculum, there was great +danger if educational possibilities were not thrown open to all +without restriction. There is no more frightful "sitting on the safety +valve" than in denying men of ability the means of rising to the +positions for which their talents and industry might qualify them. + +As for the compulsory element in education and the justification for +levying rates and taxes for what objectors called "educating other +people's children," his answer was: "Every ignorant person tends to +become a burden upon, and, so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his +fellows, and an obstacle to their success. Under such circumstances +an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, levied for purposes of +defence." + +In all this it was his attitude towards the child which deeply +impressed his colleagues in whom child-sympathy was strongest. As the +Rev. Benjamin Waugh put it, he was on the Board to establish schools +for the children. He wanted to turn them into sound men and women, and +resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for +churches or hands for factories. "What he sought to do for the child +was for the child's sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier +life." + +After fifteen months of service on the School Board superadded to the +heavy strain of his ordinary work, his health broke down utterly, and +he resigned. But after his retirement his successors found that their +duty was "to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley +was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to +improve both the means and methods of teaching.... The most important +developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the +hand and eye.... Thus the impulse given by Huxley in the first months +of the Board's existence has been carried forward by others." So wrote +Dr. J. H. Gladstone in 1896. The tide of education has swelled since +then and is still swelling, but its main direction is the same. + + +NOTE + +As these pages are passing through the press, I note an appeal for +money by the Religious Tract Society, which is running short of funds +to keep up the number and quality of the 6-7,000 Bibles annually +awarded as prizes to elementary school children. This advertisement +fills more than half a column of the _Times_ of March 25, 1920. It is +headed in bold type, PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE BIBLE, and, opening +with the words "All who value the teaching of the Holy Bible will +appreciate this wonderful description of the Bible by Professor +Huxley," proceeds to quote the eloquent passage, referred to above on +p. 54, from "The School Boards, etc." (_Coll. Ess_., iii, 396). + +This testimony to the interest of the Bible outside its theological +applications is detached from its context as a spur to "all those who +value the Word of God... to send the Society help in [its] work of +extending Bible teaching in our Elementary Schools." + +But these words were written with grave qualifications, especially +as to the need of excluding doctrinal teaching. By suppressing these +qualifications the Secretaries of the Religious Tract Society +approve themselves denizens of the world of half-truths, along with +puff-writers and similar experts. + + + + +X + +EDUCATION: ESPECIALLY OF TEACHERS AND OF WOMEN + + +The third of his excursions into the field of education, in his +burning desire to give the people that right knowledge for want of +which they perish, was the training of the teachers who prepared +pupils for the examinations of the Science and Art Department. The +future of scientific teaching depended upon the proper supply of +trained teachers. Now, the School of Mines in Jermyn Street was +without a laboratory in which to make even his own students work out +with their own hands the structure of the biological "types" expounded +in the lectures. An opportunity to train these new "scientific +missionaries" came in 1871, when he was deep in the great schemes of +elementary education. More than a hundred of them flocked to South +Kensington, where some large rooms on the ground floor of the museum +had been secured and rigged up for the purpose by the Professor and +his three demonstrators. For six weeks in the summer there was a +daily lecture, followed by four hours' laboratory work under the +demonstrators, in which the students verified for themselves facts +which they had hitherto heard about and taught to their unfortunate +pupils from books alone. The naive astonishment and delight of +the more intelligent among them was sometimes almost pathetic. One +clergyman, who had for years conducted classes in physiology under the +Science and Art Department, was shown a drop of his own blood under +the microscope. "Dear me!" he exclaimed, "it's just like the picture +in Huxley's _Physiology_." + +From 1872 onwards, when the School of Mines removed bodily to new +buildings at South Kensington, Huxley had a fine laboratory of his +own, in which not only were these teachers taught, but he was able +to adopt the same method with the students in his regular courses--a +method for long universally adopted in detail as well as in principle. +The first and unchangeable principle was to make the student verify +every fact for himself; to be satisfied with nothing at second hand. +The system was to work over a chosen set of biological types, each +representing a well-marked group and providing comparisons one +with another as well as stepping stones to further investigations. +Originally he started the series with the simplest organisms, and +proceeded to the more complex; but, though a good philosophical order, +it had the disadvantages of requiring the beginner to have much skill +in handling the microscope, and of proceeding from the less known +organism to the better known. Starting with the latter, the beginner +would know better what to look for. His demonstrator, Jeffery Parker, +argued the point vigorously with Huxley, and finally persuaded him +to invert the series, with great success, albeit other lecturers +preferred to keep to his original arrangement. + +Education, furthermore, owes him a great debt for his long and active +work upon the Royal Commissions on the Royal College of Science for +Ireland, on Science and Art Instruction in Ireland, on Scientific +Instruction and the Advancement of Science; on Vivisection, to inquire +into the Universities of Scotland, and on the Medical Acts--all in the +sixteen years between 1866 and 1882. At the London University, also, +he was an examiner for many years, and in the early nineties he strove +hard to give it a new constitution, first as a member of the Senate, +and then as president of a reforming Association. It is noteworthy, +too, that ten years earlier he was elected a Governor of Eton College, +and in the short time before his health broke down a second time he +did something to aid science-teaching there and to make drawing a +general subject. + +In the general need for education he ranked high the need for the +education of women. As early as 1860 he wrote: "I don't see how we are +to make any permanent advancement while one-half of the race is +sunk, as nine-tenths of women are, in mere ignorant parsonese +superstitions." If only people would not bring up their daughters as +man-traps for the matrimonial market, the next generation would see +women fit to be the companions of men in all their pursuits; "though," +he added, "I don't think that men have anything to fear from their +competition." On this point he remarked five years later: "Nature's +old salique law will never be repealed, and no change of dynasty will +be effected, though whatever argument justifies a given education for +boys justifies its application to girls as well." + +A letter of 1874, touching the first efforts of women to qualify as +doctors, prefigures what has been done since for the higher education +of women:-- + + Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the + average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, + as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are + much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and + I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or + public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most + foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of + vigour and capacity. We have heard a great deal lately about + the physical disabilities of women. Some of these alleged + impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their + organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial--the + products of their modes of life. I believe that nothing would + tend so effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness, + weariness, and that "over-stimulation of the emotions" which, + in plainer-spoken days, used to be called wantonness, than + a fair share of healthy work, directed towards a definite + object, combined with an equally fair share of healthy play + during the years of adolescence; and those who are best + acquainted with the requirements of an average medical + practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt + to reach that standard is likely to prove exhausting to an + ordinarily intelligent and well-educated young woman. + +Twenty years later he supported the entry of women into public life +in a plainly reasoned letter, which he himself thought highly +complimentary, although a number of estimable ladies flew at him for +writing it:-- + + The best of women are apt to be a little weak in the great + practical arts of give-and-take and putting up with a beating, + and a little too strong in their belief in the efficacy of + government. Men learn about these things in the ordinary + course of their business; women have no chance in home life, + and the boards and councils will be capital schools for them. + Again, in the public interest it will be well; women are more + naturally economical than men, and have none of our false + shame about looking after pence. Moreover, they don't job for + any but their lovers, husbands, and children, so that we know + the worst. + +Directly, then, as teacher, lecturer, and essayist indirectly as +organizer, he ranks among the great educators of his age. But he did +not establish a "school" of his own; such a thing was abhorrent to +him. A resolute seeker after truth, he bade others seek also; but he +refused to impose his own conclusions on any man. + + Of all possible positions [he wrote in 1892], that of master + of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief of a party, appears + to me to be the most undesirable; in fact, the average British + matron cannot look upon followers with a more evil eye than I + do. Such acquaintance with the history of thought as I + possess has taught me to regard school, parties, and sects as + arrangements, the usual effect of which is to perpetuate + all that is worst and feeblest in the master's, leader's, + or founder's work; or else, as in some cases, to upset it + altogether; as a sort of hydrant for extinguishing the fire + of genius, and for stifling the flame of high aspirations, the + kindling of which has been the chief, perhaps the only, merit + of the protagonist of the movement. I have always been, am, + and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever + proposed to myself is to say, This and this have I learned, + thus and thus have I learned it; go thou and learn better; but + do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own + laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions + the value of which you ought to have tested for yourself. + +In fact, what his teaching stood for was not so much the thing taught +as the method by which facts should be observed and conclusions drawn +from them. As science, in his definition, is but trained and organized +common sense, so this method, the scientific method, is but the +ordinary common-sense method rigidly carried out. And the correlative +to this method is the attitude of mind that suspends judgment until +adequate proof is forthcoming. + + + + +XI + +METHODS OF WORK + + +Of his method of work something has already been said, recalling his +insistence upon verifying, experimentally, all statements made by +others which he wished to employ in his lectures. This was true not +only of his daily teaching, but of any new research that interested +him. He repeated the series of Pasteur's experiments for himself +before making a pronouncement on the much-debated question of +spontaneous generation. A curious by-result of these investigations +was that the Admiralty requested him to track down the cause of great +trouble in the Navy--namely, that the ship's biscuit, though carefully +prepared and packed in tins, was constantly found, when the tins were +opened, to be full of maggots. + +His far-ranging work in Comparative Anatomy was based upon dissections +by his own hand, executed rapidly and broadly, going straight to the +essential point without any finikin elaboration, and recorded in +very fine anatomical drawings. Indeed, his power of clear and rapid +draughtsmanship was the other side of his unusual power of visualizing +a conception. Each faculty helped the other, and one of the most +striking examples of his memory of forms was when, before a delighted +audience, he traced on the blackboard the development of some complex +structure, showing, stroke upon stroke, the orderly transition from +one form to the next. + +Until failing health forbade work with the microscope, he was +continually busy with the rational re-grouping of animal forms. +Besides his published works on the anatomy of both the Invertebrates +and the Vertebrates, whether manuals of anatomy or monographs of +special groups or general essays, and his work of classifying birds +and reptiles and fishes on new principles, there exists among the vast +number of drawings and notes preserved at the Huxley Laboratory at +South Kensington a quantity of unpublished and unfinished work which, +in detail, often anticipates the work of subsequent investigators, and +which, for the most part, represents fresh studies of special +groups of animals to be used in a general classification such as was +suggested in his paper "On the Application of the Laws of Evolution +to the arrangement of the Vertebrata, and more particularly of the +Mammalia" (1880)--"the most masterly," remarks Professor Howes, "of +his scientific theses; the only expression which he gave to the world +of the interaction of a series of revolutionary ideas and conceptions +(begotten of the labours of his closing years as a working zoologist) +which were at the period assuming shape in his mind. They have done +more than all else of their period to rationalize the application of +our knowledge of the Vertebrata, and have now left their mark for all +time on the history of progress, as embodied in our classificatory +systems." But neither this great work nor the other special monographs +still in hand reached completion. His health broke down; he could +no longer stoop over the microscope, and had perforce to abandon +zoological work before he was sixty. + +A remark made by Huxley about others is very true of himself--that +what matters most is not the microscope, but the man behind it; +not the objects seen, but the interpretation of them and their +relationships. The outward and the inward eye had the same quickness, +the same highly developed sense of form and relationship, backed by a +store of living knowledge; so well organized that it could respond +at once to any suggestion which would throw light on undiscovered +affinities and provide a true base for classification. + +While much of his bookwork and writing was done at home, his later +anatomical work was done at his laboratory. As official engagements +multiplied, his time was much broken into; but he snatched every +available moment, often dashing down to South Kensington in a cab for +a half-hour of work between two official meetings. His absorption +in his studies was intense--as at one time he signs himself to his +fellow-worker, W. K. Parker, "Ever yours amphibially," so Jeffery +Parker, his demonstrator, who tells the story, came to him with a +question about the brain of the codfish at a time when he was deep in +the investigation of some invertebrate group. "Codfish?" he replied; +"that's a vertebrate, isn't it? Ask me a fortnight hence, and I'll +consider it." + +One more note concerning his method of work. His love of visualizing +his problems regularly led him to make charts to show geographically, +say, the distribution of certain forms of life over the globe, or to +illustrate points of history--such, for example, as a coloured map +of the Aegean, with fifty-mile circles drawn from the centre of the +Cyclades to illustrate the range of Greek civilization as it spread +over the shores of Asia and Europe. And as in writing a book he was +careful first to plan out the scheme of it and the balance of the +parts, so, however much his public addresses gave the impression of +being largely impromptu, he had always thought out carefully every +word he meant to say. "There is," he said, "no greater danger than +the so-called _inspiration of the moment_, which leads you to say +something which is not exactly true, or which you would regret +afterwards." + +Yet his was not a strong verbal memory. It was essentially a memory +for facts; he could tear the heart out of a book as swiftly as a +Macaulay, packing the facts into the framework of his knowledge, +and always knowing thereafter where to find his facts or verify his +references. In his speeches it was the compelling thought seeking +expression, and fitting the form of expression exactly to the form +of the thought, that brought the meditated words so infallibly and so +spontaneously to his lips: they were already welded together in mind. +But he had not that kind of memory which, after once reading a page +of a book, can recite the whole word for word, whether prose or verse. +Single phrases embodying a notable image would remain with him, and +remain ready for use as allusive colour or pointed epigram. Many of +these were Biblical phrases, for he knew his Bible well, and admired +not only the grandeur of thought to be found enshrined in it, but its +magnificence as a treasure-house of our English tongue. And, apart +from many scientific terms of his invention, he coined divers words +and phrases which have enriched our language, such as "Agnostic," +"the ladder from the gutter to the university," the descriptions of +Positivism as "Catholicism without Christianity," and the Salvation +Army methods as "Corybantic Christianity." + +His working day began soon after nine, for he was never one of those +people who can do hours of work before breakfast. The working day, +however, regularly went on until midnight, and, as has been mentioned, +was often prolonged by late reading. + +The speed with which his mind worked to see through complex questions +and spring swiftly to a conclusion was such that he contrived to do +four ordinary men's work in a single lifetime. But this swiftness of +reaching a conclusion, so useful at most times, was liable sometimes +to betray him. If, however, he found that he had made a mistake, he +was ready to confess the fact. The most celebrated instance of this +was the story of _Bathybius_. In 1868, while soundings were being made +in connection with the laying of the Atlantic cable, certain specimens +of mud were dredged up. The mud was sticky, owing to the presence of +innumerable lumps of a transparent gelatinous substance. This was +in fine granules, which possessed neither a nucleus nor a covering +membrane. Scattered through it were calcareous coccoliths. Such +were the facts; what inference was to be drawn? The only thing this +substance resembled was one of the many simple forms of oceanic life +recently found and described by the great zoologist Haeckel. + + I conceive [wrote Huxley] that the granulate heaps and the + transparent gelatinous matter in which they are embedded + represent masses of protoplasm. Take away the cysts which + characterize the _Radiolaria_, and a dead _Sphærozoum_ would + very nearly represent one of this deep-sea "Urschleim," which + must, I think, be regarded as a new form of those simple + animated beings which have recently been so well described by + Haeckel in his _Monographie der Moneras_. + +So it received the name of Bathybius Haeckelii. + +The explanation was plausible enough, if the evidence had been all +that it seemed to be. But the specimens examined by himself and by +Haeckel, who two years later published a full and detailed description +of _Bathybius_, were seen only in a preserved state. It was dredged up +again on the voyage of the _Porcupine_ and examined in a fresh state +by Sir Wyville Thomson and Dr. W.B. Carpenter, but they found no +better explanation to give of it. Doubt only arose when, in 1879, the +_Challenger_ expedition failed to find it very widely distributed, as +expected, over the sea bottom; and the behaviour of certain specimens +gave good ground for suspecting that what had been sent home before +as genuine deep-sea mud was a precipitate due to the action on +the specimens of the spirit in which they were preserved. Though +Haeckel--his large experience of Monera fortified by the discovery of +a close parallel near Greenland in 1876--would not desert Bathybius, +the rest of its sponsors gave it up. The evidence in this particular +case was tainted. At the meeting of the British Association in 1879 +Huxley came forward and took occasion to "eat the leek" in a speech as +witty as it was candid. + +Now, _Bathybius_ had often been pointed to as an example of almost +primordial life, from which the evolutionary chain might have +begun; and later controversialists, not acquainted with the precise +limitations of the matter, seized upon the _Bathybius_ recantation as +a convenient stick with which to beat the Darwinian dog. To the most +noteworthy case of this, eleven years later, Huxley retorted:-- + + That which interested me in the matter was the apparent + analogy of _Bathybius_ with other well-known forms of lower + life.... Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with + the matter, and 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. + +As to the eating of the leek, he had commended it many a long +year before to an over-impetuous German friend who had read enough +Shakespeare to understand the meaning of the phrase:-- + + Well, every honest man has to do that now and then, and I + assure you that, if eaten fairly and without grimaces, the + devouring of that herb has a very wholesome cooling effect on + the blood, particularly in people of a sanguine temperament. + +Reflections on making mistakes lead to a striking conclusion:-- + + The most considerable difference I note among men is not in + their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to + acknowledge these inevitable lapses. + +Until he reached middle age, his quickness of thought and decision was +fretted by men of slower mind if they happened to be associated with +him on some enterprise, and to certain colleagues his ardour was +sometimes almost terrifying. And in those days also, before custom had +hardened him, he was apt to be short with those devoid of any claim +to intervene who thrust themselves into his affairs. Salutary as this +doubtless was to the really ignorant meddler, there was one occasion, +of which I learnt thirty years later, where at bottom the rebuke was +not deserved. The sufferer, admittedly devoid of anatomical knowledge, +questioned the statement in an early edition of _The Elementary +Physiology_ as to the method in which the voice is produced, and +propounded a different movement in part of the larynx. The Professor +replied to the effect that the writer had better learn some anatomy +before challenging the result of careful experiment. But some years +later, as a result of further investigation, this same change was made +in a new edition of the book. By that time the very name of the critic +was forgotten. But if he and his suggestion had been remembered, I am +inclined to think that he would have received an _amende_. + + + + +XII + +SCIENCE AND ETHICS + + +Huxley's work in education was his direct contribution to the social +improvement of the world. Not instruction merely--for, "though +under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that +over-instruction may be a worse"--but through education, the bringing +out of the moral worth and intellectual clearness of the individual +citizen, which is the one condition of the success of a State. And +this condition, resting on the basic faith in veracity, he felt to be +above all the work of science, the Cinderella of thought. For, as he +wrote:-- + + If the diseases of Society consist in the weakness of its + faith in the existence of the God of the theologians, in a + future state, and in uncaused volitions, the indication, as + the doctors say, is to suppress Theology and Philosophy, whose + bickerings about things of which they know nothing have + been the prime cause and continual sustenance of that + evil scepticism which is the Nemesis of meddling with the + unknowable. + + Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance of these + high matters. She lights the fire, sweeps the house, and + provides the dinner; and is rewarded by being told that she is + a base creature, devoted to low and material interests. But in + her garret she has fairy visions out of the ken of the pair + of shrews who are quarrelling downstairs. She sees the order + which pervades the seeming disorder of the world; the great + drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, + but also with abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself + before her eyes; and she learns, in her heart of hearts, the + lesson, that the foundation of morality is to have done, once + and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that + for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible + propositions about things beyond the possibilities of + knowledge. + + She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the + adoption of this or that philosophical speculation, or this + or that theological creed, but in a real and living belief in + that fixed order of nature which sends social disorganization + upon the track of immorality, as surely as it sends physical + disease after physical trespasses. And of that firm and lively + faith it is her high mission to be the priestess. + +In a world the elements of which are thus mixed with pity and terror, +goodness and beauty, he held himself, like the majority of men, as +neither optimist nor pessimist. "The world is neither so good, nor so +bad, as it conceivably might be; and as most of us have reason, now +and again, to discover that it can be." + +On the one side, the optimistic dogma that this is the best of all +possible worlds is little better than a libel on possibility. On +behalf of the modified optimism that benevolence is on the whole the +regulating principle of the sentient world, it may be granted that +there are hosts of subtle contrivances devoted to the production of +pleasure and the avoidance of pain; but, if so, why is it not equally +proper to say of the equally numerous arrangements, the no less +necessary result of which is the production of pain, that they are +evidences of malevolence? Translating these facts into moral +terms, the goodness of the hand that aids Blake's "little lamb" is +neutralized by the wickedness of the other hand that eggs on his +"tiger burning bright," and the course of nature will appear to be +neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral. + +On the other side, though this may not be the best of all possible +worlds, to say that it is the worst is "mere petulant nonsense." +With a courage based on hours and days of personal knowledge, he +exclaims:-- + + There can be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person + that mankind could, would, and in fact do, get on fairly well + with vastly less happiness and far more misery than find their + way into the lives of nine people out of ten. If each and + all of us had been visited by an attack of neuralgia, or + of extreme mental depression, for one hour in every + twenty-four--a supposition which many tolerably vigorous + people know, to their cost, is not extravagant--the burden + of life would have been immensely increased without much + practical hindrance to its general course. Men with any + manhood in them find life quite worth living under worse + conditions than these. + +Moreover, another fact utterly contradicts the hypothesis that the +sentient world is directed by malevolence:-- + + A vast multitude of pleasures, and these among the purest and + the best, are superfluities, bits of good which are, to all + appearance, unnecessary as inducements to live, and are, so + to speak, thrown into the bargain of life. To those who + experience them, few delights can be more entrancing than + such as are afforded by natural beauty, or by the arts, and + especially by music; but they are products of, rather than + factors in, evolution, and it is probable that they are known, + in any considerable degree, to but a very small proportion of + mankind. + +To speak, then, of the course and intention of nature in terms +of human thought, we must say that its governing principle is +intellectual and not moral. It is a logical process materialized, with +pleasures and pains that fall, in most cases, without the slightest +reference to moral desert. + +From the moralist's point of view the animal world, in which our own +cosmic nature has been severely trained for millions of years, is no +better than a gladiatorial show, and we cannot expect, within a few +centuries, to subdue the masterfulness of this inborn tendency, in +part necessary to our existence, to purely ethical ends. So deep +rooted is it that the struggle may last till the end of time. But, he +exclaims with a ringing note-- + + I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, + guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in + common effort, may modify the conditions of existence for a + period longer than that now covered by history. And much may + be done to change the nature of man himself. The intelligence + which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful + guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards + curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men. + +In the long struggle pain and sorrow are inevitable. The aim of man +is not to escape these, but rather to earn peace and self-respect. To +this he added a special point, in a letter of 1890:-- + + If you will accept the results of the experience of an old + man who has had a very chequered existence--and has nothing + to hope for except a few years of quiet downhill--there + is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human + affections), nothing that satisfies quiet reflection, except + the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and + light, to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of + all sorts. That was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books + when I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life. + +The animal world, then, having the principle of its existence in a +state of war, society was created by the first men who substituted +the state of mutual peace for the state of mutual war. The object of +society was the limitation of the struggle for existence. That shape +of society most nearly approaches perfection in which the war of +individual against individual is most strictly limited. Happiness +and freedom of action are restricted to a sphere where they do not +interfere with the happiness and freedom of others; the common weal +becomes an essential part of individual welfare. In short, even if +under the most perfect conditions "Witless will always serve his +master," man aims to escape from his place in the animal kingdom, +founded on the free development of the principle of non-moral +evolution, and to establish a kingdom of Man governed upon the +principle of moral evolution. For society not only has a moral end, +but in its perfection social life is embodied morality. Moral purpose +is "an article of exclusively human manufacture--and very much to our +credit." + +To society, then, its members owe a vital debt; for society, the work +of the ethical man, has slowly and painfully built up around us a +fabric of defence against barbarism, the work of the non-ethical man. +This debt we are bound to repay by furthering in ourselves the good +work of human fellowship, and by striving to improve the conditions +of our social life; and the means thereto are self-discipline, +self-support, intelligent effort, not unreasoning violence with its +disruption of the defences against anarchic barbarism. + +Yet if society, in making life easier, multiplies the species in +excess of the means of subsistence, it raises up within itself, in +the intensest form, the unlimited struggle for existence. "This is the +true riddle of the Sphinx, and every nation which does not solve +it will, sooner or later, be devoured by the monster itself has +generated." + +Improvement there has been during the historical period: with goodwill +and clear thought Huxley looked for ever-accelerating improvement, +though contemporary civilizations seemed neither to embody any worthy +ideal nor even to possess the merit of stability. In the atmosphere +of plain verity, where, as he said, "my business is to teach my +aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts +harmonize with my aspirations," he confidently looked for the hopes of +the future; but were it not so, he solemnly declared-- + + If there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of + the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the + increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over + Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows + that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and + the intensity of want, with its concomitant physical and moral + degradation among the masses of the people, I should hail the + advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair + away as a desirable consummation. + +In the matter of personal conduct he rejected the notions that the +moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future +rewards and punishments, and that such a system is indispensable to +practical morality. "I believe," he said, "that both these dogmas are +very mischievous lies." + +There is no need for future compensation because, so he firmly +believed, "the Divine Government--if we may use such a phrase to +express the sum of the 'customs of matter'--is wholly just....But for +this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that +the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the _whole_ +law--physical as well as moral--and that moral obedience will not +atone for physical sin, or _vice versâ_." Thus he could declare "the +more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my +own), the more obvious it is that the wicked does _not_ flourish, nor +is the righteous punished." "The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as +certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so--for experimental +proof of the fact is within reach of us all--nay, is before us all in +our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it." Nevertheless-- + + It is to be recollected, in view of the apparent discrepancy + between men's acts and their rewards, that Nature is juster + than we are. She takes into account what a man brings with him + into this world, which human justice cannot do. If I, born a + bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from + others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me; but + I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would + be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done + the same thing. + +Accordingly-- + + Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I + believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of + this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that + their inevitable rewards and punishments are here. + + If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from + evil-doing, surely a fortiori the certainty of hell now will + do so? If a man could be firmly impressed with the belief that + stealing damaged him as much as swallowing arsenic would do + (and it does), would not the dissuasive force of that belief + be greater than that of any based on mere future expectations? + +And this leads me to quote words written by an old friend and +colleague of his, Sir Spencer Walpole:-- + + Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard + were, on the whole, the highest. He recognized that the fact + of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the + most upright of lives; and I am very much of the opinion of a + little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who, + when she was told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future + rewards and no fear of future punishments, emphatically + declared: "Then I think Professor Huxley is the best man I + have ever known." + + + + +XIII + +MORALITY AND THE CHURCH + + +It is alike interesting and satisfactory to reflect that practical +morality in civilized life is much the same for all earnest men, +however they differ in their theories as to the origin of moral ideas +and the kind of motives and sanctions to be insisted on for right +action. It is true that the theologians and supernaturalists have +erected their scaffolding around the building of social and human +morality, vowing that it will not stand without. Yet it remains steady +when the scaffolding is warped by the winds of doctrine or uprooted +by advancing knowledge. The spirit that has built it is free from the +perverted enthusiasms which crusade against freedom, put thought in +fetters, and sanctify persecution. It lends no support to the other +spirit that would dominate minds and consciences by formulæ that lie +outside the court of reason. These things are of clericalism, and it +was clericalism to which Huxley ever found himself in opposition, for +it "raises obstacles to scientific ways of thinking, which are even +more important than scientific discoveries." But all associations for +promoting that sympathy which is at the foundation of human society +need not be infected with clericalism. If such a step were otherwise +expedient, even the State might do something towards that end +indirectly:-- + + I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which + should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week + by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of + abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before + men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a + place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily + cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the + higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so + few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should + have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he + covets compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if + such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it. + +But, while sympathy is the basis of society and enthusiasm the +greatest motive power of humanity, there remains something more to +be considered. The man who could appreciate the value of the personal +consolations brought by the Bible-woman to the poor and down-trodden, +and the infinitely comfortable assurance of the mystic, firm as +hypnotic conviction, that he is the direct associate and instrument of +the Almighty, whether submissive or arrogant, from Stephen to the Bâb, +from Cromwell and Gordon to Bismarck and his Imperial associates, +such a man might well say: "I wish I could be so magnificently +self-confident, so untroubled by doubt. But I can't, for I have to +ask: Is it true?; and I find that these persons base themselves upon +very questionable grounds." + +True, that in regard to the place of good and evil in this world the +best theological teachers-- + + substantially recognize these realities of things, however + strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. The + doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate + depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the + race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential + vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to + a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself, + faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth + than the "liberal" popular illusions that babies are all born + good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible + for their failure to remain so; that it is given to everybody + to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all + partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments, + such as that which represents "Providence" under the guise of + a paternal philanthropist, and bids us believe that everything + will come right (according to our notions) at last. + + ...I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain + kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the + future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in hell, + for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right + and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such + punishment) have now and then "descended into hell" and + stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite + punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective, + immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some + such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of + _Corinthians_, immortality must be eternal misery. The fate of + Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of + a mind imprisoned for ever within the _flammantia moenia_ of + inextinguishable memories. + +Such were the shapes into which the Christian theologians had +fashioned a number of moral truths when they annexed the house of +human morality. But what is the basis of certitude on which these +interpretations rest? If Adam was not an historical character, if the +story of the Fall be whittled down into a "type" which is typical of +no underlying reality, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken, and +practical deductions drawn from it are shaken also. In fact, "the +Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more +about the spiritual world than anybody else, and Newman's doctrine +of 'Development' is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did +not dream." And as to the argument that the successful spread of +Christianity attests the truth of the New Testament story, he replied +to his questioner with the general propositions:-- + + 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 fourth 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 led better lives than their + neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen. + + If these things are true--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? + +Furthermore, behind all the theological developments of the Church +lies the whole question of Theism, and "the philosophical difficulties +of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever +since Theism was invented." + + + + +XIV + +LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS + + +"To live laborious days" was, for Huxley, at all times a necessity as +well as a creed. The lover of knowledge and truth, he firmly believed, +must devote his uttermost powers to their service; he held as strongly +that every man's first duty to society was to support himself. But +science provided more fame than pence, and with wife and family to +support he was spurred to redoubled efforts. In the early years of +married life especially, while he was still struggling to make +his way, he often felt the pinch. He added to his modest income by +reviewing and translating scientific books and by lecturing. On +one occasion, when he was a candidate for a certain scientific +lectureship, one of the committee of election, a wealthy man, +expressed astonishment at his application--"what can he want with a +hundred a year?" "I dare say," commented Huxley, "he pays his cook +that." In early days, visioning the future, he and his wife had fondly +planned to marry on £400 a year, while he pursued science, unknown +if need be, for the sake of science. The reality pressed hardly upon +them; those were dark evenings when he would come home fagged out by +a second lecture at the end of a full day's work and lay himself down +wearily on one couch, while she, so long a semi-invalid, lay uselessly +on another. And, later, the upbringing of a large family, though its +advent made life the more worth living, involved a heavy strain. At +the same time, a man who was ever ready to take up responsibilities +for the furtherance of every branch of science with which he was +concerned had endless responsibilities committed to him. Besides +his researches in pure science, whether anatomy, paleontology, or +anthropology, his regular teaching work and other courses of lectures, +his long work as examiner at the London University, the production of +scientific memoirs and text-books and more general essays, he took +a leading share in editing the _Natural History Review_ for two and +a-half years; he was an active supporter of the chief scientific +societies to which he belonged, and took a prominent part in their +administration as member of council, secretary, or president, the +most laborious period of which was during the nine years of his +secretaryship of the Royal Society, soon to be followed by the +presidency. Add to these his service on the School Board and no less +than eight Royal Commissions, and it is easy to see that the longest +working days he could contrive were always filled and over-filled. + +When very tired he would occasionally dash off for a week or two's +walking with a friend in Wales, or some corner of France; two summer +holidays in Switzerland with John Tyndall resulted in a joint paper on +the "Structure of Glacier Ice"; later, the family holidays by the +sea regularly saw a good deal of time devoted to writing, while his +exercise consisted of long walks. + +Unlike Darwin, who at last found nothing save science engrossing +enough to make him oblivious of his constant ill-health, Huxley +never lost his keen delight in literature and art. He was a rapid and +omnivorous reader, devouring everything from a fairy tale to a blue +book, and tearing the heart out of a book at express speed. With this +went a love of great and beautiful poetry and of prose expression that +is at once exact and artistically balanced. "I have a great love and +respect for my native tongue," he wrote, "and take great pains to use +it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can +get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious +as I grow older." Indeed, even after much re-writing, his corrections +in proof must have appalled his publishers. "Science and literature," +he declared, "are not two things, but two sides of one thing." "Have +something to say, and say it," was the great Duke's theory of +style. "Say it in such language," added Huxley, "that you can stand +cross-examination on every word. Be clear, though you may be convicted +of error. If you are clearly wrong, you will run up against a fact +some time and get set right. If you shuffle with your subject, and +study chiefly to use language which will give a loophole of escape +either way, there is no hope for you." + +Herein lay the secret of his lucidity. Uniting the scientific habit +of mind with the literary art, he showed that truthfulness need not +be bald, and that power lies rather in accuracy than in luxuriance of +diction. As to the influence which such a style exerted on the habit +of mind of his readers, there is remarkable testimony in a letter from +Spedding, the editor of Bacon, printed in the _Life of Huxley_, ii, +239. Spedding, his senior by a score of years, describes the influence +of Bacon on his own style in the matter of exactitude, the pruning +of fine epithets and sweeping statements, the reduction of numberless +superlatives to positives, and asserts that if, as a young man, he +had fallen in with Huxley's writings before Bacon's, they would have +produced the same effect upon him. + +Huxley's own criticism of the one and only poem be ever published +is also instructive. On his way back from the funeral of Tennyson in +Westminster Abbey, he spent the journey in shaping out some lines on +the dead poet, the germ of which had come into his mind in the Abbey. +These, with a number of other tributes to Tennyson by professed poets, +were printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ for November, 1892. He writes +in a private letter:-- + + If I were to pass judgment upon it in comparison with the + others, I should say that as to style it is hammered, and as + to feeling, human. + + They are castings of much prettier pattern and of mainly + poetico-classical educated-class sentiment. I do not think + there is a line of mine one of my old working-class audience + would have boggled over. + +As regards the arts other than literary, he had a keen eye for a +picture or a piece of sculpture, for, in addition to the draughtman's +and anatomist's sense of form, he had a strong sense of colour. To +good music, also, he was always susceptible; as a young man he used to +sing a little, but his voice, though true, was never strong. In music, +as in painting, he was untrained. Yet, as has been noted already, his +illustrations to MacGillivray's _Voyage of the Rattlesnake_ and his +holiday sketches suggest that he might have gone far had he been +trained as an artist. + +When first married he used to set aside Saturday afternoons to take +his wife to the Ella concerts, fore-runners of the "Saturday Pops.," +but it was not very long before the pressure of circumstance forbade +this pleasure. Later, he very occasionally managed to go to the +theatre; but his chief recreation, apart from change of work and the +rapid devouring of a good novel, was in meeting his friends, when +occasion offered, at the scientific societies or at dinner, or now +and then in country visits which had not yet received the name of +"week-ends." + +When, in the middle seventies, his position was firmly established and +he was living in a roomy house, No. 4 Marlborough Place, St. John's +Wood, there were gatherings of friends on Sunday evenings. An informal +meal awaited the guests, who came either on a general invitation or +when specially bidden; others put in an appearance later. There would +be much talk, from grave to gay, in those plainly appointed rooms, or +on a fine summer evening, perhaps, in the garden with its little lawn +behind the house. Some music, too, was almost sure to be performed by +friends or by the daughters of the house, whose progress in the art of +singing was ever a matter of concern to Mr. Herbert Spencer, himself +a great lover of music. Letters and Art were well represented there +as well as Science, intermingled with the friends of the younger +generation. "Here," writes G.W. Smalley, + + people from many other worlds than those of abstract science + were bidden; where talk was to be heard of a kind rare in + any world. It was scientific at times, but subdued to the + necessities of the occasion; speculative, yet kept within such + bounds that bishop or archbishop might have listened without + offence; political even, and still not commonplace, and, when + artistic, free from affectation. + + There and elsewhere Mr. Huxley easily took the lead if he + cared to, or if challenged. Nobody was more ready in a greater + variety of topics, and if they were scientific it was almost + always another who introduced them. Unlike some of his + comrades of the Royal Society, he was of opinion that man does + not live by science alone, and nothing came amiss to him.... + Even in private the alarm of war is sometimes heard, and Mr. + Huxley is not a whit less formidable as a disputant across + the table than with pen in hand. Yet an angry man must be very + angry indeed before he could be angry with this adversary. He + disarmed his enemies with an amiable grace that made defeat + endurable, if not entirely delightful. + +If scientific subjects came up in conversation, the luminous style, so +familiar in his written work, reappeared in talk. + + Yet it has more than that. You cannot listen to him without + thinking more of the speaker than of his science, more of the + solid beautiful nature than of the intellectual gifts, more of + his manly simplicity and sincerity than of all his knowledge + and his long services. + +But in the intermediate period, from about 1860 onwards, the unceasing +rush of occupation rendered it very difficult to keep in touch with +his friends. On his initiative a small dining club of scientific +friends and allies was established. Almost all these close friends +were members of the Royal Society, and were likely to attend its +meetings. Dinner, therefore, was to be taken at a convenient hotel +before the monthly meeting of the Society, and those who were +inevitably drifting apart under the stress of circumstances would +have a regular meeting ground. This was the famous _x_ Club, a name +singularly appropriate on the principle of _lucus a non lucendo_ to a +club of nine members who never proceeded to the election of a tenth. +Opinions as to the name and constitution of the little society +being no less numerous than the members--indeed more so--"we finally +accepted the happy suggestion of our mathematicians to call it the _x_ +Club; and the proposal of some genius among us that we should have +no rules, save the unwritten law not to have any, was carried by +acclamation." + +Huxley first propounded the scheme to his most intimate friends, +Joseph Dalton Hooker, then Assistant Director of Kew, and John +Tyndall, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. +George Busk, the anatomist, afterwards President of the College of +Surgeons, was another whose friendship dated from soon after +the return of the _Rattlesnake_ to England. Herbert Spencer, the +philosopher, and Sir John Lubbock, banker and naturalist, were friends +of nearly as long standing. Edward Frankland, Professor of Chemistry +at the Royal Institution, and Thomas Archer Hirst, Professor of +Physics and Pure Mathematics at University College, London, afterwards +Director of Naval Studies at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, +entered the circle as special friends of Tyndall's. William +Spottiswoode, Queen's Printer and mathematician, was the ninth member, +elected by the rest at the first meeting. + +Between them they could have managed to contribute most of the +articles to a scientific Encyclopædia: six were Presidents of the +British Association; three were Associates of the Institute of France; +and from among them the Royal Society chose a Secretary, a Foreign +Secretary, a Treasurer, and three successive Presidents. Meeting +though they did for the sake of friendship and good fellowship, it +was inevitable that they should discuss the burning questions of the +scientific world freely from varied points of view, and, being all +animated by similar ideas of the high function of science and of the +great Society, the chief representative of science to which all but +one of them belonged, they incidentally exercised a strong influence +on the progress of scientific organization. + +The first meeting took place on November 3, 1864; nearly nineteen +years passed before the circle was broken by the death of +Spottiswoode. Proposals were made to fill the gap with a new friend, +but, as the _raison d'être_ of the club had been simply the personal +attachment of the original nine, the project fell through. Finally, +after Hirst's death in 1892, when five out of the remaining six were +living away from London and for the most part in uncertain health, +it became more and more difficult to arrange a meeting, and the club +quietly lapsed after nearly twenty-eight years of existence. + +Guests were often entertained at the _x_ dinners, men of science or +letters of almost every nationality--a delightful and quite informal +mode of personal intercourse. In the summer, also, the _x_ often made +a week-end expedition into the country or up the river, in which the +wives of the married members took part, the formula for the invitation +being _x's + yv's_. + + + + +XV + +CHARLES DARWIN + + +To this focus of close friendships Charles Darwin would assuredly have +been invited to belong had he been other than an invalid living +away from London; for he was the warm and revered friend not only of +Huxley, but still more of Hooker, who in age stood midway between the +two--eight years younger than the one and eight years older than the +other--and who, for some fifteen years before the publication of the +_Origin of Species_, had been Darwin's most intimate friend and aid in +his work. + +Huxley had made Darwin's acquaintance early in the fifties, and soon +fell under the spell of his deep thought, his utter sincerity and +generous warmth of heart. Darwin, for his part, was strongly attracted +by his new friend's penetrating knowledge, incisive criticism, and +brilliant conversation. When, in 1858, he began to write out the +_Origin_, Huxley was one of the three men he fixed upon by whose +judgment of the book he meant to abide. Lyell, who had read the book +before it came out, was the first; Hooker, his long-time aid and +critic and finally convert, the second. On the eve of publication, +secure of these, he adds: "If I can convert Huxley I shall be +content." + +On all three the effect of the completed book, with its array of +detailed argument and evidence, was far greater than that of +previous discussions. With one or two reservations as to the logical +completeness of the theory, Huxley accepted it as a well-founded +working hypothesis, calculated to explain problems otherwise +inexplicable. There were evolutionists before Darwin, from Lamarck and +the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ to Herbert Spencer; but as +there was no evidence to bear out the orthodox creational view of the +Book of _Genesis_, enlarged upon in detail by Milton, so before Darwin +the evidence in favour of the transmutation of species was wholly +insufficient, and no suggestion which had been made to the causes +of the assumed transmutation was in any way adequate to explain +the phenomena. Under such conditions only an agnostic attitude was +possible. "So," writes Huxley-- + + I took refuge in that "_thätige Skepsis_," which Goethe has so + well defined, and, reversing the apostolic precept to be all + things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of + the received doctrines when I had to do with the + transmutationists, and stood up for the possibility of + transmutation among the orthodox, thereby, no doubt, + increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, + reputation for needless combativeness. + +Then came the publication of the Darwin-Wallace paper in 1858, and of +the _Origin_ in 1859, the effect of which he compares to-- + + the flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself on a + dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes + him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which + we were looking for, and could not find, was an hypothesis + respecting the origin of known organic forms which assumed + the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be + actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or + any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite + conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and + have their validity tested. The _Origin_ provided us with the + working hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the immense + service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma--refuse to + accept the creation hypothesis and what have you to propose + that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857 I had + no answer ready, and I do not think that any one else had. + A year later we reproached ourselves with dullness for being + perplexed with such an inquiry. My reflection, when I first + made myself master of the central idea of the _Origin_, was: + "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." I suppose + that Columbus's companions said much the same when he made the + egg stand on end. The facts of variability, of the struggle + for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious + enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the + heart of the species problem lay through them until Darwin + and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the + _Origin_ guided the benighted. + + Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of Evolution, + as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands would + prove to be final or not, was to me a matter of indifference. + In my earliest criticisms of the _Origin_ I ventured to + point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as + experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties + which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains + up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt + which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian + hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the + creation hypothesis. And if we had none of us been able to + discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent + and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to + speak, thrust under our noses, what force remained in the + dilemma--creation or nothing? It was obvious that hereafter + the probability would be immensely greater, that the links + of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than + that natural causation should be incompetent to produce all + the phenomena of nature. The only rational course for those + who had no other object than the attainment of truth was to + accept "Darwinism" as a working hypothesis and see what could + be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate + the facts of organic life or it would break down under the + strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense, and for + once common sense carried the day. + +Mention has been made of the instant support he was able to lend the +_Origin_ in the _Times_ review of the book, and the extension of its +doctrines in regard to man. Even before the book appeared, however, he +began to act as what Darwin laughingly called his "general agent." +His address on "Persistent Types" (June, 1859) aimed at clearing up in +advance one of the obvious objections raised against acceptance of the +doctrine of Evolution--namely, how is it that, if evolution is ever +progressive, progress is not universal? How is it that all forms do +not necessarily advance, and that simple organisms still exist? As +it happened, Darwin did not discuss this point when he first put +the _Origin_ together, and speedily came to regard this as the most +serious omission in the book. + +Great, then, was the debt of all science to Darwin. And not of science +only. The fight for freedom of thought and speech in science, into +which Huxley especially threw himself, was the more successful because +the immediate cause he upheld was so overwhelmingly strong in reason +and demonstration; and, the supreme curb upon thought being once +broken, a wider freedom was gained. + +For Darwin, therefore, Huxley had the reverence due to one who had +forged a new and mighty weapon in the war for plain truth. But, +while he could not but uphold a theory so much in accord with his own +knowledge and so fruitful in its promise of new knowledge, whether the +author of it were his friend or not, admiration and affection for a +man of such utter sincerity, such selfless respect for truth, and warm +personality, led him, when those views were stupidly or maliciously +attacked, to take more trouble in his defence and support, and to +strike out much harder at his adversary than he would otherwise have +done. Darwin's friends were well assured that the scanty time which +his health allowed for work was far too precious to be wasted in +controversy; for his own sake and for the sake of the calm atmosphere +in which a great theory should be worked out, they thought that the +battling on a lower plane should be left to them. "You ought to be +like one of the blessed gods of Elysium, and let the inferior deities +do battle with the infernal powers." "If I say a savage thing," Huxley +told him, "it is only 'pretty Fanny's way'; but if you do, it is not +likely to be forgotten." Hence a dash of personal pleasure was infused +into the duty of upholding and defending the bringer of new light. + +The acquaintance had begun about 1851; there was a common bond in +their sea experiences and explorations, as well as in their search +after a wider philosophy, to include the teachings of natural science; +the older man found in the younger a source of much biological and +other information, a suggestive critic and a stimulating companion. +Their relations took a long step towards intimacy after 1861, when, +after the loss of her eldest child, Mrs. Huxley and her other children +made a long stay at Down, and entered upon a life-long friendship with +Mrs. Darwin and the family. Thereafter followed many visits to Down, +and, whenever Darwin was in London, the certainty of half-an-hour's +keen talk--all that the doctor allowed--with his friend and +fellow-worker on some critical question of the moment. + +Darwin's admiration of his friend's powers was outspoken. To quote one +or two expressions of it: Huxley had delivered, in 1862, six lectures +to working men, which were printed off each week as delivered in +"little green pamphlets," under the general title of "On Our Knowledge +of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," winding up with +an account of the bearing of the _Origin_ upon the complete theory of +these causes. Acknowledging Nos. IV and V, Darwin writes:-- + + They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; + but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. + IV with this reflection: "What is the good of me writing a + thundering big book when everything is in this green little + book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is + good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. + +After reading the article "Mr. Darwin's Critics" in 1871, he wrote yet +more enthusiastically. Mr. Mivart, in an apologia for the attitude of +Roman Catholicism towards Evolution, twitted the generality of men of +science with their ignorance of the real doctrines of his Church, and +cited the Jesuit theologian, Suarez, the latest great representative +of scholasticism, as following St. Augustine in asserting derivative +creation--that is, evolution from primordial matter endowed with +certain powers. Huxley thereupon examined the works of the learned +Jesuit, and found not only that the particular reference was not +to the point, but that, in his tract on the "Six Days of Creation," +Suarez expressly rejects the doctrine and reprehends Augustine +for holding it. "So," write Huxley gleefully at the irony of the +situation, "I have come out in the new character of a defender of +Catholic orthodoxy, and upset Mivart out of the mouth of his own +prophet." + +In the course of a most appreciative letter Darwin exclaimed:-- + + What a wonderful man you are to grapple with those old + metaphysico-divinity books.... The pendulum is now swinging + against our side, but I feel positive it will soon swing the + other way; and no mortal man will do half as much as you in + giving it a start in the right direction, as you did at the + commencement. + +And then, after "mounting climax on climax," he adds: + + "I must tell you what Hooker said to me a few years ago. 'When + I read Huxley I feel quite infantile in intellect.'" + +The most touching act of friendship, and one which assuredly gave +personal point to Huxley's remark in another connection, "Darwin is +in all things noble and generous--one of those people who think it +a privilege to let him help," took place when Huxley's health had +utterly broken down in 1873, and he was as depressed in mind as +in body. Who could say No to these words from the oldest and most +venerated among his devoted friends?-- + + Down, Beckenham, Kent. + April 23, 1873. + + My dear Huxley, + + I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in + number,) to inform you that they have placed through Robarts, + Lubbock, and Company the sum of £2,100 to your account at your + bankers. We have done this to enable you to get such complete + rest as you may require for the re-establishment of your + health; and in doing this we are convinced that we act for + the public interest, as well as in accordance with our most + earnest desires. Let me assure you that we are all your warm + personal friends, and that there is not a stranger or mere + acquaintance among us. If you could have heard what was + said, or could have read what was, as I believe, our inmost + thoughts, you would know that we all feel towards you as we + should to an honoured and much-loved brother. I am sure that + you will return this feeling, and will therefore be glad to + give us the opportunity of aiding you in some degree, as this + will be a happiness to us to the last day of our lives. Let + me add that our plan occurred to several of your friends at + nearly the same time, and quite independently of one another. + My dear Huxley, your affectionate friend, + + CHARLES DARWIN. + +Huxley was deeply moved. "What have I done to deserve this?" he +exclaimed. Before this generosity he at last allowed himself to +confess that, in the long struggle against ill health, he had been +beaten; but, as he said, only enough to teach him humility. + +The relief from anxieties, the ultimate restoration to health through +a clear holiday, were an unforgettable gift from this "band of +brothers," and the sufferer who had been healed rejoiced when not +long after an opportunity arose to share in a similar gift of help and +healing to another of the same good fellowship. + + + + +XVI + +HOOKER, FORBES, TYNDALL, AND SPENCER + + +Of his nearer contemporaries the two most intimate and faithful of +his life-long friendships were with Tyndall and Hooker, concerning the +utter frankness of which he writes to the latter:-- + + I wish you wouldn't be apologetic about criticism from + people who have a right to criticize. I always look upon any + criticism as a compliment, not but what the old Adam in T.H.H. + _will_ arise and fight vigorously against all impugnment and + irrespective of all odds in the way of authority, but that + is the way of the beast. Why I value your and Tyndall's and + Darwin's friendship so much is, among other things, that you + all pitch into me when necessary. You may depend upon it, + however blue I may look when in the wrong, it's wrath with + myself and nobody else. + +The common note in these friendships was not only community of aims, +but an essential generosity and sincerity. This it was that had drawn +him so strongly to Edward Forbes among the leaders of biology when he +returned, an unknown but promising pioneer of science, from the voyage +of the _Rattlesnake_. For Forbes inspired his admiration and affection +as a man of letters and an artist who had not merged the _man_ in +the man of science; free from pedantry or jealousy--the two besetting +faults of literary and scientific men; earnest, disinterested, ready +to give his time and influence to help any man who was working for the +cause; one of the few to whom a proud man could feel obliged without +losing a particle of independence or self-respect. + + My notions [he writes] are diametrically opposed to his in + some matters, and he helps me to oppose him.... I had a long + paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his + views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it + afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such + a man and yet respect myself. + +Without his aid and sympathy the young man would never have persevered +in the course he ventured to choose, and in following which it was one +of his greatest hopes that they should work in harmony for long years +at the aims so dear to both. + +"One could trust him so thoroughly!" There lay the root of friendship. +And the trust was thoroughly reciprocated. The entire frankness +between friends is brightly illustrated by the history of the award +of the Royal Medal in 1854. As a member of the Royal Society Council, +Huxley had to vote on the names proposed for the various medals. +For the Royal Medal first Hooker was named, and received his hearty +support; then Forbes was put up, in his eyes equally deserving, and +almost more closely bound to him by ties of active friendship, so +that, whichever way he ultimately voted, his action might possibly be +ascribed to personal, not scientific, motives. Thereupon he explained +to the Council that he considered their claims equal; that, whichever +chanced to have been put forward first, he would never have proposed +the other in opposition to him. As he had spoken of Hooker's +merits, so also he spoke of Forbes's, positively, and not by way of +comparison; and this done, voted for both! + +Hooker was actually elected. Huxley then wrote to both his friends, +explaining fully what he had done. Had he felt that one of the two had +strongly superior claims, and thought it right to vote for him only, +the other, he was sure, would have fully appreciated his motives, and +it would have done no injury to their friendship. + +He was not mistaken. Among his most precious possessions he kept +Forbes's reply:-- + + I heartily concur in the course you have taken, and, had I + been placed as you have been, would have done exactly + the same.... Your way of proceeding was as true an act of + friendship as any that could be performed. As to myself, I + dream so little about medals that the notion of being on the + list never entered my brain, even when asleep. If it ever + comes, I shall be pleased and thankful; if it does not, it is + not the sort of thing to break my equanimity. Indeed, I would + always like to see it given not as a mere honour, but as a + help to a good man, and this it is assuredly in Hooker's case. + Government people are so ignorant that they require to have + people's merits drummed into their heads by all possible + means, and Hooker's getting the medal may be of real service + to him before long. I am in a snug, though not an idle, nest; + he has not got his resting-place yet. And so, my dear Huxley, + I trust that you know me too well to think that I am either + grieved or envious; and you, Hooker, and I are much of the + same way of thinking. + +Frankness was the only remedy for such an imbroglio, and, as Huxley +wrote to Hooker about a similar case a couple of years later:-- + + It's deuced hard to keep straight in this wicked world, but, + as you say, the only chance is to out with it, and I thank you + much for writing so frankly about the matter. + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Downey, 1890 To face p. 102] + +With Hooker, the keen observer and critical reasoner, the man of warm +impulses and sane judgments, he had a peculiarly intimate bond of +friendship summed up in a letter of 1888, when they had received the +Copley medal in successive years:-- + + 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 that I + owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of + things gained in the old _Rattlesnake_. + +From earliest days, soon after they had returned, the one from the +South Seas, the other from the Himalayas, they had stood shoulder +to shoulder confidently in the struggle to put science on a firm +and independent footing. When the future of the Natural History +Collections at the British Museum was in the balance, they +energetically resolved to constitute themselves into a permanent +"Committee of Safety," to watch over what was being done and take +measures with the advice of others when necessary. Together as +biologists they realized the greatness of Darwin's vision; together +they bore the brunt of the battle of the _Origin_ at Oxford. In +seeking a good mouthpiece for scientific opinion, in reorganizing +and administering the great scientific societies, in their work for +scientific education, they shared the same ideas, and their friendship +and Tyndall's formed the starting-point of the _x_ Club, with its +regular meetings of old friends. More than once they went off on a +short holiday tour together, and when Huxley was invalided in 1873 it +was Hooker who took charge and carried him off for a month's active +trip in the geological paradise of the Auvergne. The care and company +of so good a friend made the crowning ingredient in a most successful +prescription. And when both had retired from official life a new +interest in common sprang up through Huxley's incursion into botany. +While recruiting his health in the high Alps, his interest was aroused +by the Gentians, and he wrote a valuable paper on their morphology +and distribution. This interest continued itself into the making of +a rock-garden in his Eastbourne home, where, in his spare hours, +he proceeded to put into happy practice Candide's famous maxim, +"_Cultivons notre jardin_," and drew from this occupation the simile +of the wild chalk down and the cultivated garden in his Romanes +Lecture to illustrate the contrast between the cosmic process and the +social organism. + +Hooker often sent his friend plants from his own garden, sometimes +banteringly including one which would "flourish in any neglected +corner." + +An unclouded intimacy of friendship lasted to the end, and it was +Hooker who received the last letter written by his friend. + +Close as a brother, too, and claiming the name of brother in +affectionate adoption, was John Tyndall, radiant in genial warmth +and high spirits. They, too, were at one in thoughts, sympathies, and +aims; they travelled together, especially in the Alps, where Tyndall +mainly carried out the investigation of certain problems in relation +to the glaciers which Huxley had suggested to him, and, being "a +masterful man and over-generous," insisted that the resulting paper on +glaciers should bear both their names. + +Tyndall came to the School of Mines as Professor of Physics in 1859 at +his friend's instigation, and for nine years they were, as colleagues, +in daily contact, and indeed were not far separated when Tyndall +succeeded Faraday at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. + +Tyndall, who remained a bachelor till late in middle life, always +found a warm corner beside his friend's hearth. From the earliest days +of the household in the little house at Waverley Place he was admitted +to the inner circle of a lively friendship by Mrs. Huxley also, that +keen judge of character, and to the children ranked as a kind of +unofficial uncle. On New Year's Day he was chief among the two or +three intimates who were bidden here, having no domestic hearth of +their own, Herbert Spencer and Hirst being the other "regulars," and +later Michael Foster. + +As the two men both had ready pens and stood side by side in many +controversies, they came to be regarded by the public as a pair of +Great Twin Brethren, the Castor and Pollux of many a scientific battle +of Lake Regillus. Odd confusions sometimes followed. In 1876, not +long after Tyndall's marriage to the daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, +Huxley was described in a newspaper paragraph as setting out for +America "with his titled bride," and even, on Tyndall's death, +received the doubtful honour of a funeral sermon. + +True that they did not see eye to eye on some of the most fundamental +matters of social and political principle, and where they did +Tyndall's vehement enthusiasm would sometimes sweep him into +activities where his friend could not follow. But these things were +no bar to their mutual affection and esteem, and in token of this two +letters of 1866 may be quoted, when England was sharply divided on the +question of Governor Eyre's action in suppressing an incipient revolt +in Jamaica. + +In particular, a negro preacher named Gordon had been arrested, +court-martialled, and summarily executed. A Royal Commission appointed +to inquire into the case declared that the evidence given appeared to +be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner +took his trial, and that in the evidence adduced they could not see +any sufficient proof of Gordon's complicity in the outbreak, or of +having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government. + +To many thoughtful and law-abiding persons such a proceeding +appeared to be no better than judicial murder, constituting a hideous +precedent; a committee was formed to present a formal indictment +against Governor Eyre and obtain a judicial pronouncement on the +question, quite apart from the two other questions persistently +confused with it--namely, was Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a +psalm-singing firebrand, and was Governor Eyre actuated by the highest +and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken +rashness or worse impulses? + +With this high constitutional end in view--the protection of +individual liberty--Huxley joined the committee. To Charles Kingsley, +who confessed to taking the hero-worshipper's view of Governor Eyre, +Huxley replied:-- + + I dare say he did all this with the best of motives and in a + heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes + have no more right to kill people in this fashion than other + folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas + or some other quiet place where there is less hero-worship + and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more + importance than hero-worship. + + In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much + by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their + deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of + the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is + that it will help a great many people to find out what their + profoundest political beliefs are. + + The hero-worshippers who believe that the world is to be + governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, + justly if they can, but, if not, unjustly drive or kick them + the right way, will sympathize with Mr. Eyre. + + The other sect (to which I belong), who look upon hero-worship + as no better than any other idolatry and upon the attitude of + mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think + it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right + in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice + as between man and man as of far greater importance than even + the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre + has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in + authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain + a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law + of England. + + People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert + one another. To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom + I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed + to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and + wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle + and without bitterness. + +To Tyndall, whose convictions were bred in Ulster and fostered by an +ardent devotion to Carlyle, he wrote in the same strain, apropos of a +friend's banter on their sudden division:-- + + I replied to the jest earnestly enough--that I hoped and + believed our old friendship was strong enough to stand any + strain that might be put on it, much as I grieved that we + should be ranged in opposite camps in this or any other case. + + That you and I have fundamentally different political + principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us + during the progress of the American War. The fact is made + still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit + of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in + it any important fact or argument which had not passed through + my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee. + + Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ, + each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and + respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing + his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is + at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in + which Englishmen have for many years been engaged. + + If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be + able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another + which I value as one of the good things of my life. + +That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship +he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private +encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most +tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life. + +It was probably after a meeting of the _x_ Club, in the freedom of +which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote +accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following +reply:-- + + Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme + and unjust severity. + + I recollect you _looked_ rather savage at one point in our + discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt + act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully + deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made + upon you. + + What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know, + but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said + that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than + yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the + extent to which I have tried your patience. + + So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of + accumulated merit, _envers moi_; and if you should ever feel + inclined to "d---- my eyes," you can do so and have a balance + left. + + Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to + apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--ned + or und--d),--Ever yours faithfully.... + +If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation, +he was a living inspiration to the friends of the next generation, +especially to the pupils and teaching lieutenants who worked in +close touch with him. His younger disciples always felt that in acute +criticism and vast learning nobody surpassed him; but what they yet +more admired than his learning was his wisdom. It was a delight to +read an essay fresh from his pen, but an ever so much higher delight +to hear him talk for five minutes. "His," says Professor Hubrecht, +"was the most beautiful and the most manly intellect I ever knew +of." The personal affection as well as admiration he inspired may be +gathered from Sir E. Ray Lankester's words: "There has been no man or +woman whom I have met in my journey through life whom I have loved +and regarded as I have him, and I feel that the world has shrunk +and become a poor thing now that his splendid spirit and delightful +presence are gone from it." And Professor Jeffery Parker concludes his +Recollections of his old chief with these words:-- + + Whether a professor is usually a hero to his demonstrator I + cannot say; I only know that, looking back across an interval + of many years and a distance of half the circumference of the + globe, I have never ceased to be impressed with the manliness + and sincerity of his character, his complete honesty of + purpose, his high moral standard, his scorn of everything mean + or shifty, his firm determination to speak what he held to be + truth at whatever cost of popularity. And for these things + "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side + idolatry, as much as any." + +Indeed, his relations with his demonstrators were typical of his +judgment of men, his distinction between the essential and the +unessential, which made him a successful administrator. + + To a new subordinate "The General," as he was always called, + was rather stern and exacting; but when once he was convinced + that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him + take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, + accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good + humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word + of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling + to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the + laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when + neither sun nor stars in many days appeared." "Never mind, + Parker," he said, instantly capping my quotation, "cast four + anchors out of the stern and wish for day." + +The first passport to his friendship was entire sincerity. Whatever +other claims might be advanced, he would shut out from any approach to +intimacy those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. +Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and +dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters +of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods +of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold +correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead +of raising it. + + + + +XVII + +IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE + + +His acquaintance and friendship were eagerly sought, and to those who +entered the circle he gave abundantly of his brilliant gifts and of +friendly affection; but the inmost circle was small--the men who were +comrades and brothers; the sister and the brother united with him in +love and trust; the wife to win whom he served so long, and without +whose sustaining help and comradeship his quick spirit and nervous +temperament could hardly have endured the long and often embittered +struggle. + +In this inmost circle he was at once strong and tender. The friend who +most cordially admired his intellectual vigour and unflinching honesty +could write after his death that-- + + what now dwells most in my mind is the memory of old kindness, + and of the days when I used to see him with (his wife) and his + children. I may safely say that I never came from your + house without thinking how good he is; what a tender and + affectionate nature the man has. It did me good simply to see + him. + +Always the home was the inmost centre of his own life. Here he found +personal solace in his long struggle; the sympathy that was the pillar +and stay of his genius, the twin incentive to labour and achievement, +the warmth that gave a fuller value to the light he ensued. None knew +more perfectly than himself what he owed to his life-long companion, +who, in turn, was as much uplifted by his eager spirit as she was +proud to be the cherisher of big aspirations and the active minister +to his attainment. To her critical ear he gave the first reading of +his essays; the judgment and the praise that he most valued were hers, +and, as he put it towards the end of his life, when he was travelling +with his son in Madeira and had been cut off from letters longer than +he liked:-- + + Catch me going out of reach of letters again. I have been + horridly anxious. Nobody--children or any one else--can be + to me what you are. Ulysses preferred his old woman to + immortality, and this absence has led me to see that he was as + wise in that as in other things. + +Quick and keen-edged as he was, I cannot recall his ever losing his +temper with any of us at home. Firm he was under his great tenderness +for children; those nearest him felt a certain awe before the +infallible force of his moral judgments; his arbitrament, though +rarely invoked, was instant and final. Going out into the world +afterwards, I think we did not fail to realize how different the +home atmosphere must be where self-control does not rule, and the +inevitable rubs of life find vent in irritable and ill-considered +words. + +It was one of the penalties of his hard-driven existence that for the +first fifteen or twenty years of his married life he had scarcely any +time to devote to his children. The "lodger," as he used to describe +himself, who went out early and came back late, could sometimes +spare half-an-hour just before or just after dinner to draw wonderful +pictures for the little ones, or on a Sunday he would now and then +walk with the elder ones to Hampstead Heath or to the Zoo, where, as +a constant visitant to the prosector's laboratory, he was a well-known +figure, and admitted by the keepers to their arcana. But, while he +often told us stories of the sea and of animals, he did not talk +"shop" to us, as many people seemed to expect by their inquiries +whether we did not receive quite a scientific education from his +companionship. + +At the same time, he was anything but a Bohemian. His inborn gaiety +and high spirits, his humour and love of adventure, found from the +first a balance in his love of science; and the rough experience +of his early days intensified by contrast the spiritual serenity +of united love. Lack of order, whether in mind or in outward +surroundings, was no recommendation to him; and so far as the +conventions represented in brief some valid results of social +experience, he observed them and upheld them. They are not always dry +husks out of which reason has evaporated. But where such were merely +unreasoned custom, he was ready to set aside his mere likes and +dislikes on good cause shown, and to follow reason as against the +simple prejudice of custom, even his own. + +On the whole, he made his impression on his children more by example +than by spoken precept; much of his attitude may be gathered from a +letter to his son on his twenty-first birthday:-- + + You will have a son some day yourself, I suppose, and, if you + do, I can wish you no greater satisfaction than to be able to + say that he has reached manhood without having given a serious + anxiety, and that you can look forward with entire confidence + to his playing the man in the battle of life. I have tried to + make you feel your responsibilities and act independently as + early as possible; but, once for all, remember that I am not + only your father but your nearest friend, ready to help you in + all things reasonable, and perhaps in a few unreasonable. + +After he had retired from his professorial work and settled down at +Eastbourne, his grandchildren reaped the advantage of his leisure. +His natural love for children had scope for expression, and children +themselves had an instinctive confidence in the power and sympathy +that irradiated his face and gave his square, rugged features the +beauty of wisdom and kindliness. He could captivate them alike by +lively fun and excellent nonsense, and by lucid explanations of the +wonders of the world about which children love to hear. He fired one +small granddaughter with a love of astronomy, and one day a visitor, +entering unexpectedly, was startled to find the pair of them kneeling +on the floor of the entrance hall before a large sheet of paper, on +which the professor was drawing a diagram of the solar system, with +a little pellet and a big ball to represent earth and sun, while the +child was listening with rapt attention to an account of the planets +and their movements, which he knew so well how to make simple and +precise without ever being dull. + +One of the most charming unions of the playful and serious was his +letter to the small boy, still under five, who was reading _The Water +Babies_, wherein his grandfather's name is genially made fun of among +the authorities on Water Babies and Water Beasts of every description. +Moreover, there is a picture by Linley Sambourne, showing Huxley and +Owen examining a bottled Water Baby under big magnifying glasses. +Now, as the child greatly desired more light on the reality of Water +Babies, here was an authority to consult. And, as he had already +learned to write, he indited a letter of inquiry, first anxiously +asking his mother if he would receive in reply a "proper letter" that +he could read for himself, or a "wrong letter" that must be read to +him. The hint bore fruit, and to his carefully pencilled epistle: + + Have you seen a Water Baby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it + wonder if it could get out? Can I see it some day? + +came a reply from his grandfather, neatly printed, letter by letter, +very unlike the orderly confusion with which his pen usually rushed +across the paper--to the great perplexity, often, of his foreign +correspondents and sometimes of correspondents nearer home:-- + + I never could make sure about that Water Baby. I have seen + Babies in water and Babies in bottles; but the Baby in the + water was not in a bottle, and the Baby in the bottle was not + in water. + + My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very + kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as + much in the water as he did. There are some people who see a + great deal and some who see very little in the same things. + + When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal + seers and see things more wonderful than Water Babies where + other folks can see nothing. + +There is a story of Mohammed that once, rather than disturb a +favourite cat, he cut off the sleeve of his robe on which it lay +asleep. Whether in like circumstances my father would have done the +same--had flowing sleeves been a Victorian fashion--I cannot certainly +say, though he once was found similarly dispossessed of his favourite +study chair; but he always regarded this anecdote as displaying +an agreeable trait in the Prophet. For he himself was very fond +of animals, and, though we seldom kept dogs in London, cats were +invariable members of the household. Apropos of these, a letter may +be quoted which was written in 1893 in reply to an inquiry from a +journalist who was collecting anecdotes for an article on the Home +Pets of Celebrities:-- + + A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the + last forty years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry to say that I + have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral + excellences. + + The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, + grey Tabby--Oliver by name. Not that he is in any sense a + protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a + mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly + of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus + manifested, may develop with age into efficient mousing. + + As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the + warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible; + his punctuality at meal-times is admirable; and his + pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders, till they + give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great + firmness. + + + + +XVIII + +SOME LETTERS AND TABLE TALK + + +My father's letters were seldom without a dash of playfulness or +humour somewhere; a thing always fresh and spontaneous, unlike the +calculated or laboured playfulness sometimes to be observed in the +epistolary touch of literary folk. A capital example is a note to +Matthew Arnold, at whose house he had left his umbrella. Arnold, it +may be added, had recently been critically engaged upon the works of +Bishop Wilson:-- + + Look at Bishop Wilson on the sin of covetousness, and then + inspect your umbrella stand. You will there see a beautiful + brown smooth-handled umbrella which is _not_ your property. + + Think of what the excellent prelate would have advised, and + bring it with you next time you come to the Club. The porter + will take care of it for me. + +Sometimes the words will come trippingly from the pen as if they were +flung out in a brilliant flash of talk, like the following sketch of +human character:-- + + Men, my dear, are very queer animals, a mixture of + horse-nervousness, ass-stubbornness, and camel-malice--with + an angel bobbing about unexpectedly like the apple in the + posset--and when they can do exactly as they please they are + very hard to drive. + +As to his conversation, that, wrote the late Wilfrid Ward, + + was singularly finished and (if I may so express it) + clean cut; never long-winded or prosy; enlivened by vivid + illustrations. He was an excellent _raconteur_, and his + stories had a stamp of their own which would have made them + always and everywhere acceptable. His sense of humour and + economy of words would have made it impossible, had he lived + to ninety, that they should ever have been disparaged as + symptoms of what has been called "anecdotage." + +Some fragments of his talk have been preserved by the same hand. +Speaking of Tennyson's conversation, he said: "Doric beauty is its +characteristic--perfect simplicity, without any ornament or anything +artificial." + +Telling how he had been to a meeting of the British Museum Trustees, +he said: "After the meeting Archbishop Benson helped me on with +my greatcoat. I was _quite overcome_ by this species of spiritual +investiture. 'Thank you, Archbishop,' I said; 'I feel as if I were +receiving the pallium.'" + +On another occasion he drew a distinction between two writers, with +neither of whom he sympathized. "Don't mistake me. One is a thinker +and man of letters, the other is only a literary man. Erasmus was a +man of letters; Gigadibs a literary man. A.B. is the incarnation of +Gigadibs. I should call him _Gigadibsius Optimus Maximus_." + +Of his quickness in rising to the occasion Professor Howes tells a +story. Staying after a lecture to answer questions, he turned to a +student and said: "Well, I hope you understood it all." "All, sir, but +one part, during which you stood between me and the blackboard," was +the reply; the rejoinder: "I did my best to make myself clear, but +could not render myself transparent." + +From among my own recollections I give the following:--"It is one of +the most saddening things that, try as we may, we can never be certain +of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain +of making them unhappy." Of the attitude towards Spiritualism of a +certain member of the Society for Psychical Research:--"He doesn't +believe in it, yet lends it the cover of his name. He is one of those +people who talk of the 'possibility' of the thing, who think the +difficulties of disproving a thing as good as direct evidence in its +favour." + +Again:--"It is very strange how most men will do anything to evade +responsibility." Later, we were talking of the contrast between +Hellene and Hebrew. "The real chosen people," he said, "were the +Greeks. One of the most remarkable things about them is not only +the smallness but the late rise of Attica, whereas Magna +Graecia flourished in the eighth century. The Greeks were doing +everything--piracy, trade, fighting, expelling the Persians. Never was +there so large a number of self-governing communities. + +"They fell short of the Jews in morality. How curious is the tolerant +attitude of Socrates, like a modern man of the world talking to a +young fellow who runs after the girls. The Jew, however he fell short +in other respects, set himself a certain standard in cleanliness of +life, and would not fall below it. The more creditable to him, because +these vices were the offspring of the Semitic races among whom the Jew +lived. + +"There is a curious similarity between the position of the Jew in +ancient times and what it is now. They were procurers and usurers +among the Gentiles, yet many of them were singularly high-minded and +pure. All, too, with an intense clannishness, the secret of their +success, and a sense of superiority to the Gentile which would prevent +the meanest Jew from sitting at table with a pro-consul. + +"The most remarkable achievement of the Jew was to impose on Europe +for eighteen centuries his own superstitions--his ideas of the +supernatural. Jahveh was no more than Zeus or Milcom; yet the Jew got +established the belief in the inspiration of his Bible and his law. +If I were a Jew, I should have the same contempt as he has for the +Christian who acted in this way towards me, who took my ideas and +scorned me for clinging to them." + +Here may be quoted a passage from a letter to Professor George +Romanes:-- + + I have a great respect for the Nazarenism of Jesus--very + little for later "Christianity." But the only religion that + appeals to me is prophetic Judaism. Add to it something from + the best Stoics and something from Spinoza and something from + Goethe, and there is a religion for men. Some of these days I + think I will make a cento out of the works of these people. + +This cento, however, he never made. Had he done so, he would assuredly +have illustrated his saying to Charles Kingsley:-- + + My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves + to fact; not to try and make facts harmonize with my + aspirations-- + +a notion expanded thus:-- + + Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest + manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian + conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down + before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every + pre-conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever + abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only + begun to learn content and peace of mind since I resolved at + all costs to do this. + + + + +PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST., LONDON, E.C.4. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Henry Huxley, by Leonard Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY *** + +***** This file should be named 15429-8.txt or 15429-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/2/15429/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, S.R.Ellison and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/15429-8.zip b/15429-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..be52a8a --- /dev/null +++ b/15429-8.zip diff --git a/15429.txt b/15429.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f727470 --- /dev/null +++ b/15429.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4310 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Henry Huxley, by Leonard Huxley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thomas Henry Huxley + A Character Sketch + +Author: Leonard Huxley + +Release Date: March 21, 2005 [EBook #15429] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, S.R.Ellison and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LIFE-STORIES OF FAMOUS MEN + + + + +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + + + + + ISSUED FOR THE + RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, + LIMITED + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry: Frontispiece] + + + + LIFE-STORIES OF FAMOUS MEN + + + + THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY + + A CHARACTER SKETCH + + + BY + + LEONARD HUXLEY, LL.D. + + + LONDON: + WATTS & CO., + 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4 + 1920 + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + I. INTRODUCTORY 1 + II. EARLY DAYS 2 + III. MEDICAL TRAINING 13 + IV. VOYAGE OF THE "RATTLESNAKE" AND ITS SEQUEL 17 + V. LEHRJAHRE 23 + VI. VERACITY AND AGNOSTICISM 29 + VII. CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN" 37 + VIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES 43 + IX. POPULAR EDUCATION 51 + X. EDUCATION; ESPECIALLY OF TEACHERS AND WOMEN 60 + XI. METHODS OF WORK 65 + XII. SCIENCE AND ETHICS 72 + XIII. MORALITY AND THE CHURCH 80 + XIV. LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS 84 + XV. CHARLES DARWIN 92 + XVI. HOOKER, FORBES, TYNDALL, SPENCER 100 + XVII. IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE 111 + XVIII. SOME LETTERS AND TABLE-TALK 117 + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + ELLIOTT AND FRY _Frontispiece_ + + FROM A DAGUERROTYPE MADE IN 1846 _To face p._20 + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + MAULL AND POLYBLANK, 1857 _To face p._44 + + PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY + DOWNEY, 1890 _To face p._102 + + + + +I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +The object of a full-dress biography is to present as complete +a picture as may be of a man and his work, the influence of his +character upon his achievement, the struggle with opposing influences +to carry out some guiding purpose or great idea. With abundant +documents at hand the individual development, the action of events +upon character, and of character upon events, can be shown in the +spontaneous freedom of letters, as well as in considered publications. +But this little book is not a full-dress biography, although it may +induce readers to turn to the larger _Life and Letters_, in which +(or in the _Aphorisms and Reflections of T.H. Huxley_) facts and +quotations can be turned up by means of the index; it is designed +rather as a character sketch, to show not so much the work done as +what manner of man Huxley was, and the spirit in which he undertook +that work. It will not be a history of his scientific investigations +or his philosophical researches; it will be personal, while from the +personal side illustrating his attitude towards his scientific and +philosophical thought. + + + + +II + +EARLY DAYS + + +Thomas Henry Huxley was born ten years after Waterloo, while the +country was still in the backwash of the long-drawn Napoleonic wars. +It was a time of material reconstruction and expansion, while social +reconstruction lagged sadly and angrily behind. The year of his birth +saw the first railway opened in England; it was seven years before +electoral reform began, with its well-meant but dispiriting sequel +in the new Poor Law. The defeat of the political and aggressive cause +which had imposed itself upon the revolutionary inspiration of freedom +strengthened the old orthodoxies here. Questioning voices were raised +at their proper peril. + +Thomas Henry was the seventh child of George Huxley and Rachel +Withers, his wife. He was born on May 4, 1825, at half-past nine in +the morning, according to the entry in the family Bible, at Ealing, +where his father was senior assistant-master in the well-known school +of Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford. The good doctor, who +had succeeded his father-in-law here in 1791, was enough of a public +character to have his name parodied by Thackeray as Dr. Tickleus. + +"I am not aware," writes Huxley playfully in an autobiographical +sketch, + + that any portents preceded my arrival in this world; but in + my childhood I remember hearing a traditional account of the + manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of great + practical value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in + consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same + reason, probably, a neighbouring bee-hive had swarmed, and the + new colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way + into the room when the horrified nurse shut down the sash. If + that well-meaning woman had only abstained from her ill-timed + interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and + I should have been endowed with that mellifluous eloquence + which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth, + capacity, or honest work, to the highest places in Church and + State. But the opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged + to content myself through life with saying what I mean in the + plainest of plain language, than which, I suppose, there is no + habit more ruinous to a man's prospects of advancement. + +The fact that he received the name of the doubting apostle was by no +means one of those superhuman coincidences in which some naive people +see portents. In later years my father used to make humorous play +with its appropriateness, but in plain fact he was named after his +grandfather, Thomas Huxley. I have not traced the origin of the Henry. + +Both parents were of dark complexion, and all the children were +dark-haired and dark-eyed. The father was tall, and, I believe, well +set-up: a miniature shows him with abundant, brown, curling hair +brushed high above a good forehead, giving the effect, so fashionable +in 1830, of a high-peaked head. The features are well cut and regular; +the nose rather long and inclined to be aquiline; the cheeks well +covered; the eyes, under somewhat arched brows, expressive and +interesting. Outwardly, there is a certain resemblance traceable +between the miniature and a daguerrotype of Huxley at nineteen; +but the debt, physical and mental, owed to either parent is thus +recorded:-- + + Physically, I am the son of my mother so completely--even + down to peculiar movements of the hands, which made their + appearance in me as I reached the age she had when I noticed + them--that I can hardly find any trace of my father in myself, + except an inborn faculty for drawing, which, unfortunately + in my case, has never been cultivated; a hot temper, and + that amount of tenacity of purpose which unfriendly observers + sometimes call obstinacy. + + My mother was a slender brunette, of an emotional and + energetic temperament, and possessed of the most piercing + black eyes I ever saw in a woman's head. With no more + education than other women of the middle classes in her day, + she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most distinguishing + characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If one + ventured to suggest that she had not taken much time to arrive + at any conclusion, she would say: "I cannot help it; things + flash across me." That peculiarity has been passed on to me + in full strength; it has often stood me in good stead; it + has sometimes played me sad tricks, and it has always been a + danger. But, after all, if my time were to come over again, + there is nothing I would less willingly part with than my + inheritance of mother-wit. + +Restless, talkative, untiring to the day of her death, she was at +sixty-six "as active and energetic as a young woman." To her he was +devoted. + + As a child my love for her was a passion. I have lain awake + for hours crying because I had a morbid fear of her death; + her approbation was my greatest reward, her displeasure my + greatest punishment. + +About his childhood, he writes, + + I have next to nothing to say. In after years my mother, + looking at me almost reproachfully, would sometimes say, "Ah! + you were such a pretty boy!" whence I had no difficulty in + concluding that I had not fulfilled my early promise in the + matter of looks. In fact, I have a distinct recollection of + certain curls of which I was vain, and of a conviction that + I closely resembled that handsome, courtly gentleman, Sir + Herbert Oakley, who was vicar of our parish, and who was as a + god to us country folk because he was occasionally visited + by the then Prince George of Cambridge. I remember turning my + pinafore wrong side forwards in order to represent a surplice, + and preaching to my mother's maids in the kitchen as nearly as + possible in Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday morning, when + the rest of the family were at church. That is the earliest + indication of the strong clerical affinities which my friend + Mr. Herbert Spencer has always ascribed to me, though I fancy + they have, for the most part, remained in a latent state. + +He was not a precocious child, nor pushed forward by early +instruction. His native talent for drawing, had it been cultivated, +might have brought him into the front rank of artists; but on the +perverse principle, then common, that training is either useless to +native capacity or ruins it, he remained untaught, and his vigorous +draughtsmanship, invaluable as it was in his scientific career, never +reached its full technical perfection. But the sketches which he +delighted to make on his travels reveal the artist's eye, if not his +trained hand. + +His regular schooling was of the scantiest. For two years, from the +age of eight to ten, he was at the Ealing school. It was a semi-public +school of the old unreformed type. What did a little boy learn there? +The rudiments of Latin, of arithmetic, and divinity may be regarded as +certain. Greek is improbable, and, in fact, I think my father had no +school foundation to build upon when he took up Greek at the age of +fifty-five in order to read in the original precisely what Aristotle +had written, and not what he was said to have written, about his +dissection of the heart. + +For the rest, his experience of such a school, before Dr. Arnold's +reforming spirit had made itself felt over the country, is eloquent +testimony to the need of it. + + Though my way of life [he writes] has made me acquainted + with all sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to the + lowest, I deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at + school was the worst I have ever known. We boys were average + lads, with much the same inherent capacity for good and evil + as any others; but the people who were set over us cared about + as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they were + baby-farmers. We were left to the operation of the struggle + for existence among ourselves; bullying was the least of the + ill practices current among us. + +One bright spot in these recollections was the licking of an +intolerable bully, a certain wild-cat element in him making up for +lack of weight. But, alas for justice, "I--the victor--had a black +eye, while he--the vanquished--had none, so that I got into disgrace +and he did not." A dozen years later he ran across this lad in +Sydney, acting as an ostler, a transported convict who had, moreover, +undergone more than one colonial conviction. + +This brief school career was ended by the break-up of the Ealing +establishment. After Dr. Nicholas's death, his sons tried to carry on +the school; but the numbers fell off, and George Huxley, about 1835, +returned to his native town of Coventry as manager of the Coventry +Savings Bank, while his daughters eked out the slender family +resources by keeping school. + +Meantime, it does not seem that the boy Tom, as he was generally +called, received much regular instruction. On the other hand, he +learned a great deal for himself. He had an inquiring mind, and a +singularly early turn for metaphysical speculation. He read everything +he could lay hands on in his father's library. We catch a glimpse +of him at twelve, lighting his candle before dawn, and, with blanket +pinned round his shoulders, sitting up in bed to read Hutton's +_Geology_. We see him discussing all manner of questions with his +parents and friends; and, indeed, his eager and inquiring mind made it +possible for him to have friends considerably older than himself. One +of these was his brother-in-law, Dr. Cooke of Coventry, who married +his sister Ellen in 1839. Through Dr. Cooke he became, as a boy, +interested in human anatomy, with results that deeply affected his +career for good and for evil. + + The extraordinary attraction [he writes] I felt towards the + intricacies of living structure proved nearly fatal to me at + the outset. I was a mere boy--I think between thirteen and + fourteen years of age--when I was taken by some older student + friends of mine to the first _post-mortem_ examination I ever + attended. All my life I have been most unfortunately sensitive + to the disagreeables which attend anatomical pursuits, but on + this occasion my curiosity overpowered all other feelings, + and I spent two or three hours in gratifying it. I did not cut + myself, and none of the ordinary symptoms of dissection-poison + supervened; but poisoned I was somehow, and I remember sinking + into a strange state of apathy. By way of a last chance, I + was sent to the care of some good, kind people, friends of + my father's, who lived in a farmhouse in the heart of + Warwickshire. I remember staggering from my bed to the window, + on the bright spring morning after my arrival, and throwing + open the casement. Life seemed to come back on the wings of + the breeze, and to this day the faint odour of wood-smoke, + like that which floated across the farmyard in the early + morning, is as good to me as the "sweet south upon a bed of + violets." I soon recovered; but for years I suffered from + occasional paroxysms of internal pain, and from that time + my constant friend, hypochondriacal dyspepsia, commenced his + half-century of co-tenancy of my fleshly tabernacle. + +In this life-long recurrence of suffering he was like his great friend +and leader, Darwin. Each worked to his utmost under a severe handicap, +which, it must be remembered, in Darwin's case, was by far the +more constant and more disabling, though, happily, an ample fortune +absolved him from the troubles of pecuniary stress. + +Years afterwards, one of these "good, kind friends" calls up the +picture of "Tom Huxley looking so thin and ill, and pretending to make +hay with one hand, while in the other he held a German book." + +How did he come thus early to teach himself German, a study which was +to have undreamed-of consequences in his future? He learned it so well +that, while still a young man, he could read it--rare faculty--almost +as swiftly as English; and he was one of the swiftest readers I have +known. Thus equipped, he had the advantage of being one of the +few English men of science who made it a practice to follow German +research at first hand, and turn its light upon their own work. + +The learning of German was one half of the debt he owed to Carlyle, +the other being an intense hatred of shams of every sort and kind. He +had begun to read the fiery-tongued prophet in his earliest teens, and +caught his inspiration at once. _Sartor Resartus_ was for many years +his Enchiridion (he says), while the translations from the German, the +references to German literature and philosophy, fired him to read the +originals. + +As to other languages, his testimonials in 1842 record that he reads +French with facility, and has a fair knowledge of Latin. Thus he took +the _Suites a Buffon_ with him on the _Rattlesnake_ as a reference +book in zoology. As to Latin, he was not content with a knowledge of +its use in natural science. Beyond the minimum knowledge needful +to interpret, or to confer, the "barbarous binomials" of scientific +nomenclature, he was led on to read early scientific works published +in Latin; and in philosophy, something of Spinoza; and later, +massive tomes of the Fathers, whether to barb his exquisite irony in +dissecting St. George Mivart's exposition of the orthodox Catholic +view of Evolution, or in the course of his studies in Biblical +criticism. Of Greek, mention has already been made. He employed his +late beginnings of the language not only to follow Aristotle's work +as an anatomist, but to aid his studies in Greek philosophy and New +Testament criticism, and to enjoy Homer in the original. In middle +life, too, he dipped sufficiently into Norwegian and Danish to grapple +with some original scientific papers. When he was fifteen, Italian as +well as German is set down by him in his list of things to be +learnt, though for some time the pressure of preparing for the London +matriculation barred the way; and on the voyage of the _Rattlesnake_ +he spent many hours making out Dante with the aid of a dictionary. +No doubt, also, he must have read some Italian poetry with his wife +during their engagement and early married days, for she had a fair +acquaintance with Italian, as well as equalling his knowledge of +German. When he was past sixty and ill-health, cutting short his old +activities, had sent him to seek rest and change in Italy, he took +up Italian again, and plunged into the authorities on the very +interesting prehistoric archaeology of Italy. + +To return to his early development. There is extant a fragmentary +little journal of his, begun when he was fifteen, and kept irregularly +for a couple of years. Here the early bent of his mind is clearly +revealed; it prefigures the leading characteristics of his mature +intellect. He jots down any striking thought or saying he comes across +in the course of his reading; he makes practical experiments to test +his theories; above all, his insatiable curiosity to find out the +"why" and "how" of things makes him speculate on their causes, and +discuss with his friends the right and wrong of existing institutions. + +This curiosity to make out how things work is common to most healthy +boys; to probe deep into the reasoned "why" is rare. It makes the +practical mechanic into the man of science. Possessing both these +qualities as he did, it is easy to understand his own description of +his early ambitions:-- + + As I grew older, my great desire was to be a mechanical + engineer, but the fates were against this; and, while very + young, I commenced the study of medicine under a medical + brother-in-law. But, though the Institute of Mechanical + Engineers would certainly not own me, I am not sure that I + have not all along been a sort of mechanical engineer _in + partibus infidelium_. I am now occasionally horrified to think + how little I ever knew or cared about medicine as the art of + healing. The only part of my professional course which + really and deeply interested me was physiology, which is + the mechanical engineering of living machines; and, + notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper + business, I am afraid there is very little of the genuine + naturalist in me. I never collected anything, and species + work was always a burden to me; what I cared for was the + architectural and engineering part of the business, the + working out the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands + and thousands of diverse living constructions, and the + modifications of similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends. + +One or two typical extracts may be given from the _Journal_, which +opens with a quotation from Novalis: "Philosophy can bake no bread; +but it can prove for us God, freedom, and immortality. Which, now, is +more practical, Philosophy or Economy?" Later comes a quotation from +Lessing, which involved a cardinal principle that he claimed for +himself, and demanded of his pupils: accept no authority without +verifying it for yourself:-- + + I hate all people who want to found sects. It is not error, + but sects--it is not error, but sectarian error, nay, and even + sectarian truth, which causes the unhappiness of mankind. + +Electricity interests him specially; among other experiments, +while theorizing upon them, he makes a galvanic battery "in view +of experiment to get crystallized carbon: got it deposited, but not +crystallized." + +He is a young Radical in his opposition to anything like injustice, +though frankly admitting that youth is not infallible. One of his +boyish speculations was as to what would become of things if their +qualities were taken away. While on this quest, he got hold of Sir +William Hamilton's _Logic_, and read it to such good effect that when, +years afterwards, he sat down to the greater philosophers, he found +that he already had a clear notion of where the key of metaphysics +lay. The following extract from the _Journal_ shows that he already +had a characteristic point of view:-- + + Had a long talk with my mother and father about the right to + make Dissenters pay church rates, and whether there ought to + be any Establishment. I maintain that there ought not in both + cases--I wonder what will be my opinion ten years hence? I + think now that it is against all laws of justice to force + men to support a church with whose opinions they cannot + conscientiously agree. The argument that the rate is so small + is very fallacious. It is as much a sacrifice of principle to + do a little wrong as to do a great one. + +His friend, George Anderson May, with whom the boy of fifteen has "a +long argument on the nature of the soul and the difference between +it and matter," was then a man of six and twenty, in business at +Hinckley. + + I maintained that it could not be proved that matter is + _essentially_, as to its base, different from soul. Mr. M. + wittily said soul was the perspiration of matter. + + We cannot find the absolute basis of matter; we only know it + by its properties; neither know we the soul in any other way. + _Cogito ergo sum_ is the only thing that we _certainly_ know. + + Why may not soul and matter be of the same substance (i.e., + basis whereon to fix qualities; for we cannot suppose a + quality to exist _per se_, it must have a something to + qualify), but with different qualities? + +Hamilton's analysis of the Absolute, once learned, was never +forgotten. It was a philosophic touchstone, understood by the +boy, applied by the man. With the Absolute, an entity stripped of +perceptible qualities, an "hypostatized negation," he could have no +traffic. The Cartesian motto of thought as the essence of existence +became another fixed point for him, and his last questioning phrase +half suggests the line of reasoning which, as he afterwards put +it, asserts that, philosophically speaking, materialism is but +spiritualism turned inside out. + + + + +III + +MEDICAL TRAINING + + +At fifteen and a-half he began his medical training. Engineering, it +seems, was not within his parents' purview; the boy was thoughtful +and scientific; medicine was then the only avenue for science, and +medicine loomed large on their horizon, for two of their daughters +had married doctors. Of these, Dr. Cooke had already begun to give him +instruction in anatomy; it looked as though destiny had marked out his +career. + +In those days, the future doctor began by being apprenticed to a +regular practitioner; he picked up a great deal from compounding +medicines, watching out-patients in the surgery, and attending simple +cases, especially if he had a capable man to work under. At the same +time he prepared for his future examinations, and got ready to walk +the hospitals. + +This apprenticeship was a strongly formative period in Huxley's life. +He was bound to Dr. Chandler, of Rotherhithe, and joined him in this +quarter of poverty and struggle on January 7, 1841. The little journal +shows him busy with all the subjects of the London Matriculation: +History ancient and modern, Greek, Latin, English Grammar, Chemistry, +Mathematics, Physics, with German also and Physiology, besides +experimental work in natural science, philosophical analysis, and a +copious course of Carlyle. + +But this book-work was the least of the influences acting upon +him. Dr. Chandler had charge of the parish doctoring, and the boy's +experiences among the poor in the dock region of the East End left an +ineffaceable mark. It was a grim, living commentary on his Carlyle. +For the rest of his life the cause of the poor appealed vividly to +him, because he had at least seen something of the way in which the +poor lived. People who were suffering from nothing but slow starvation +would come to him for medical aid. One scene above all was burnt into +his memory: a sick girl in a wretched garret, the boy visitor saying +as gently as he could that her sole need was better food, and the +sister of the starved child who turned upon him with a kind of choking +passion, and, pulling from her pocket a few pence and half-pence and +holding them out, cried: "That is all I get for six-and-thirty hours' +work, and you talk about giving her proper food." + +When, after a full year, he left Rotherhithe for the north of London, +to be apprenticed--as his elder brother, James, had already been +apprenticed--to his other medical brother-in-law, Dr. Scott, he saw +more of this teeming, squalid life in the filthy courts and alleys +through which he used to pass on his way to the library of the College +of Surgeons. + +What, in later life, he tried to do to better this state of things +was not the usual philanthropic work, but the endeavour to +bring intellectual light to the ignorant toilers, to strip away +make-believe, and provide some machinery by which to catch and utilize +capacity. + +Great was the change from the surroundings of Rotherhithe to the home +atmosphere of the Scotts. He was now with his favourite sister Eliza, +his senior by twelve years, who was a second mother to him. Her +sympathy and encouragement did much for him; her belief in the future +of "her boy" was redoubled upon his first public success when, at the +age of seventeen, he won the second prize, the silver medal of the +Apothecaries' Company, in a competitive examination in botany. "For a +young hand," he tells us, "I worked really hard from eight or nine in +the morning until twelve at night, besides a long, hot summer's walk +over to Chelsea, two or three times a week, to hear Lindley. A great +part of the time--_i.e._, June and July--I worked till sunrise. The +result was a sort of ophthalmia, which kept me from reading at night +for months afterwards." + +The lively and amusing description of the examination and its sequel +is given in full in the _Life_; suffice it to say that when four +o'clock came and only two competitors were left writing hard, and not +half through the paper, they were allowed to go on by general consent. +By eight o'clock the seventeen-year-old came to an end; the older man +went on until nine. This was John Ellerton Stocks, afterwards M.D. and +a distinguished traveller and botanist in India. To him fell the first +prize; the boy, to his own astonishment and the wild delight of his +sister, won the second. + +In October, 1812, a couple of months after this success, both he and +his brother James entered Charing Cross Hospital as free scholars. +Here he worked very hard--when it pleased him--took up all sorts of +pursuits and dropped them again, and read everything he could lay +hands upon, including novels. The one instructor by whom he was really +impressed, and for whom he did his utmost, was Wharton Jones, lecturer +on physiology. "He was extremely kind and helpful to the youngster, +who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had any right to +do." Wharton Jones assuredly was one of those born teachers who love +to give time and all to a keen and promising pupil. It is good to +know that the bread he cast upon the waters returned to him after many +days. Wharton Jones, too, was responsible for the publication of the +young man's first scientific paper, in the _Medical Gazette_ of 1845. +Investigating things for himself, the student of nineteen had found +a hitherto undiscovered membrane in the root of the human hair, which +received the name of Huxley's layer. + +No doubt his work was, as he confesses, not systematically spread over +his various subjects; and his energy was fitful, though it was energy +that struck his contemporaries, who gave the name of the "Sign of +the Head and Microscope" to the familiar silhouette of him as he sat +before a window poring over his dissections, while they swarmed out +into the quadrangle after lectures. + +He achieved brilliant successes as a student. In 1843 he won the first +prize in Chemistry, with a note that his "extraordinary diligence +and success in the pursuit of this branch of science do him infinite +honour," as well as the first prize in Anatomy and Physiology. He +was only twenty when, in 1845, he went up for his M.B. at London +University, and won a gold medal in his favourite subjects of Anatomy +and Physiology, being second in that section. + +Early in 1846, being still too young to qualify at the College of +Surgeons, yet confronted by the imperative necessity for earning his +own bread, he applied, at the suggestion of his fellow-student, +Lyon Playfair, for service as a naval surgeon, passed the necessary +examination, and went to Haslar. His official chief, old John +Richardson, of Arctic fame, silently kept an eye upon him, and, +failing to get him one of the coveted resident appointments, kept him, +all unaware and ill-content, at Haslar till something worthy of his +scientific abilities should turn up. Seven months passed; then +came the chance of sailing on the surveying and exploring ship +_Rattlesnake_, under Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., brother of the more +famous Dean, who was in want of an assistant-surgeon with a turn for +science. + + + + +IV + +THE VOYAGE OF THE _RATTLESNAKE_, AND ITS SEQUEL + + +The three friends, Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley, were alike in this, +that each in his turn began his career with a great voyage of +scientific discovery in one of H.M. ships. Darwin was twenty-two when +the _Beagle_ sailed for the Straits of Magellan; Hooker, also, was +twenty-two when he sailed for the Antarctic with Ross on the _Erebus_; +Huxley was but twenty-one when he set forth with Owen Stanley for +Australian waters to survey the Great Barrier Reef and New Guinea. +Each found in the years of distant travel a withdrawal from the +distracting bustle of ordinary life, which enabled him to concentrate +upon original work and to reflect deeply, unhampered by current +doctrines; each came back, not only deeply impressed by the elemental +problems of life, but "salted" with the sea and the discipline of the +sea. + + It was good to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the + realities of existence by living on bare necessaries; to find + how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one + woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for + canopy, and cocoa and weevily biscuit the sole prospect for + breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake + of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the + bottom and I along with it. + +Huxley was not so well situated as either Darwin, the well-to-do +amateur who was naturalist to the expedition, or Hooker, the son of +a distinguished botanist, receiving many privileges from his father's +friend, Captain Ross, while officially he was but an assistant-surgeon +and second naturalist. Huxley had neither friends nor influence beyond +the simple recommendation of "old John" Richardson. Macgillivray, the +naturalist, and the Captain himself had scientific interests, but not +so the other officers, who disliked seeing the decks messed by the +contents of the tow-net. Yet they were "as good fellows as sailors +ought to be, and generally are," though they did not understand why he +should be so zealous in pursuit of the objects which his friends +the middies christened "Buffons," after his volume of the _Suites a +Buffon_. As assistant-surgeon he messed with the middies, but his good +spirits and fun and freedom from any assumption of superiority made +the boys his good comrades. + +From the first he was very busy, glorying in the prospect of being +able to give himself up to his favourite pursuits, without thereby +neglecting the proper duties of life. A twenty-eight gun frigate was +anything but a floating palace. The _Rattlesnake_ was badly fitted +out, and always leaky; the lower deck gave a head-space of four feet +ten, which was cramping to a man of five feet eleven; but he had the +run of the commodious chart-room, as arranged for a surveying ship, +and would have had the run of the library if Captain Stanley's +requisition for books had not been "overlooked" by a parsimonious +Admiralty. His tiny cabin was light enough to work in on a dull day; +but as for the possibility of making a scientific collection, it was +but seven feet by six, by five feet six inches high, and infested with +cockroaches to boot. + +His work took shape in a mass of drawings and descriptions from the +dissection of the perishable marine organisms of the tropical seas, +and, yet more important, in the new classification he established upon +anatomical grounds. His first papers were sent to the Linnean Society +by Captain Stanley; the later and more important he sent himself to +Edward Forbes, the most interested and helpful of the biologists +to whom he had been introduced before he left England. To his angry +disappointment, no news of them, no acknowledgment even, reached him +on the other side of the world; it was not till he returned, after the +four years of his voyage, that he found they had been published by +the Royal Society, and had established his reputation as a first-rate +investigator. But, though with much difficulty the scientific +authorities enabled him to secure the promised Government grant for +his book, and a temporary billet ashore while he worked at it, he was +only able to publish his _Oceanic Hydrozoa_; a vast quantity of his +researches remained unpublished, and subsequent investigators, going +over the same ground, won the credit for them. + +The other scientific interest strongly aroused on the voyage was +anthropology. The cruise of the _Rattlesnake_ provided one of the last +opportunities of visiting tribes who had never before seen a white +man. The young surgeon made a point of getting into touch with these +primitive people at Cape York, and in the islands off New Guinea. +He made a preliminary exploration through the uncharted bush of +Queensland with the ill-fated Kennedy, and all but accompanied him on +his disastrous journey to Cape York, when of all the party only two +were rescued, through the devotion of the faithful native guide. He +exchanged names, and therefore affinities, with a friendly native of +the Louisiades, and learned much at first hand as to their physical +and mental characteristics, which stimulated his subsequent +anthropological work. + +The Australian voyage, then, provided a magnificent field for original +research and original thought: the unknown naval surgeon returned from +it to find himself recognized as one of the coming men. Contact +with the larger world had broadened his outlook; the touch of naval +discipline concentrated his powers. But Australia gave him another +gift. He met at Sydney his future wife. The young couple fell in love +almost at first sight, and became engaged. They were of the same age, +22; they hoped to get married when he was promoted to the rank of full +surgeon; they were destined to wait seven-and-a-half years before she +returned home to fulfil his early jesting prophecy of making her a +Frau Professorin. Here, again, was stern disciplining on the part +of destiny. For the first years they were able to meet during the +intervals between the long surveying cruises of the ship; they cheated +the months of separation by keeping journals for each other. But for +nearly five years they were parted by twelve thousand miles of sea, +and, worse, by slow sailing ships, when letters would take five months +or more to receive an answer, which by that time might be entirely at +cross purposes with the changed aspect of affairs. The possibilities +of estrangement were incalculable. Their lives were developing on +entirely different lines. He had been admitted to the inmost circle of +men of science as an intellectual peer; he was elected F.R.S. when +he was barely twenty-six, and received the Royal Medal the following +year, as well as being chosen to serve on the Council of the Society; +he wrote; he lectured at the Royal Institution. And yet, with all the +support of the leaders in science, he could not find any post wherein +to earn his bread and butter. He stood for professorships at +Toronto, at Sydney, at Aberdeen, Cork and King's College, London. +The Admiralty, in March, 1854, even refused further leave for the +publication of the scientific work to do which he had been sent out. +He took the bull by the horns, and, rather than return to the hopeless +routine of a naval surgeon, let the Admiralty fulfil their threat to +deprive him of his appointment, and the slender pay which was his +only certain support. His scientific friends besought him to hold on; +something must come in his way, and a brilliant career was before him; +but was he justified, he asked himself again and again, in pursuing +the glorious phantom, so miserably paid at the best, instead of taking +up some business career, perhaps in Australia, and ending the cruel +delay which bore so hardly upon the woman he loved? Yet would not this +be a desertion of his manifest duty, his intellectual duty to himself +and to Science? He knew full well that there was only one course which +could bring him either hope or peace, and yet, between the two calls +upon him, he never knew which course he would ultimately follow. + +[Illustration: From a Daguerrotype made in 1846] + +For her there was no such mental development. Assuredly she kept up +her literary pursuits, her study of German, in which they had found +common ground of interest, for she had spent two years at school in +Germany; but she was cribbed and cabined by the ups and downs of early +colonial life, and the fluctuating ventures upon which her father +delighted to embark; there was, naturally, no possibility of her +moving in the stimulating intellectual society which was his, and +hope deferred wore upon her as the laurels of scientific success were +consistently followed by failure in all solid prospects. Yet neither +possible misunderstandings, nor actual disappointments, had power to +shake the foundations of their mutual trust, and the inspiration of +the ideal which each built on the other's so different character; the +one more compact of fire, the other more of noble patience, different, +but alike in a largeness of soul and freedom from pettiness, which +made their forty years of united life something out of the common. She +believed in him; in the darkest season of disappointment she bade him +remember that a man should pursue those things for which he is most +fitted, let them be what they will. Her "noble and self-sacrificing" +words brought him comfort, and banished "the spectre of a wasted +life that had passed before him--a vision of that servant who hid his +talent in a napkin and buried it." + +At last the gleams of promise, which had begun to gather, broke +through the clouds. On the sudden death of Professor Jamieson, his +good friend Edward Forbes was called away in the spring of 1854 to +take the Edinburgh professorship. At a few days' notice Huxley was +lecturing as Forbes's substitute at the Royal School of Mines. In July +he was appointed permanently, with a salary for his course of L100 +a year. A few days later his income was doubled. Forbes had held two +lectureships; the man who had accepted the other drew back, and it +was given to Huxley. In August he was "entrusted with the Coast Survey +Investigations under the Geological Survey," becoming the regular +Naturalist to the Survey the following year, with pay of L200, +afterwards increased to L400, rising to L600. The way was clear; the +Heathorn family had already determined to come home. Miss Heathorn had +been very ill; she was still far from strong, and, indeed, one gloomy +doctor only gave her six months to live. The lover defied him: "I +shall marry her all the same;" but the gloomy doctor was alone in his +opinion, and, indeed, she lived till she was nearly eighty-nine. The +marriage, which was to bring so much active happiness in a life of +much struggle and stress, was celebrated on July 1, 1855. They had +become engaged at twenty-two; they had waited and striven for eight +years; they were rewarded by forty years of mutual love and support. + + + + +V + +LEHRJAHRE + + +The award of the Royal Medal was felt by Huxley to be a turning-point. +It was something which convinced the "practical" people who used to +scoff at his "dreamy" notions, and brought them to urge him on a more +"dreamy" course than ever he dreamed of. "However," he remarks, "I +take very much my own course now, even as I have done before--Huxley +all over." Without being blinded by any vanity, he saw in the award +and the general estimate in which it was held a finger-post showing +as clearly as anything can what was the true career lying open before +him. Ambitious in the current sense of worldly success he was not. The +praise of men stirred a haunting mistrust of their judgment and his +own worthiness. Honours he valued as evidences of power; but no more. +What possessed him was, as he confessed in a letter meant only for +the eye of his future wife, "an enormous longing after the highest and +best in all shapes--a longing which haunts me and is the demon which +ever impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I am doing +his behests." With the sense of power stirring within him, he +refused to be beholden to any man. Patronage he abhorred in an ago +of patronage. He was ready to accept a helping hand from any one who +thought him capable of forwarding the great cause in ever so small a +way; but on no other terms. If the time had come to speak out on any +matter, he was resolved to let no merely personal influence restrain +him. He cared only for the praise or blame of the understanding few. +Whatever the popular judgment, he knew there was a work to be done and +that he had power to do it; and this was his personal ambition--to +do that work in the world, and to do it without cant and humbug and +self-seeking. Such were the aims that, newly returned to England, he +confides to the sister who had ever prophesied great things of "her +boy"; and in the end he made good the works spoken so boldly, yet +surely in no mere spirit of boasting. He "left his mark somewhere, +clear and distinct," without taint of the insincerities which he had +an almost morbid dread of discovering in any act of his own. + +It was not every one who could dare to range so far and wide as Huxley +did from the original line of investigation he had taken up. Friends +warned him against what appeared to be a scattering of his energies. +If he devoted himself to that morphology of the Invertebrates in which +his new and illuminating conceptions had promptly earned the Royal +Medal, he would easily be the first in his field. But what he did was +in great part of set purpose. He was no mere collector of specimens, +no mere describer of species. He sought the living processes which +determined natural groups; the theories he formed needed verification +in various directions. These excursions from the primary line of +research were of great value in broadening the basis of his knowledge. +He also deliberately set aside the years 1854-60 as a period in which +to make himself master of the branches of science cognate to his own, +so that he should be ready for any special pursuits in any of them. +For he did not know what was to be his task after the work that had +fallen to him, not of his own choice, at the School of Mines. He was +to ground himself in each department by monographic work, and by +1860 might fairly look forward to fifteen or twenty years of +"Meisterjahre," when, with the comprehensive views arising from such +training, it should be possible to give a new and healthier direction +to all biological science. Meanwhile, opportunities must be seized at +the risk of a reputation for desultoriness. + +But the irony of circumstances diverted much of his energy into yet +more diverse fields. When Sir Henry de la Beche first offered him the +posts of Palaeontologist and Lecturer on Natural History vacated by +Professor Forbes, he says:-- + + I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter + only provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for + fossils, and that I should give up Natural History as soon as + I could get a physiological post. But I held the office + for thirty-one years, and a large part of my work has been + palaeontological. + +Palaeontology was his business, and he became a Master in it also, +with the result that he forged himself a mighty weapon for use in the +struggle over the Origin of Species. + +In one of his later Essays he compares the study of human physiology +to the Atlantic Ocean:-- + + Like the Atlantic between the Old and the New Worlds, its + waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter and of mind; + its tributary streams flow from both; through its waters, as + yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if + such there be, from the one to the other; far away from that + North-West Passage of mere speculation in which so many brave + souls have been helplessly frozen up. + +Such was the spirit in which, after his long day's work, he added to +his labours in physical science a search in another, and to his notion +a cognate province of thought and speculation. Many a sleepless night +in these years the candle was lighted beside his bed, and for a couple +of hours after midnight he would devour works on philosophy--English, +German, and French, and occasionally Latin. To a mind at once +constructive and intensely critical of unsound construction he added a +quality possessed by few professed philosophers--a large knowledge of +the workings of life, of the human thinking machine, in addition +to various other branches of physical science. As he put it, the +laboratory is the forecourt to the temple of philosophy. For the +method of the laboratory is but the strict application of the one +sound and fruitful mode of reasoning--the method of verification by +experiment. Evidence must be tested before being trusted. The first +duty of such a method is to question in order to find good reason; +Goethe's "taetige Skepsis," a scepticism or questioning which seeks to +overcome itself by finding good standing-ground beyond. Authority as +such is nothing till verified anew. The creeds of ancient sages, the +dogmas of more modern date, must equally bear the light of widening +knowledge and the tests that prove the gold or clay of their +foundations, the stability of the successive steps by which they +proceed. + +In all this reading Huxley found nothing to shake what he had learnt +long before from Hamilton--the limits set to human knowledge and +the impossibility of attaining to the ultimate reality behind the +phenomena presented to our cognition. The problems of philosophy, set +forth with unsurpassed clearness for all who will read in our great +English writers, were not solved by soaring into intellectual mists. +To those who declared they had attained this ultimate knowledge by +their own inner light or through an alleged revelation in historical +experience, the question remained to be put: How do you verify your +assertion? Is the historical evidence on which you build trustworthy? +And if in certain departments this evidence is clearly untenable, +what guarantee have you that in other departments evidence of similar +character is tenable? The fine-spun abstractions of the Platonists +and their kin, unchecked by a natural science which had not yet the +appliances necessary for its growth; the orthodoxies of the various +churches, so singularly differentiated in the course of development +from the simplicity of their nominal founder--these were based upon +assumptions for which the seeker after reasoned evidence could find no +valid support. Ten years before he coined the word "Agnostic" to label +his attitude towards the unproved, whether likely or unlikely, in +contradistinction to the Gnostics, who professed to "know" from within +apart from external proof, Huxley described the Agnostic position he +had already reached--the position of suspending judgment where actual +proof is not possible; the attitude of mind which regards the words +"I believe" as a momentous assertion, not to be uttered on incomplete +grounds. Writing to Charles Kingsley in 1860, he says:-- + + I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no + reason for believing in it; but, on the other hand, I have no + means of disproving it. + + Pray understand that I have no a priori objections to the + doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature + can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such + evidence as would justify me in believing anything else, and + I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half + so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the + indestructibility of matter. Whoso clearly appreciates + all that is implied in the falling of a stone can have + no difficulty about any doctrine simply on account of its + marvellousness. But the longer I live the more obvious it is + to me that the most sacred act of a man's life is to say + and to feel, "I believe such and such to be true." All the + greatest rewards, and all the heaviest penalties of existence, + cling about that act. The universe is one and the same + throughout; and if the condition of my success in unravelling + some little difficulty of anatomy or physiology is that I + shall rigorously refuse to put faith in that which does not + rest on sufficient evidence, I cannot believe that the great + mysteries of existence will be laid open to me on other terms. + It is of no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. + I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the + inverse square, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon + weaker convictions. I dare not if I would. + +From such a point of view intellectual veracity takes on a moral +aspect; indeed, it is a pillar of morality. Disregard of it has led +to incalculable social wrong and individual suffering, oppressions and +persecutions, unprogressive obscurantism, joined with perverted ideals +and intellectual arrest. "Ecrasez l'infame," cried the reforming +Voltaire; his "infamous" was very much this perverting influence, +exaggerated and armed with power, which had made the great +organization of the Roman Church in his time a monstrous instrument of +autocratic tradition, cruel, rapacious, blindly intolerant, jealous +of light and liberty. In England the growth of political liberty had +deprived the darkest lights of the Church of almost all power for +active interference in the administration of the State, though the +pressure of traditionalism exercised itself less crudely, if scarce +less surely, in the Universities, the Press, religious opinion, and +the army of conventional respectability. So strong was it in social +influence that a man, openly professing to make a guide of his reason +instead of his parson, was liable to be pushed outside the pale. + + + + +VI + +VERACITY AND AGNOSTICISM + + +One of the most ticklish of all subjects to handle at this period was +the position of the human species in zoological classification. "It +was a burning question in the sense that those who touched it were +almost certain to burn their fingers severely." In the fifties Sir +William Lawrence had been well-nigh ostracized for his book _On +Man_, "which now might be read in a Sunday-school without surprising +anybody." When Huxley submitted the proofs of _Man's Place in Nature_ +to "a competent anatomist, and good friend of his," asking him, if he +could, to point out any errors of fact, the friend--it was Lawrence +himself--declared he could find none, but gave an earnest warning as +to the consequences of publication. Here was one of the cases +where Huxley's firm resolution applied--to speak out if necessary, +regardless of consequences; indeed, he felt sure that all the evil +things prophesied would not be so painful to him as the giving up +that which he had resolved to do upon grounds which he conceived to be +right. As he wrote later (in 1876):-- + + It seemed to me that a man of science has no _raison d'etre_ + at all unless he is willing to face much greater risks than + these for the sake of that which he believes to be true; and + further, that to a man of science such risks do not count for + much--they are by no means so serious as they are to a man of + letters, for example. + +The book was published, and the friend's forecast was amply justified. + + The Boreas of criticism blew his hardest blasts of + misrepresentation and ridicule for some years, and I was even + as one of the wicked. Indeed, it surprises me at times to + think how any one who had sunk so low could since have emerged + into, at any rate, relative respectability. Personally, like + the non-corvine personages in the Ingoldsby legend, I did not + feel "one penny the worse." Translated into several languages, + the book reached a wider public than I had ever hoped + for; being largely helped, I imagine, by the Ernulphine + advertisements to which I referred. It has had the honour of + being freely utilized without acknowledgment by writers of + repute; and, finally, it achieved the fate, which is the + euthanasia of a scientific work, of being enclosed among the + rubble of the foundations of later knowledge, and forgotten. + + To my observation, human nature has not sensibly changed + during the last thirty years. I doubt not that there are + truths as plainly obvious, and as generally denied, as + those contained in _Man's Place in Nature_, now awaiting + enunciation. If there is a young man of the present generation + who has taken as much trouble as I did to assure himself that + they are truths, let him come out with them, without troubling + his head about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. + _Veritas praevalebit_--some day; and even if she does not + prevail in his time, he himself will be all the better and + wiser for having tried to help her. And let him recollect + that such great reward is full payment for all his labour and + pains. + +To speak out thus was one side of his passion for veracity. When it +was a matter of demonstrable truth, he refused to be intimidated by +great names. Already, in his Croonian lecture of 1858, "On the +Theory of the Vertebrate Skull," he had challenged, and by direct +morphological investigation overthrown, the theory of Oken, adopted +and enlarged upon by Owen, that the adult skull is a modified +vertebral column. Again, the great name of Owen, that jealous king of +the anatomical world, had in 1857 supported the assertion, so contrary +to the investigations of Huxley himself and of other anatomists, that +certain anatomical features of the brain are peculiar to the genus +_Homo_, and are a ground for placing that genus separately from all +other mammals--in a division, Archencephala, apart from and superior +to the rest. Huxley thereupon re-investigated the whole question, and +soon satisfied himself that these structures were not peculiar to man, +but are common to all the higher and many of the lower apes. This led +him to study the whole question of the structural relations of man to +the next lower existing forms. Without embarking on controversy, he +embodied his conclusions in his teaching. + +Thus, in 1860, he was well prepared to follow up Darwin's words in the +_Origin of Species_, "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and +his history," and to furnish proofs in the field of Development and +Vertebrate Anatomy, which were not among Darwin's many specialities. + +When Owen, at the Oxford meeting of the British Association, repeated +his former assertions, he publicly took up the challenge. On the +technical side, a series of dissections undertaken by himself, +Rolleston, and Flower displayed the structures for all to see; on the +popular side, Huxley delivered in 1860 a course of public lectures +which were the basis of his book, _Man's Place in Nature_, above +mentioned. + +Here the principle is actively exemplified: speak out fearlessly at +the right moment to strike down that which is demonstrably false. It +is the counterpart to the other aspect of veracity which will not say +"I believe" to an unverified assertion. These two aspects of the +same principle, as has been seen, developed hand in hand in his early +career; but it was the active challenge to ill-based authority which, +by its courage, not to say audacity, first attracted public notice +and public abuse. The other, the apparently negative aspect, came into +general notice only after 1869. Its very reserves, however, resting on +a statement of reasons for finding the testimony to certain doctrines +insufficient, had long provoked assaults from the upholders of these +doctrines, which made no less call upon his courage and endurance. +As a philosophic position, however, it was not formally and publicly +defined until, in the debates of the Metaphysical Society founded in +that year, he invented for himself the label of Agnostic. The Society +was composed of distinguished men, representing almost every shade of +opinion and intellectual occupation; University professors, statesmen, +lawyers, bishops and deans, a Cardinal, a poet; men of science and +men of letters; Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Positivists, +Freethinkers. + +The story is told in his article on "Agnosticism," written in 1889 +(_Collected Essays_, v, 237). After describing how it came about that +his mind "steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and +Kant," so well stated by the latter as follows:-- + + The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of + pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves + not as an organon for the enlargement (of knowledge), but as + a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering + truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error-- + +he proceeds:-- + + When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask + myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a + materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I + found that the more I learned and reflected the less ready was + the answer, until, at last, I came to the conclusion that + I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations + except the last. The one thing in which most of these good + people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed + from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain + "gnosis"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem + of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a + pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. + And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself + presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion.... + + This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a + place among the members of that remarkable confraternity + of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and + pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of + philosophical and theological opinion was represented + there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my + colleagues were _-ists_ of one sort or another; and, however + kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of + a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of + the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox + when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he + presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So + I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the + appropriate title of "Agnostic." It came into my head as + suggestively antithetic to the "Gnostic" of Church history, + who professed to know so much about the very things of which I + was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading + it at our Society to show that I, too, had a tail like the + other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when + the _Spectator_ had stood godfather to it, any suspicion + in the minds of respectable people that a knowledge of its + parentage might have awakened was, of course, completely + lulled. + +Of his share in the debates the late Prof. Henry Sidgwick gives the +following account:-- + + There were several members of the Society with whose + philosophical views I had, on the whole, more sympathy; but + there was certainly no one to whom I found it more pleasant + and more instructive to listen. Indeed, I soon came to the + conclusion that there was only one other member of our Society + who could be placed on a par with him as a debater, on the + subjects discussed at our meetings; and that was, curiously + enough, a man of the most diametrically opposed opinion--W. G. + Ward, the well-known advocate of Ultramontanism. Ward was by + training, and perhaps by nature, more of a dialectician; + but your father was unrivalled in the clearness, precision, + succinctness, and point of his statements, in his complete and + ready grasp of his own system of philosophical thought, and + the quickness and versatility with which his thought at once + assumed the right attitude of defence against any argument + coming from any quarter. I used to think that while others of + us could perhaps find, on the spur of the moment, _an_ answer + more or less effective to some unexpected attack, your father + seemed always able to find _the_ answer--I mean the answer + that it was reasonable to give, consistently with his general + view, and much the same answer that he would have given if he + had been allowed the fullest time for deliberation. + + The general tone of the Metaphysical Society was one of + extreme consideration for the feelings of opponents, and your + father's speaking formed no exception to the general harmony. + At the same time, I seemed to remember him as the most + combative of all the speakers who took a leading part in + the debates. His habit of never wasting words, and the edge + naturally given to his remarks by his genius for clear and + effective statement, partly account for this impression; + still, I used to think that he liked fighting, and + occasionally liked to give play to his sarcastic + humour--though always strictly within the limits imposed by + courtesy. I remember that on one occasion, when I had read + to the Society an essay on "The Incoherence of Empiricism," I + looked forward with some little anxiety to his criticisms; + and when they came I felt that my anxiety had not been + superfluous; he "went for" the weak points of my argument in + half-a-dozen trenchant sentences, of which I shall not + forget the impression. It was hard hitting, though perfectly + courteous and fair. + +The paper to be read at each meeting of the Society was printed +and circulated in advance, so that all might be prepared with their +arguments. Discussion followed the dinner at which the members met. +Of these papers Huxley contributed three, the titles of which +sufficiently indicate the fundamental points on which his criticism +played, questioning current axioms in its search for trustworthy +evidence of their validity. The first (1869) was on "The Views of +Hume, Kant, and Whately on the Logical Basis of the Doctrine of +the Immortality of the Soul," showing that these thinkers agreed in +holding that no such basis is given by reasoning apart, for instance, +from revelation. The argument is summarized in the essay on Hume +(_Coll. Ess._, vi, 201; 1878). + +The second was "Has a Frog a Soul? and if so, of what Nature is that +Soul?" (1870), a physiological discussion as to the seat of those +purposive actions of which the animal is capable after it has lost +ordinary volition and consciousness by the removal of the front part +of its brain. Are these things attributes of the soul, and are +they resident not even in the brain, but in the spinal marrow? If +metaphysics starts from psychology, psychology itself depends greatly +upon physiology; current theories need reconsideration. This paper +was the starting-point for his larger essay on "Animals as Automata," +delivered as an address before the British Association in 1874. + +The third paper (1876) was on "The Evidence of the Miracle of the +Resurrection," as to which he, so to say, moved the previous question, +arguing that there was no valid evidence of actual death having taken +place. The paper was the result of an invitation on the part of some +of his metaphysical opponents. As he rejected the miraculous, they +asked him to write on a definite miracle, and explain his reasons for +not accepting it. He chose this subject because, in the first place, +it was a cardinal instance; and, in the second, that as it was a +miracle not worked by Christ himself, a discussion of its genuineness +could not possibly suggest personal fraud and so inflict gratuitous +pain upon believers in it. The question of the fundamentals of +Christian evidences had long been in his mind; it was no new subject +to him when in the eighties, debarred by his health from physiological +researches, he extended his work on Biblical studies. + +If the Metaphysical Society effected nothing else, it brought about +a personal _rapprochement_ between the representatives of opposing +schools of thought. It became clear to the older school that the new +thinkers had by no means failed, as they suspected, to examine the +older doctrines. Theirs was not dishonest doubt, but a strong demand +for better evidence. If the Society itself "died of too much love," it +may well have contributed to the greater amenity of public discussion +as the years passed, and the diminution of the former rabid +denunciations which waned as the new doctrines spread, and were even +absorbed and digested by their former antagonists. + + + + +VII + +CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN" + + +The piercing clearness of mind described by Prof. Sidgwick, which +could not express itself otherwise than trenchantly and drove straight +at the heart of the subject, gave Huxley the popular reputation of +being above all things a controversialist. Naturally enough, the +public knew little and cared less for the unspectacular researches +among the Invertebrates, which had won such high scientific fame. +They were only stirred when the results of study in geology, in +fossil forms and simian anatomy, clashed with long-established +popular conceptions. There was also a gladiatorial delight in watching +controversy not simply abstract, but fanned by personal conviction, +which marked the champions above all as good fighters. + +It must be noted, however, that, vigorous as he was in carrying war +into the enemy's country, on two occasions only did Huxley set forth +without being first personally attacked. One was his review of +the _Vestiges of Creation,_ when he was irritated by the writer's +"prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind." + + If it had any influence on me at all [he writes], it set me + against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of + conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I + wrote on the _Vestiges_ while under that influence (1854). + +The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the +account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply +to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Reville and his applications of +scientific methods to the problem. + +Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical +subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To +demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of +the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and +educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose +slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions +involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a +breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to +superior knowledge of the spiritual world. + +It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these +controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound +and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry, +and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to +admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is +prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest +beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch +as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy +are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the +anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on +opinions worthy of all respect. + +For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to +push his researches into the history and origin of the world and its +life, he invariably ran up against a sign-board with the notice, "No +Thoroughfare--By Order--Moses." Geology and Biology were shut in by a +ring-fence; the universe beyond was a Forbidden Land, guarded by the +Lamas of ecclesiastical authority. + +The first great clash with this authority, which focussed attention +upon the scientific struggle for freedom of thought, was that which +followed the publication of the _Origin of Species_ at the end of +1859, and culminated in the debate with the Bishop of Oxford at the +Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860. A fierce but more +limited struggle for freedom of criticism within the pale of the +Church was to follow the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ (1860) +and Bishop Colenso's examination of the Pentateuch in 1862 and +onwards. + +The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on +thought at large. Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the +book to the public. The reviewer of the _Times_, knowing nothing about +the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the +opening paragraphs himself. But it was his retort to the Bishop of +Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the +challenge of authority was to be taken up. The story is well known; +how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to +"smash Darwin." Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also +reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical +degree. He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently +had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at +Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day, +but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop's _Quarterly_ article +that was published a few days later. + +After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the +chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in +order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and +"spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and +unfairness," wrote Hooker. + + He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such + dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned + periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President + for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific + purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart.... In a + light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there + was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what + rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist + with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through + his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent + from a monkey. + +Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific +discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the +opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an +audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow +closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and +that ridicule is a two-edged weapon. As he spoke these words +Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and +whispered: "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." + +The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did +not rise until the meeting called for him. Then he "slowly and +deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet +and very grave." He began with a general statement in defence of +Darwin's theory. "I am here only in the interests of science, and +I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august +client." Darwin's theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural +History, as the undulatory theory was of the phenomena of light. No +one objected to the latter because an undulation of light had never +been arrested and measured. Darwin offered an explanation of facts, +and his book was full of new facts, all bearing on his theory. Without +asserting that every part of that theory had been confirmed, he +maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species +which had yet been offered. As to the psychological distinction +between men and animals, and the question of the Creation: "You say +that development drives out the Creator; but you assert that God made +you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece +of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case." Nobody +could say at what moment of the history of his development man became +consciously intelligent. The whole question was not so much one of a +transmutation or transition of species as of the production of forms +which became permanent. The Ancon sheep was not produced gradually; +it originated in the birth of the original parent of the whole stock, +which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection. + +But if the question were to be treated, not as a matter for the calm +investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if he were +asked whether he would choose to be descended from the poor animal of +low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as we pass, +or from a man endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who +should use these gifts to discredit and crush humble seekers after +truth, he must hesitate what answer to make. + +The actual words were not taken down at the time; they were finely +eloquent, and gained effect from the clear, deliberate utterance; but +the nearest approach to them was recorded in a letter of J.R. Green, +the future historian, written immediately after the meeting:-- + + I asserted--and I repeat--that a man has no reason to be + ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were + an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it + would rather be a _man_--a man of restless and versatile + intellect--who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in + his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions + with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them + by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his + hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions + and skilled appeals to religious prejudice. + +[Footnote 1: Referring to this letter afterwards, my father felt +certain that he had never used the word "equivocal." In this he was +borne out by Prof. Victor Carus and Prof. Farrar, who were present.] + +The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been +coldly received--no more than a cheer of encouragement from his +immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he +finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the +other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's +weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out. +As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated +public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main +scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side. +The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was, +he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his +own. + + + + +VIII + +PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES + + +For Huxley, one result of the affair was that he became universally +known, and not merely as he had been known to his immediate circle, +as the most vigorous defender of Darwin--"Darwin's bulldog," as he +playfully called himself. Another result was that he changed his idea +as to the practical value of the art of public speaking. Walking away +from the meeting with that other hater of speech-making, Hooker, he +declared that he would thenceforth carefully cultivate it, and try to +leave off hating it. The former resolution he carried out faithfully, +with the result that he became one of the best speakers of his +generation; in the latter he never quite succeeded. The nervous horror +before making a public address seldom wholly left him; he used to +say that when he stepped on the platform at the Royal Institution and +heard the door click behind him, he knew what it must be like to be +a condemned man stepping out to the gallows. Happily, no sign of +nervousness ever showed itself; he gave the appearance of being +equally master of himself and of his subject. His voice was not +strong, but he had early learnt the lesson of clear enunciation. There +were two letters he received when he began lecturing, and which he +kept by him as a perpetual reminder, labelled "Good Advice." One was +from a "working man" of his Monday evening audience in Jermyn Street, +in 1855; the other, undated, from Mr. Jodrell, a great benefactor of +science, who had heard him at the Royal Institution. These warned him +against his habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, which might suit +a knot of students gathered round his table, but not a large audience; +of running his words, especially technical terms, together, and of +pouring out unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed. These early faults +were so glaring that one institute in St. John's Wood, after hearing +him, petitioned "not to have that young man again." He worked hard +to cure himself, and the later audiences who flocked to his lectures +could never have guessed at his early failings. The flow was as clear +and even as the arrangement of the matter was lucid; the voice was +not loud, but so distinct that it carried to the furthest benches. +No syllable was slurred, no point hurried over. All this made for +the lucid and comprehensible; well-chosen language and fine utterance +shaped a perfect vehicle of thought. But it was the lucidity of the +thought itself, thus expressed, that gave his lectures their quality. +A clever and accomplished lady once, in intimate conversation, asked +Mrs. Huxley what the reason could be that every one praised her +husband so highly as a lecturer. "I can't understand it. He just lets +the subject explain itself, and that's all." Profound, if unintended, +compliment. It was his power of seeing things clearly, stripped of +their non-essentials, that enabled him to make others see them +clearly also. Nor did he forget the saying of that prince of popular +expositors, Faraday, who, when asked, "How much may a popular lecturer +suppose his audience knows?" replied emphatically, "Nothing." This +same faculty, no doubt, was that which enabled him to write such +admirable elementary text-books--a task which he regarded as one of +the most difficult possible. + +A notable description of his public lecturing in the seventies and +early eighties is given by G. W. Smalley, correspondent of the _New +York Tribune_, in his "London Letters":-- + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Maull and Polyblank, 1857; To face +p. 44] + + I used always to admire the simple and businesslike way in + which Huxley made his entry on great occasions. He hated + anything like display, and would have none of it. At the Royal + Institution, more than almost anywhere else, the lecturer, + on whom the concentric circles of spectators in their steep + amphitheatre look down, focuses the gaze. Huxley never seemed + aware that anybody was looking at him. From self-consciousness + he was, here as elsewhere, singularly free, as from + self-assertion. He walked in through the door on the left as + if he were entering his own laboratory. In these days he bore + scarcely a mark of age. He was in the full vigour of manhood, + and looked the man he was.... With a firm step and easy + bearing he took his place, apparently without a thought of the + people who were cheering him. To him it was an anniversary. He + looked, and he probably was, the master. Surrounded as he + was by the celebrities of science and the ornaments of London + drawing-rooms, there was none who had quite the same kind + of intellectual ascendancy which belonged to him. The square + forehead, the square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the + deep, flashing dark eyes, the impression of something more + than strength he gave you, an impression of sincerity, of + solid force, of immovability, yet with the gentleness arising + from the serene consciousness of his strength--all this + belonged to Huxley, and to him alone. The first glance + magnetized his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed + to command, of one having authority, and not fearing on + occasion to use it. The hair swept carelessly away from the + broad forehead and grew rather long behind, yet the length did + not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in + everything--look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing + of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, + he had, nevertheless, the secret of the highest art of all, + whether in oratory or whatever else--he had simplicity. The + force was in the thought and the diction, and he needed no + other. The voice was rather deep, low, but quite audible; at + times sonorous, and always full.... His manner here, in the + presence of this select and rather limited audience--for the + theatre of the Royal Institution holds, I think, less than + a thousand people--was exactly the same as before a great + company whom he addressed at Liverpool, as President of the + British Association for the Advancement of Science. I remember + going late to that and having to sit far back, yet hearing + every word easily; and there, too, the feeling was the + same--that he had mastered his audience, taken possession of + them, and held them to the end in an unrelaxing grip, as a + great actor at his best does. There was nothing of the + actor about him, except that he knew how to stand still; but + masterful he ever was. + +Equally perfect of their kind were his class lectures, which made a +deep and lasting impression on his students. In the words of Jeffery +Parker, afterwards his assistant:-- + + His lectures were like his writings, luminously clear, without + the faintest disposition to descend to the level of his + audience; eloquent, but with no trace of the empty rhetoric + which so often does duty for that quality; full of a high + seriousness, but with no suspicion of pedantry; lightened by + an occasional epigram or flashes of caustic humour, but with + none of the small jocularity in which it is such a temptation + to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to him one felt that + comparative anatomy was worthy of the devotion of a life, and + that to solve a morphological problem was as fine a thing + as to win a battle. He was an admirable draughtsman, and his + blackboard illustrations were always a great feature of his + lectures, especially when, to show the relation of two animal + types, he would, by a few rapid strokes and smudges, evolve + the one into the other before our eyes. He seemed to have + a real affection for some of the specimens illustrating his + lectures, and would handle them in a peculiarly loving manner. + When he was lecturing on man, for instance, he would sometimes + throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside him + and take its hand, as if its silent companionship were an + inspiration. To me, his lectures before his small class at + Jermyn Street or South Kensington were almost more impressive + than the discourses at the Royal Institution, where, for + an hour and a-half, he poured forth a stream of dignified, + earnest, sincere words in perfect literary form, and without + the assistance of a note. + +It was no wonder that he was clear and exact in his class lectures, +for he based what he had to say on his own experiment and observation, +and was at pains to verify experimentally the observations of others +which came within his field. Without verification he would not rely +upon them. Indeed, he was so careful to give nothing at second hand +that one of his scientific friends gently reproached him for wasting +his time in re-investigating matters already worked over by competent +observers. "Poor ----," he remarked afterwards, "if that is his own +practice, his work will never live." Of his most important public +addresses, two may be noted as especial _tours de force_. On each +occasion it was specially necessary to speak by the book, but at the +last moment it was impossible to use the carefully prepared notes. One +was the address on the complex and difficult subject of "Animals as +Automata," at the Belfast meeting of the British Association in 1874, +when the atmosphere was electrical after a Presidential address by +John Tyndall which set theologians in an uproar. Years afterwards he +described the incident to Sir E. Ray Lankester:-- + + I knew that I was treading on very dangerous ground, so I + wrote out uncommonly full and careful notes, and had them in + my hand when I stepped on to the platform. + + Then I suddenly became aware of the bigness of the audience, + and the conviction came upon me that, if I looked at my notes, + not one half would hear me. It was a bad ten seconds, but I + made my election and turned the notes face downwards on the + desk. + + To this day I do not exactly know how the thing managed to + roll itself out; but it did, as you say, for the best part of + an hour and a-half. + + There's a story _pour vous encourager_ if you are ever in a + like fix. + +The other was his address at the opening of the John Hopkins +University at Baltimore in 1876. Late on the preceding afternoon he +returned very tired from an expedition to Washington, to find that a +formal dinner and reception awaited him in the evening. He snatched +an hour or two of rest, when a New York reporter arrived demanding the +text of the address, which had to be sent to New York for simultaneous +publication with the Baltimore papers. Now the address was not written +out; it was to be delivered from notes only. From these notes, then, +he delivered it _in extenso_ to the reporter, who took it down in +shorthand, and promised to let him have a copy to lecture from next +morning. But the fair copy did not come till the last moment. To his +horror he found this was written out upon "flimsy," from which it +would be impossible to read properly. Again he turned it down on the +desk and boldly trusted to memory. This second version was taken down +verbatim by the Baltimore reporters in their turn. What if it did not +tally with the New York version? As a matter of fact, it was +almost identical, save for a few curious discrepancies, apparent +contradictions between professed eye-witnesses which the ingenious +critic might perfectly well use to prove that both accounts were +fictitious, and that the pretended original was never delivered under +the conditions alleged. + +Mention has been made of his lectures to working men. Of these his +assistant and successor, Professor G.B. Howes, wrote:-- + + Great as were his class lectures, his working-men's were + greater. Huxley was a great believer in the _distillatio per + ascensum_ of scientific knowledge and culture, and spared + no pains in approaching the artisan and so-called "working + classes." He gave the workmen of his best. The substance of + his _Man's Place in Nature_, one of the most successful and + popular of his writings, and of his _Crayfish_, perhaps the + most perfect zoological treatise ever published, was first + communicated to them. In one of the last conversations I + had with him, I asked his views on the desirability of + discontinuing the workmen's lectures at Jermyn Street, since + the development of working men's colleges and institutes + is regarded by some to have rendered their continuance + unnecessary. He replied, almost with indignation: "With our + central position and resources, we ought to be in a position + to give the workmen that which they cannot get elsewhere"; + adding that he would deeply deplore any such discontinuance. + +He had begun these in 1855, the second year of his appointment at the +Royal School of Mines. On February 27 of that year he wrote to his +friend Dr. Dyster:-- + + I enclose a prospectus of some People's Lectures (_Popular_ + Lectures I hold to be an abomination unto the Lord) I am about + to give here. I want the working classes to understand that + Science and her ways are great facts for them--that physical + virtue is the base of all other, and that they are to be clean + and temperate and all the rest, not because fellows in black + with white ties tell them so, but because these are plain and + patent laws of nature which they must obey "under penalties." + + I am sick of the _dilettante_ middle class, and mean to try + what I can do with these hard-handed fellows who live among + facts. + +And in May, after referring to his Preliminary Course and the +earnestness and attention of his audience, he adds that he has begun +his similar course to working men exclusively--a series of six, given +in turn by each Professor:-- + + The theatre holds 600, and is crammed full. I believe in the + fustian, and can talk better to it than to any amount of gauze + and Saxony; and to a fustian audience (but to that only) I + would willingly give some when I come to Tenby [Dr. Dyster's + home]. + +Moreover, he took a practical interest in the corresponding movement +set afoot by F.D. Maurice, and gave occasional addresses at the +Working Men's College between 1857 and 1877, the last of which was +that delightful discourse on science as "trained and organized common +sense" which bears the alluring title of "The Method of Zadig." + + + + +IX + +POPULAR EDUCATION + + +These lectures to working men, no less than his profound interest and +exhausting work on behalf of popular education, illustrate his intense +belief that science is not solely a thing of the laboratory, but a +vital factor in right living. It was still true that the people perish +for want of knowledge. And as he said when talking of posthumous fame: +"If I am to be remembered at all, I should like to be remembered as +one who did his best to help the people." + +Nor did he lack appreciation among those whom he tried thus to aid. +Professor Mivart tells the following story:-- + + I recollect going [in 1874] with him and Mr. John Westlake, + Q.C., to a meeting of artisans in the Blackfriars Road, to + whom he gave a friendly address. He felt a strong interest in + working men, and was much beloved by them. On one occasion, + having taken a cab home, on his arrival there, when he held + out his fare to the cabman, the latter replied: "Oh no, + Professor; I have had too much pleasure and profit from + hearing you lecture to take any money from your pocket; proud + to have driven you, Sir!" + +Another story is told by Mr. Raymond Blaythwayt:-- + + Only to-day I had a most striking instance of sentiment come + beneath my notice. I was about to enter my house, when a + plain, simply dressed working man came up to me with a note in + his hand, and, touching his hat, he said: "I think this is for + you, Sir"; and then he added: "Will you give me the envelope, + Sir, as a great favour?" I looked at it, and, seeing it bore + the signature of Professor Huxley, I replied: "Certainly I + will; but why do you ask for it?" "Well," said he; "it's got + Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me + to show my mates and keep for my children. He has done me and + my like a lot of good; no man more." + +In these special lectures of his very best and in his other essays, +which, however far-reaching, were always intelligible to plain +readers, may be seen one side of his desire to spread clear thinking +among the less instructed masses; another was his work on the first +School Board. By 1870 his health was already shaken by the heavy work +which filled his days and nights; nevertheless, whatever the cost in +time and labour and health, he felt it imperative to try, with all his +power, to give rational shape to the new lines of universal education, +and to revivify it with the fresh breath of the new renascence in +aim and method. Science must be represented in the new Parliament +of Education, and there was no one else ready to undertake the part. +Moreover, he had already enjoyed some practical experience of the +workings of elementary education while examiner under the Science and +Art Department, the establishment of which he considered + + a measure which came into existence unnoticed, but which will, + I believe, turn out to be of more importance to the welfare of + the people than many political changes over which the noise of + battle has rent the air. + +On the proper working of the new Act depended the physical, moral, and +intellectual betterment of the nation; in particular, "book-learning" +needed to be tempered with not merely handcraft, but with something +of the direct knowledge of nature; for in itself, if properly applied, +this is an admirable instrument of education, and by its method +promotes an attitude of mind capable of understanding the reasons for +the vast changes at work in human thought. + +Accordingly, he stood as a candidate for Marylebone, and, without +canvassing, for which he had neither time nor inclination, he was +elected second on the list. He had addressed several meetings, and, +as an amplification of his election address, he included extracts from +his forthcoming article, "The School Boards: What They Can Do, and +What They May Do," which were sent to the papers by the editor of +the _Contemporary Review_. (See _Coll. Ess._, iii, 374.) Here was +his programme, a great part of which he saw carried out:--Physical +training, for health and as a basis for further training; Domestic +training, especially for girls; Moral training, in a knowledge of +moral and social laws, and an engaging of the affections for what is +good instead of what is evil; Intellectual training, in knowledge and +the means of acquiring knowledge, alike for practical purposes and for +recreation. + +The opponents of popular education raised their still familiar outcry +about "cramming children full of nonsense" and "unfitting them for +the state of life to which they were called." But one cannot say what +state of life they may be called to without opportunity of testing +their capacities, and as for cramming them with nonsense, such a +scheme, if properly carried out, ought rather to expel nonsense. Above +all, it set the interests of humanity above the mere development of +skill, which would simply turn the child of man into the subtlest +beast of the field. + +True education, he declared, was impossible without "religion," the +unchanging essence of which lies in the love of some ethical ideal to +govern and guide conduct, "together with the awe and reverence which +have no kinship with base fear, but rise whenever one tries to pierce +below the surface of things, whether they be material or spiritual." + +It was in this sense that he advocated Bible-reading in +schools--simple Bible-reading, without theological gloss. On the one +hand, this was the only workable plan under existing circumstances. +True, that he would not have employed the Bible as the agency for +introducing the religious and ethical idea in a system that could +begin with a clean slate. He believed that the principle of strict +secularity in State education is sound and must ultimately prevail. +But moral instruction must not be too rudely divorced from the system +of belief current among the generality; and the Bible had been the +instrument of the clergy of all denominations, to whose efforts the +mass of half-instructed people owed such redemption from ignorance and +barbarism as they possessed. Make all needful deductions, and there +remains a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur, interwoven with +three centuries of our history. The Bible, as English literature, as +old-world history, as moral teaching, as the Magna Charta of the poor +and of the oppressed, the most democratic book in the world, could not +be spared. The mass of the people should not be deprived of the +one great literature which is open to them; not shut out from the +perception of their relations with the whole past history of civilized +mankind, nor from an unpriestly view of Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth, +purged of the accretions of centuries. Accordingly, he supported Mr. +W.H. Smith's motion for Bible-reading, even against the champions of +immediate secularization; but for Bible-reading under such regulations +as would carry out for the children the intention of Mr. W.E. +Forster, the originator of the Education Act, that "in the reading and +explanation of the Bible... no efforts will be made to cram into their +poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents +them from understanding." + +But the compromise was not permanently satisfactory. In 1893-94 the +clerical party on the School Board "denounced" the treaty agreed to +in 1871, and up till then undisputed, in the expectation of securing +a new one more favourable to themselves; and the _Times_, hurrying to +their support, did not hesitate to declare in a leading article that +"the persons who framed the rule" respecting religious instruction +intended to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as +the Incarnation. + +In a letter to the _Times_ Huxley replied (April 29, 1893):-- + + I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers + of the rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such + interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have + opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability. + + In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an + article in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled "The School + Boards--what they can do and what they may do," in which + I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such + teaching as it is now proposed to include. + +And this contention he supported by the quotation from Mr. W.E. +Forster, given above. + +Further, in October, 1894, he replied as follows to a correspondent +who had asked him whether flat adhesion to the compromise had not +made nonsense of a certain Bible lesson, which was the subject of much +comment:-- + + I am at one with you in hating "hush up" as I do all other + forms of lying; but I venture to submit that the compromise + of 1871 was not a "hush up." If I had taken it to be such, I + should have refused to have anything to do with it.... + + There has never been the slightest ambiguity about my position + in the matter; in fact, if you will turn to one paper on the + School Board written by me before my election in 1870, I + think you will find that I anticipated the pith of the present + discussion. + + The persons who agreed to the compromise did exactly what all + sincere men who agree to compromise do. For the sake of + the enormous advantage of giving the rudiments of a decent + education to several generations of the people, they accepted + what was practically an armistice in respect of certain + matters about which the contending parties were absolutely + irreconcilable. + +To return to his activity on the School Board. His vigorous work as +chairman of the committee appointed to frame an educational scheme was +marked by great breadth of view. He desired the elementary schools +to be linked at the one end with infant schools; at the other with +continuation schools and some scheme for technical education. A +perfect scheme would provide what he first called a ladder from the +gutter to the university, whereby children of exceptional capacity +might reach the places for which nature had fitted them. His sense of +fitness would have welcomed even more warmly some system whereby the +incompetent born into the higher strata of the social organism should +be automatically graded down to the positions more appropriate to +their wits and character. But this is an ideal only possible in +Plato's State, where philosophers are kings and possess superhuman +power of intuition. + +Sincerity is sometimes impracticable. But here sincerity was combined +with common-sense practicality, and even an opponent like Lord +Shaftesbury was impelled to write in his journal:--"Professor Huxley +has this definition of morality and religion: 'Teach a child what is +wise: that is _morality_. Teach him what is wise and beautiful: that +is _religion!_' Let no one henceforth despair of making things clear +and of giving explanations!" + +He did not, however, disguise his fundamental opposition to +Ultramontanism, that intellectual and social _imperium in imperio_, +with its basic hostility to the free scientific spirit. This he had +already expressed in his "Scientific Education" (_Coll. Ess._, iii, +111), an address of 1869, and he repeated it towards the end of his +service on the School Board when opposing a bye-law that the Board +should pay over direct to denominational schools the fees for poor +children--to schools, that is, outside the Board's control. He opposed +it partly because it would assuredly lead to repeated contests on +the Board; partly because it would give a handle to that party whose +system, as set forth in the syllabus, of securing complete possession +of the minds of their flock, was destructive of all that was highest +in the nature of mankind and inconsistent with intellectual and +political liberty. + +The committee did excellent work in systematizing important matters +and leaving minor arrangements to the local managers; in apportioning +essential and discretionary subjects, and--what was of special +interest to its chairman--the teaching of elementary geography +and elementary social economy, and in particular the systematized +object-lessons, embracing a course of elementary construction in +physical science, and serving as an introduction to the courses for +the examinations under the Science and Art Department. Science, as he +declared, was assuming such a position alike in practical life and in +thought that any one totally ignorant of it would be at a disadvantage +in both spheres. Moreover, the proposed technical schools--for applied +science, that is--must suffer if they had to deal with pupils who had +no preliminary grounding in the principles of physical science. His +early advocacy of music and drawing, not to produce artists, but to +develop personality, also bore some fruit. The man of science, too, +was found defending Latin as a discretionary subject, alternatively +with a modern language. Latin was the gate to many things, and, apart +from the question of overloading the curriculum, there was great +danger if educational possibilities were not thrown open to all +without restriction. There is no more frightful "sitting on the safety +valve" than in denying men of ability the means of rising to the +positions for which their talents and industry might qualify them. + +As for the compulsory element in education and the justification for +levying rates and taxes for what objectors called "educating other +people's children," his answer was: "Every ignorant person tends to +become a burden upon, and, so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his +fellows, and an obstacle to their success. Under such circumstances +an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, levied for purposes of +defence." + +In all this it was his attitude towards the child which deeply +impressed his colleagues in whom child-sympathy was strongest. As the +Rev. Benjamin Waugh put it, he was on the Board to establish schools +for the children. He wanted to turn them into sound men and women, and +resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for +churches or hands for factories. "What he sought to do for the child +was for the child's sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier +life." + +After fifteen months of service on the School Board superadded to the +heavy strain of his ordinary work, his health broke down utterly, and +he resigned. But after his retirement his successors found that their +duty was "to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley +was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to +improve both the means and methods of teaching.... The most important +developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the +hand and eye.... Thus the impulse given by Huxley in the first months +of the Board's existence has been carried forward by others." So wrote +Dr. J. H. Gladstone in 1896. The tide of education has swelled since +then and is still swelling, but its main direction is the same. + + +NOTE + +As these pages are passing through the press, I note an appeal for +money by the Religious Tract Society, which is running short of funds +to keep up the number and quality of the 6-7,000 Bibles annually +awarded as prizes to elementary school children. This advertisement +fills more than half a column of the _Times_ of March 25, 1920. It is +headed in bold type, PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE BIBLE, and, opening +with the words "All who value the teaching of the Holy Bible will +appreciate this wonderful description of the Bible by Professor +Huxley," proceeds to quote the eloquent passage, referred to above on +p. 54, from "The School Boards, etc." (_Coll. Ess_., iii, 396). + +This testimony to the interest of the Bible outside its theological +applications is detached from its context as a spur to "all those who +value the Word of God... to send the Society help in [its] work of +extending Bible teaching in our Elementary Schools." + +But these words were written with grave qualifications, especially +as to the need of excluding doctrinal teaching. By suppressing these +qualifications the Secretaries of the Religious Tract Society +approve themselves denizens of the world of half-truths, along with +puff-writers and similar experts. + + + + +X + +EDUCATION: ESPECIALLY OF TEACHERS AND OF WOMEN + + +The third of his excursions into the field of education, in his +burning desire to give the people that right knowledge for want of +which they perish, was the training of the teachers who prepared +pupils for the examinations of the Science and Art Department. The +future of scientific teaching depended upon the proper supply of +trained teachers. Now, the School of Mines in Jermyn Street was +without a laboratory in which to make even his own students work out +with their own hands the structure of the biological "types" expounded +in the lectures. An opportunity to train these new "scientific +missionaries" came in 1871, when he was deep in the great schemes of +elementary education. More than a hundred of them flocked to South +Kensington, where some large rooms on the ground floor of the museum +had been secured and rigged up for the purpose by the Professor and +his three demonstrators. For six weeks in the summer there was a +daily lecture, followed by four hours' laboratory work under the +demonstrators, in which the students verified for themselves facts +which they had hitherto heard about and taught to their unfortunate +pupils from books alone. The naive astonishment and delight of +the more intelligent among them was sometimes almost pathetic. One +clergyman, who had for years conducted classes in physiology under the +Science and Art Department, was shown a drop of his own blood under +the microscope. "Dear me!" he exclaimed, "it's just like the picture +in Huxley's _Physiology_." + +From 1872 onwards, when the School of Mines removed bodily to new +buildings at South Kensington, Huxley had a fine laboratory of his +own, in which not only were these teachers taught, but he was able +to adopt the same method with the students in his regular courses--a +method for long universally adopted in detail as well as in principle. +The first and unchangeable principle was to make the student verify +every fact for himself; to be satisfied with nothing at second hand. +The system was to work over a chosen set of biological types, each +representing a well-marked group and providing comparisons one +with another as well as stepping stones to further investigations. +Originally he started the series with the simplest organisms, and +proceeded to the more complex; but, though a good philosophical order, +it had the disadvantages of requiring the beginner to have much skill +in handling the microscope, and of proceeding from the less known +organism to the better known. Starting with the latter, the beginner +would know better what to look for. His demonstrator, Jeffery Parker, +argued the point vigorously with Huxley, and finally persuaded him +to invert the series, with great success, albeit other lecturers +preferred to keep to his original arrangement. + +Education, furthermore, owes him a great debt for his long and active +work upon the Royal Commissions on the Royal College of Science for +Ireland, on Science and Art Instruction in Ireland, on Scientific +Instruction and the Advancement of Science; on Vivisection, to inquire +into the Universities of Scotland, and on the Medical Acts--all in the +sixteen years between 1866 and 1882. At the London University, also, +he was an examiner for many years, and in the early nineties he strove +hard to give it a new constitution, first as a member of the Senate, +and then as president of a reforming Association. It is noteworthy, +too, that ten years earlier he was elected a Governor of Eton College, +and in the short time before his health broke down a second time he +did something to aid science-teaching there and to make drawing a +general subject. + +In the general need for education he ranked high the need for the +education of women. As early as 1860 he wrote: "I don't see how we are +to make any permanent advancement while one-half of the race is +sunk, as nine-tenths of women are, in mere ignorant parsonese +superstitions." If only people would not bring up their daughters as +man-traps for the matrimonial market, the next generation would see +women fit to be the companions of men in all their pursuits; "though," +he added, "I don't think that men have anything to fear from their +competition." On this point he remarked five years later: "Nature's +old salique law will never be repealed, and no change of dynasty will +be effected, though whatever argument justifies a given education for +boys justifies its application to girls as well." + +A letter of 1874, touching the first efforts of women to qualify as +doctors, prefigures what has been done since for the higher education +of women:-- + + Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the + average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, + as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are + much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and + I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or + public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most + foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of + vigour and capacity. We have heard a great deal lately about + the physical disabilities of women. Some of these alleged + impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their + organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial--the + products of their modes of life. I believe that nothing would + tend so effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness, + weariness, and that "over-stimulation of the emotions" which, + in plainer-spoken days, used to be called wantonness, than + a fair share of healthy work, directed towards a definite + object, combined with an equally fair share of healthy play + during the years of adolescence; and those who are best + acquainted with the requirements of an average medical + practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt + to reach that standard is likely to prove exhausting to an + ordinarily intelligent and well-educated young woman. + +Twenty years later he supported the entry of women into public life +in a plainly reasoned letter, which he himself thought highly +complimentary, although a number of estimable ladies flew at him for +writing it:-- + + The best of women are apt to be a little weak in the great + practical arts of give-and-take and putting up with a beating, + and a little too strong in their belief in the efficacy of + government. Men learn about these things in the ordinary + course of their business; women have no chance in home life, + and the boards and councils will be capital schools for them. + Again, in the public interest it will be well; women are more + naturally economical than men, and have none of our false + shame about looking after pence. Moreover, they don't job for + any but their lovers, husbands, and children, so that we know + the worst. + +Directly, then, as teacher, lecturer, and essayist indirectly as +organizer, he ranks among the great educators of his age. But he did +not establish a "school" of his own; such a thing was abhorrent to +him. A resolute seeker after truth, he bade others seek also; but he +refused to impose his own conclusions on any man. + + Of all possible positions [he wrote in 1892], that of master + of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief of a party, appears + to me to be the most undesirable; in fact, the average British + matron cannot look upon followers with a more evil eye than I + do. Such acquaintance with the history of thought as I + possess has taught me to regard school, parties, and sects as + arrangements, the usual effect of which is to perpetuate + all that is worst and feeblest in the master's, leader's, + or founder's work; or else, as in some cases, to upset it + altogether; as a sort of hydrant for extinguishing the fire + of genius, and for stifling the flame of high aspirations, the + kindling of which has been the chief, perhaps the only, merit + of the protagonist of the movement. I have always been, am, + and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever + proposed to myself is to say, This and this have I learned, + thus and thus have I learned it; go thou and learn better; but + do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own + laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions + the value of which you ought to have tested for yourself. + +In fact, what his teaching stood for was not so much the thing taught +as the method by which facts should be observed and conclusions drawn +from them. As science, in his definition, is but trained and organized +common sense, so this method, the scientific method, is but the +ordinary common-sense method rigidly carried out. And the correlative +to this method is the attitude of mind that suspends judgment until +adequate proof is forthcoming. + + + + +XI + +METHODS OF WORK + + +Of his method of work something has already been said, recalling his +insistence upon verifying, experimentally, all statements made by +others which he wished to employ in his lectures. This was true not +only of his daily teaching, but of any new research that interested +him. He repeated the series of Pasteur's experiments for himself +before making a pronouncement on the much-debated question of +spontaneous generation. A curious by-result of these investigations +was that the Admiralty requested him to track down the cause of great +trouble in the Navy--namely, that the ship's biscuit, though carefully +prepared and packed in tins, was constantly found, when the tins were +opened, to be full of maggots. + +His far-ranging work in Comparative Anatomy was based upon dissections +by his own hand, executed rapidly and broadly, going straight to the +essential point without any finikin elaboration, and recorded in +very fine anatomical drawings. Indeed, his power of clear and rapid +draughtsmanship was the other side of his unusual power of visualizing +a conception. Each faculty helped the other, and one of the most +striking examples of his memory of forms was when, before a delighted +audience, he traced on the blackboard the development of some complex +structure, showing, stroke upon stroke, the orderly transition from +one form to the next. + +Until failing health forbade work with the microscope, he was +continually busy with the rational re-grouping of animal forms. +Besides his published works on the anatomy of both the Invertebrates +and the Vertebrates, whether manuals of anatomy or monographs of +special groups or general essays, and his work of classifying birds +and reptiles and fishes on new principles, there exists among the vast +number of drawings and notes preserved at the Huxley Laboratory at +South Kensington a quantity of unpublished and unfinished work which, +in detail, often anticipates the work of subsequent investigators, and +which, for the most part, represents fresh studies of special +groups of animals to be used in a general classification such as was +suggested in his paper "On the Application of the Laws of Evolution +to the arrangement of the Vertebrata, and more particularly of the +Mammalia" (1880)--"the most masterly," remarks Professor Howes, "of +his scientific theses; the only expression which he gave to the world +of the interaction of a series of revolutionary ideas and conceptions +(begotten of the labours of his closing years as a working zoologist) +which were at the period assuming shape in his mind. They have done +more than all else of their period to rationalize the application of +our knowledge of the Vertebrata, and have now left their mark for all +time on the history of progress, as embodied in our classificatory +systems." But neither this great work nor the other special monographs +still in hand reached completion. His health broke down; he could +no longer stoop over the microscope, and had perforce to abandon +zoological work before he was sixty. + +A remark made by Huxley about others is very true of himself--that +what matters most is not the microscope, but the man behind it; +not the objects seen, but the interpretation of them and their +relationships. The outward and the inward eye had the same quickness, +the same highly developed sense of form and relationship, backed by a +store of living knowledge; so well organized that it could respond +at once to any suggestion which would throw light on undiscovered +affinities and provide a true base for classification. + +While much of his bookwork and writing was done at home, his later +anatomical work was done at his laboratory. As official engagements +multiplied, his time was much broken into; but he snatched every +available moment, often dashing down to South Kensington in a cab for +a half-hour of work between two official meetings. His absorption +in his studies was intense--as at one time he signs himself to his +fellow-worker, W. K. Parker, "Ever yours amphibially," so Jeffery +Parker, his demonstrator, who tells the story, came to him with a +question about the brain of the codfish at a time when he was deep in +the investigation of some invertebrate group. "Codfish?" he replied; +"that's a vertebrate, isn't it? Ask me a fortnight hence, and I'll +consider it." + +One more note concerning his method of work. His love of visualizing +his problems regularly led him to make charts to show geographically, +say, the distribution of certain forms of life over the globe, or to +illustrate points of history--such, for example, as a coloured map +of the Aegean, with fifty-mile circles drawn from the centre of the +Cyclades to illustrate the range of Greek civilization as it spread +over the shores of Asia and Europe. And as in writing a book he was +careful first to plan out the scheme of it and the balance of the +parts, so, however much his public addresses gave the impression of +being largely impromptu, he had always thought out carefully every +word he meant to say. "There is," he said, "no greater danger than +the so-called _inspiration of the moment_, which leads you to say +something which is not exactly true, or which you would regret +afterwards." + +Yet his was not a strong verbal memory. It was essentially a memory +for facts; he could tear the heart out of a book as swiftly as a +Macaulay, packing the facts into the framework of his knowledge, +and always knowing thereafter where to find his facts or verify his +references. In his speeches it was the compelling thought seeking +expression, and fitting the form of expression exactly to the form +of the thought, that brought the meditated words so infallibly and so +spontaneously to his lips: they were already welded together in mind. +But he had not that kind of memory which, after once reading a page +of a book, can recite the whole word for word, whether prose or verse. +Single phrases embodying a notable image would remain with him, and +remain ready for use as allusive colour or pointed epigram. Many of +these were Biblical phrases, for he knew his Bible well, and admired +not only the grandeur of thought to be found enshrined in it, but its +magnificence as a treasure-house of our English tongue. And, apart +from many scientific terms of his invention, he coined divers words +and phrases which have enriched our language, such as "Agnostic," +"the ladder from the gutter to the university," the descriptions of +Positivism as "Catholicism without Christianity," and the Salvation +Army methods as "Corybantic Christianity." + +His working day began soon after nine, for he was never one of those +people who can do hours of work before breakfast. The working day, +however, regularly went on until midnight, and, as has been mentioned, +was often prolonged by late reading. + +The speed with which his mind worked to see through complex questions +and spring swiftly to a conclusion was such that he contrived to do +four ordinary men's work in a single lifetime. But this swiftness of +reaching a conclusion, so useful at most times, was liable sometimes +to betray him. If, however, he found that he had made a mistake, he +was ready to confess the fact. The most celebrated instance of this +was the story of _Bathybius_. In 1868, while soundings were being made +in connection with the laying of the Atlantic cable, certain specimens +of mud were dredged up. The mud was sticky, owing to the presence of +innumerable lumps of a transparent gelatinous substance. This was +in fine granules, which possessed neither a nucleus nor a covering +membrane. Scattered through it were calcareous coccoliths. Such +were the facts; what inference was to be drawn? The only thing this +substance resembled was one of the many simple forms of oceanic life +recently found and described by the great zoologist Haeckel. + + I conceive [wrote Huxley] that the granulate heaps and the + transparent gelatinous matter in which they are embedded + represent masses of protoplasm. Take away the cysts which + characterize the _Radiolaria_, and a dead _Sphaerozoum_ would + very nearly represent one of this deep-sea "Urschleim," which + must, I think, be regarded as a new form of those simple + animated beings which have recently been so well described by + Haeckel in his _Monographie der Moneras_. + +So it received the name of Bathybius Haeckelii. + +The explanation was plausible enough, if the evidence had been all +that it seemed to be. But the specimens examined by himself and by +Haeckel, who two years later published a full and detailed description +of _Bathybius_, were seen only in a preserved state. It was dredged up +again on the voyage of the _Porcupine_ and examined in a fresh state +by Sir Wyville Thomson and Dr. W.B. Carpenter, but they found no +better explanation to give of it. Doubt only arose when, in 1879, the +_Challenger_ expedition failed to find it very widely distributed, as +expected, over the sea bottom; and the behaviour of certain specimens +gave good ground for suspecting that what had been sent home before +as genuine deep-sea mud was a precipitate due to the action on +the specimens of the spirit in which they were preserved. Though +Haeckel--his large experience of Monera fortified by the discovery of +a close parallel near Greenland in 1876--would not desert Bathybius, +the rest of its sponsors gave it up. The evidence in this particular +case was tainted. At the meeting of the British Association in 1879 +Huxley came forward and took occasion to "eat the leek" in a speech as +witty as it was candid. + +Now, _Bathybius_ had often been pointed to as an example of almost +primordial life, from which the evolutionary chain might have +begun; and later controversialists, not acquainted with the precise +limitations of the matter, seized upon the _Bathybius_ recantation as +a convenient stick with which to beat the Darwinian dog. To the most +noteworthy case of this, eleven years later, Huxley retorted:-- + + That which interested me in the matter was the apparent + analogy of _Bathybius_ with other well-known forms of lower + life.... Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with + the matter, and 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. + +As to the eating of the leek, he had commended it many a long +year before to an over-impetuous German friend who had read enough +Shakespeare to understand the meaning of the phrase:-- + + Well, every honest man has to do that now and then, and I + assure you that, if eaten fairly and without grimaces, the + devouring of that herb has a very wholesome cooling effect on + the blood, particularly in people of a sanguine temperament. + +Reflections on making mistakes lead to a striking conclusion:-- + + The most considerable difference I note among men is not in + their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to + acknowledge these inevitable lapses. + +Until he reached middle age, his quickness of thought and decision was +fretted by men of slower mind if they happened to be associated with +him on some enterprise, and to certain colleagues his ardour was +sometimes almost terrifying. And in those days also, before custom had +hardened him, he was apt to be short with those devoid of any claim +to intervene who thrust themselves into his affairs. Salutary as this +doubtless was to the really ignorant meddler, there was one occasion, +of which I learnt thirty years later, where at bottom the rebuke was +not deserved. The sufferer, admittedly devoid of anatomical knowledge, +questioned the statement in an early edition of _The Elementary +Physiology_ as to the method in which the voice is produced, and +propounded a different movement in part of the larynx. The Professor +replied to the effect that the writer had better learn some anatomy +before challenging the result of careful experiment. But some years +later, as a result of further investigation, this same change was made +in a new edition of the book. By that time the very name of the critic +was forgotten. But if he and his suggestion had been remembered, I am +inclined to think that he would have received an _amende_. + + + + +XII + +SCIENCE AND ETHICS + + +Huxley's work in education was his direct contribution to the social +improvement of the world. Not instruction merely--for, "though +under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that +over-instruction may be a worse"--but through education, the bringing +out of the moral worth and intellectual clearness of the individual +citizen, which is the one condition of the success of a State. And +this condition, resting on the basic faith in veracity, he felt to be +above all the work of science, the Cinderella of thought. For, as he +wrote:-- + + If the diseases of Society consist in the weakness of its + faith in the existence of the God of the theologians, in a + future state, and in uncaused volitions, the indication, as + the doctors say, is to suppress Theology and Philosophy, whose + bickerings about things of which they know nothing have + been the prime cause and continual sustenance of that + evil scepticism which is the Nemesis of meddling with the + unknowable. + + Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance of these + high matters. She lights the fire, sweeps the house, and + provides the dinner; and is rewarded by being told that she is + a base creature, devoted to low and material interests. But in + her garret she has fairy visions out of the ken of the pair + of shrews who are quarrelling downstairs. She sees the order + which pervades the seeming disorder of the world; the great + drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, + but also with abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself + before her eyes; and she learns, in her heart of hearts, the + lesson, that the foundation of morality is to have done, once + and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that + for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible + propositions about things beyond the possibilities of + knowledge. + + She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the + adoption of this or that philosophical speculation, or this + or that theological creed, but in a real and living belief in + that fixed order of nature which sends social disorganization + upon the track of immorality, as surely as it sends physical + disease after physical trespasses. And of that firm and lively + faith it is her high mission to be the priestess. + +In a world the elements of which are thus mixed with pity and terror, +goodness and beauty, he held himself, like the majority of men, as +neither optimist nor pessimist. "The world is neither so good, nor so +bad, as it conceivably might be; and as most of us have reason, now +and again, to discover that it can be." + +On the one side, the optimistic dogma that this is the best of all +possible worlds is little better than a libel on possibility. On +behalf of the modified optimism that benevolence is on the whole the +regulating principle of the sentient world, it may be granted that +there are hosts of subtle contrivances devoted to the production of +pleasure and the avoidance of pain; but, if so, why is it not equally +proper to say of the equally numerous arrangements, the no less +necessary result of which is the production of pain, that they are +evidences of malevolence? Translating these facts into moral +terms, the goodness of the hand that aids Blake's "little lamb" is +neutralized by the wickedness of the other hand that eggs on his +"tiger burning bright," and the course of nature will appear to be +neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral. + +On the other side, though this may not be the best of all possible +worlds, to say that it is the worst is "mere petulant nonsense." +With a courage based on hours and days of personal knowledge, he +exclaims:-- + + There can be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person + that mankind could, would, and in fact do, get on fairly well + with vastly less happiness and far more misery than find their + way into the lives of nine people out of ten. If each and + all of us had been visited by an attack of neuralgia, or + of extreme mental depression, for one hour in every + twenty-four--a supposition which many tolerably vigorous + people know, to their cost, is not extravagant--the burden + of life would have been immensely increased without much + practical hindrance to its general course. Men with any + manhood in them find life quite worth living under worse + conditions than these. + +Moreover, another fact utterly contradicts the hypothesis that the +sentient world is directed by malevolence:-- + + A vast multitude of pleasures, and these among the purest and + the best, are superfluities, bits of good which are, to all + appearance, unnecessary as inducements to live, and are, so + to speak, thrown into the bargain of life. To those who + experience them, few delights can be more entrancing than + such as are afforded by natural beauty, or by the arts, and + especially by music; but they are products of, rather than + factors in, evolution, and it is probable that they are known, + in any considerable degree, to but a very small proportion of + mankind. + +To speak, then, of the course and intention of nature in terms +of human thought, we must say that its governing principle is +intellectual and not moral. It is a logical process materialized, with +pleasures and pains that fall, in most cases, without the slightest +reference to moral desert. + +From the moralist's point of view the animal world, in which our own +cosmic nature has been severely trained for millions of years, is no +better than a gladiatorial show, and we cannot expect, within a few +centuries, to subdue the masterfulness of this inborn tendency, in +part necessary to our existence, to purely ethical ends. So deep +rooted is it that the struggle may last till the end of time. But, he +exclaims with a ringing note-- + + I see no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, + guided by sound principles of investigation, and organized in + common effort, may modify the conditions of existence for a + period longer than that now covered by history. And much may + be done to change the nature of man himself. The intelligence + which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful + guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards + curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men. + +In the long struggle pain and sorrow are inevitable. The aim of man +is not to escape these, but rather to earn peace and self-respect. To +this he added a special point, in a letter of 1890:-- + + If you will accept the results of the experience of an old + man who has had a very chequered existence--and has nothing + to hope for except a few years of quiet downhill--there + is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human + affections), nothing that satisfies quiet reflection, except + the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and + light, to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of + all sorts. That was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books + when I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life. + +The animal world, then, having the principle of its existence in a +state of war, society was created by the first men who substituted +the state of mutual peace for the state of mutual war. The object of +society was the limitation of the struggle for existence. That shape +of society most nearly approaches perfection in which the war of +individual against individual is most strictly limited. Happiness +and freedom of action are restricted to a sphere where they do not +interfere with the happiness and freedom of others; the common weal +becomes an essential part of individual welfare. In short, even if +under the most perfect conditions "Witless will always serve his +master," man aims to escape from his place in the animal kingdom, +founded on the free development of the principle of non-moral +evolution, and to establish a kingdom of Man governed upon the +principle of moral evolution. For society not only has a moral end, +but in its perfection social life is embodied morality. Moral purpose +is "an article of exclusively human manufacture--and very much to our +credit." + +To society, then, its members owe a vital debt; for society, the work +of the ethical man, has slowly and painfully built up around us a +fabric of defence against barbarism, the work of the non-ethical man. +This debt we are bound to repay by furthering in ourselves the good +work of human fellowship, and by striving to improve the conditions +of our social life; and the means thereto are self-discipline, +self-support, intelligent effort, not unreasoning violence with its +disruption of the defences against anarchic barbarism. + +Yet if society, in making life easier, multiplies the species in +excess of the means of subsistence, it raises up within itself, in +the intensest form, the unlimited struggle for existence. "This is the +true riddle of the Sphinx, and every nation which does not solve +it will, sooner or later, be devoured by the monster itself has +generated." + +Improvement there has been during the historical period: with goodwill +and clear thought Huxley looked for ever-accelerating improvement, +though contemporary civilizations seemed neither to embody any worthy +ideal nor even to possess the merit of stability. In the atmosphere +of plain verity, where, as he said, "my business is to teach my +aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts +harmonize with my aspirations," he confidently looked for the hopes of +the future; but were it not so, he solemnly declared-- + + If there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of + the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the + increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over + Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows + that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and + the intensity of want, with its concomitant physical and moral + degradation among the masses of the people, I should hail the + advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair + away as a desirable consummation. + +In the matter of personal conduct he rejected the notions that the +moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future +rewards and punishments, and that such a system is indispensable to +practical morality. "I believe," he said, "that both these dogmas are +very mischievous lies." + +There is no need for future compensation because, so he firmly +believed, "the Divine Government--if we may use such a phrase to +express the sum of the 'customs of matter'--is wholly just....But for +this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that +the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the _whole_ +law--physical as well as moral--and that moral obedience will not +atone for physical sin, or _vice versa_." Thus he could declare "the +more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my +own), the more obvious it is that the wicked does _not_ flourish, nor +is the righteous punished." "The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as +certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so--for experimental +proof of the fact is within reach of us all--nay, is before us all in +our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it." Nevertheless-- + + It is to be recollected, in view of the apparent discrepancy + between men's acts and their rewards, that Nature is juster + than we are. She takes into account what a man brings with him + into this world, which human justice cannot do. If I, born a + bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from + others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me; but + I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would + be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done + the same thing. + +Accordingly-- + + Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I + believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of + this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that + their inevitable rewards and punishments are here. + + If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from + evil-doing, surely a fortiori the certainty of hell now will + do so? If a man could be firmly impressed with the belief that + stealing damaged him as much as swallowing arsenic would do + (and it does), would not the dissuasive force of that belief + be greater than that of any based on mere future expectations? + +And this leads me to quote words written by an old friend and +colleague of his, Sir Spencer Walpole:-- + + Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard + were, on the whole, the highest. He recognized that the fact + of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the + most upright of lives; and I am very much of the opinion of a + little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who, + when she was told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future + rewards and no fear of future punishments, emphatically + declared: "Then I think Professor Huxley is the best man I + have ever known." + + + + +XIII + +MORALITY AND THE CHURCH + + +It is alike interesting and satisfactory to reflect that practical +morality in civilized life is much the same for all earnest men, +however they differ in their theories as to the origin of moral ideas +and the kind of motives and sanctions to be insisted on for right +action. It is true that the theologians and supernaturalists have +erected their scaffolding around the building of social and human +morality, vowing that it will not stand without. Yet it remains steady +when the scaffolding is warped by the winds of doctrine or uprooted +by advancing knowledge. The spirit that has built it is free from the +perverted enthusiasms which crusade against freedom, put thought in +fetters, and sanctify persecution. It lends no support to the other +spirit that would dominate minds and consciences by formulae that lie +outside the court of reason. These things are of clericalism, and it +was clericalism to which Huxley ever found himself in opposition, for +it "raises obstacles to scientific ways of thinking, which are even +more important than scientific discoveries." But all associations for +promoting that sympathy which is at the foundation of human society +need not be infected with clericalism. If such a step were otherwise +expedient, even the State might do something towards that end +indirectly:-- + + I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which + should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week + by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of + abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before + men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a + place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily + cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the + higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so + few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should + have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he + covets compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if + such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it. + +But, while sympathy is the basis of society and enthusiasm the +greatest motive power of humanity, there remains something more to +be considered. The man who could appreciate the value of the personal +consolations brought by the Bible-woman to the poor and down-trodden, +and the infinitely comfortable assurance of the mystic, firm as +hypnotic conviction, that he is the direct associate and instrument of +the Almighty, whether submissive or arrogant, from Stephen to the Bab, +from Cromwell and Gordon to Bismarck and his Imperial associates, +such a man might well say: "I wish I could be so magnificently +self-confident, so untroubled by doubt. But I can't, for I have to +ask: Is it true?; and I find that these persons base themselves upon +very questionable grounds." + +True, that in regard to the place of good and evil in this world the +best theological teachers-- + + substantially recognize these realities of things, however + strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. The + doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate + depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the + race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential + vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to + a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself, + faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth + than the "liberal" popular illusions that babies are all born + good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible + for their failure to remain so; that it is given to everybody + to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all + partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments, + such as that which represents "Providence" under the guise of + a paternal philanthropist, and bids us believe that everything + will come right (according to our notions) at last. + + ...I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain + kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the + future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in hell, + for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right + and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such + punishment) have now and then "descended into hell" and + stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite + punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective, + immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some + such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of + _Corinthians_, immortality must be eternal misery. The fate of + Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of + a mind imprisoned for ever within the _flammantia moenia_ of + inextinguishable memories. + +Such were the shapes into which the Christian theologians had +fashioned a number of moral truths when they annexed the house of +human morality. But what is the basis of certitude on which these +interpretations rest? If Adam was not an historical character, if the +story of the Fall be whittled down into a "type" which is typical of +no underlying reality, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken, and +practical deductions drawn from it are shaken also. In fact, "the +Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more +about the spiritual world than anybody else, and Newman's doctrine +of 'Development' is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did +not dream." And as to the argument that the successful spread of +Christianity attests the truth of the New Testament story, he replied +to his questioner with the general propositions:-- + + 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 fourth 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 led better lives than their + neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen. + + If these things are true--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? + +Furthermore, behind all the theological developments of the Church +lies the whole question of Theism, and "the philosophical difficulties +of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever +since Theism was invented." + + + + +XIV + +LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS + + +"To live laborious days" was, for Huxley, at all times a necessity as +well as a creed. The lover of knowledge and truth, he firmly believed, +must devote his uttermost powers to their service; he held as strongly +that every man's first duty to society was to support himself. But +science provided more fame than pence, and with wife and family to +support he was spurred to redoubled efforts. In the early years of +married life especially, while he was still struggling to make +his way, he often felt the pinch. He added to his modest income by +reviewing and translating scientific books and by lecturing. On +one occasion, when he was a candidate for a certain scientific +lectureship, one of the committee of election, a wealthy man, +expressed astonishment at his application--"what can he want with a +hundred a year?" "I dare say," commented Huxley, "he pays his cook +that." In early days, visioning the future, he and his wife had fondly +planned to marry on L400 a year, while he pursued science, unknown +if need be, for the sake of science. The reality pressed hardly upon +them; those were dark evenings when he would come home fagged out by +a second lecture at the end of a full day's work and lay himself down +wearily on one couch, while she, so long a semi-invalid, lay uselessly +on another. And, later, the upbringing of a large family, though its +advent made life the more worth living, involved a heavy strain. At +the same time, a man who was ever ready to take up responsibilities +for the furtherance of every branch of science with which he was +concerned had endless responsibilities committed to him. Besides +his researches in pure science, whether anatomy, paleontology, or +anthropology, his regular teaching work and other courses of lectures, +his long work as examiner at the London University, the production of +scientific memoirs and text-books and more general essays, he took +a leading share in editing the _Natural History Review_ for two and +a-half years; he was an active supporter of the chief scientific +societies to which he belonged, and took a prominent part in their +administration as member of council, secretary, or president, the +most laborious period of which was during the nine years of his +secretaryship of the Royal Society, soon to be followed by the +presidency. Add to these his service on the School Board and no less +than eight Royal Commissions, and it is easy to see that the longest +working days he could contrive were always filled and over-filled. + +When very tired he would occasionally dash off for a week or two's +walking with a friend in Wales, or some corner of France; two summer +holidays in Switzerland with John Tyndall resulted in a joint paper on +the "Structure of Glacier Ice"; later, the family holidays by the +sea regularly saw a good deal of time devoted to writing, while his +exercise consisted of long walks. + +Unlike Darwin, who at last found nothing save science engrossing +enough to make him oblivious of his constant ill-health, Huxley +never lost his keen delight in literature and art. He was a rapid and +omnivorous reader, devouring everything from a fairy tale to a blue +book, and tearing the heart out of a book at express speed. With this +went a love of great and beautiful poetry and of prose expression that +is at once exact and artistically balanced. "I have a great love and +respect for my native tongue," he wrote, "and take great pains to use +it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can +get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious +as I grow older." Indeed, even after much re-writing, his corrections +in proof must have appalled his publishers. "Science and literature," +he declared, "are not two things, but two sides of one thing." "Have +something to say, and say it," was the great Duke's theory of +style. "Say it in such language," added Huxley, "that you can stand +cross-examination on every word. Be clear, though you may be convicted +of error. If you are clearly wrong, you will run up against a fact +some time and get set right. If you shuffle with your subject, and +study chiefly to use language which will give a loophole of escape +either way, there is no hope for you." + +Herein lay the secret of his lucidity. Uniting the scientific habit +of mind with the literary art, he showed that truthfulness need not +be bald, and that power lies rather in accuracy than in luxuriance of +diction. As to the influence which such a style exerted on the habit +of mind of his readers, there is remarkable testimony in a letter from +Spedding, the editor of Bacon, printed in the _Life of Huxley_, ii, +239. Spedding, his senior by a score of years, describes the influence +of Bacon on his own style in the matter of exactitude, the pruning +of fine epithets and sweeping statements, the reduction of numberless +superlatives to positives, and asserts that if, as a young man, he +had fallen in with Huxley's writings before Bacon's, they would have +produced the same effect upon him. + +Huxley's own criticism of the one and only poem be ever published +is also instructive. On his way back from the funeral of Tennyson in +Westminster Abbey, he spent the journey in shaping out some lines on +the dead poet, the germ of which had come into his mind in the Abbey. +These, with a number of other tributes to Tennyson by professed poets, +were printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ for November, 1892. He writes +in a private letter:-- + + If I were to pass judgment upon it in comparison with the + others, I should say that as to style it is hammered, and as + to feeling, human. + + They are castings of much prettier pattern and of mainly + poetico-classical educated-class sentiment. I do not think + there is a line of mine one of my old working-class audience + would have boggled over. + +As regards the arts other than literary, he had a keen eye for a +picture or a piece of sculpture, for, in addition to the draughtman's +and anatomist's sense of form, he had a strong sense of colour. To +good music, also, he was always susceptible; as a young man he used to +sing a little, but his voice, though true, was never strong. In music, +as in painting, he was untrained. Yet, as has been noted already, his +illustrations to MacGillivray's _Voyage of the Rattlesnake_ and his +holiday sketches suggest that he might have gone far had he been +trained as an artist. + +When first married he used to set aside Saturday afternoons to take +his wife to the Ella concerts, fore-runners of the "Saturday Pops.," +but it was not very long before the pressure of circumstance forbade +this pleasure. Later, he very occasionally managed to go to the +theatre; but his chief recreation, apart from change of work and the +rapid devouring of a good novel, was in meeting his friends, when +occasion offered, at the scientific societies or at dinner, or now +and then in country visits which had not yet received the name of +"week-ends." + +When, in the middle seventies, his position was firmly established and +he was living in a roomy house, No. 4 Marlborough Place, St. John's +Wood, there were gatherings of friends on Sunday evenings. An informal +meal awaited the guests, who came either on a general invitation or +when specially bidden; others put in an appearance later. There would +be much talk, from grave to gay, in those plainly appointed rooms, or +on a fine summer evening, perhaps, in the garden with its little lawn +behind the house. Some music, too, was almost sure to be performed by +friends or by the daughters of the house, whose progress in the art of +singing was ever a matter of concern to Mr. Herbert Spencer, himself +a great lover of music. Letters and Art were well represented there +as well as Science, intermingled with the friends of the younger +generation. "Here," writes G.W. Smalley, + + people from many other worlds than those of abstract science + were bidden; where talk was to be heard of a kind rare in + any world. It was scientific at times, but subdued to the + necessities of the occasion; speculative, yet kept within such + bounds that bishop or archbishop might have listened without + offence; political even, and still not commonplace, and, when + artistic, free from affectation. + + There and elsewhere Mr. Huxley easily took the lead if he + cared to, or if challenged. Nobody was more ready in a greater + variety of topics, and if they were scientific it was almost + always another who introduced them. Unlike some of his + comrades of the Royal Society, he was of opinion that man does + not live by science alone, and nothing came amiss to him.... + Even in private the alarm of war is sometimes heard, and Mr. + Huxley is not a whit less formidable as a disputant across + the table than with pen in hand. Yet an angry man must be very + angry indeed before he could be angry with this adversary. He + disarmed his enemies with an amiable grace that made defeat + endurable, if not entirely delightful. + +If scientific subjects came up in conversation, the luminous style, so +familiar in his written work, reappeared in talk. + + Yet it has more than that. You cannot listen to him without + thinking more of the speaker than of his science, more of the + solid beautiful nature than of the intellectual gifts, more of + his manly simplicity and sincerity than of all his knowledge + and his long services. + +But in the intermediate period, from about 1860 onwards, the unceasing +rush of occupation rendered it very difficult to keep in touch with +his friends. On his initiative a small dining club of scientific +friends and allies was established. Almost all these close friends +were members of the Royal Society, and were likely to attend its +meetings. Dinner, therefore, was to be taken at a convenient hotel +before the monthly meeting of the Society, and those who were +inevitably drifting apart under the stress of circumstances would +have a regular meeting ground. This was the famous _x_ Club, a name +singularly appropriate on the principle of _lucus a non lucendo_ to a +club of nine members who never proceeded to the election of a tenth. +Opinions as to the name and constitution of the little society +being no less numerous than the members--indeed more so--"we finally +accepted the happy suggestion of our mathematicians to call it the _x_ +Club; and the proposal of some genius among us that we should have +no rules, save the unwritten law not to have any, was carried by +acclamation." + +Huxley first propounded the scheme to his most intimate friends, +Joseph Dalton Hooker, then Assistant Director of Kew, and John +Tyndall, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. +George Busk, the anatomist, afterwards President of the College of +Surgeons, was another whose friendship dated from soon after +the return of the _Rattlesnake_ to England. Herbert Spencer, the +philosopher, and Sir John Lubbock, banker and naturalist, were friends +of nearly as long standing. Edward Frankland, Professor of Chemistry +at the Royal Institution, and Thomas Archer Hirst, Professor of +Physics and Pure Mathematics at University College, London, afterwards +Director of Naval Studies at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, +entered the circle as special friends of Tyndall's. William +Spottiswoode, Queen's Printer and mathematician, was the ninth member, +elected by the rest at the first meeting. + +Between them they could have managed to contribute most of the +articles to a scientific Encyclopaedia: six were Presidents of the +British Association; three were Associates of the Institute of France; +and from among them the Royal Society chose a Secretary, a Foreign +Secretary, a Treasurer, and three successive Presidents. Meeting +though they did for the sake of friendship and good fellowship, it +was inevitable that they should discuss the burning questions of the +scientific world freely from varied points of view, and, being all +animated by similar ideas of the high function of science and of the +great Society, the chief representative of science to which all but +one of them belonged, they incidentally exercised a strong influence +on the progress of scientific organization. + +The first meeting took place on November 3, 1864; nearly nineteen +years passed before the circle was broken by the death of +Spottiswoode. Proposals were made to fill the gap with a new friend, +but, as the _raison d'etre_ of the club had been simply the personal +attachment of the original nine, the project fell through. Finally, +after Hirst's death in 1892, when five out of the remaining six were +living away from London and for the most part in uncertain health, +it became more and more difficult to arrange a meeting, and the club +quietly lapsed after nearly twenty-eight years of existence. + +Guests were often entertained at the _x_ dinners, men of science or +letters of almost every nationality--a delightful and quite informal +mode of personal intercourse. In the summer, also, the _x_ often made +a week-end expedition into the country or up the river, in which the +wives of the married members took part, the formula for the invitation +being _x's + yv's_. + + + + +XV + +CHARLES DARWIN + + +To this focus of close friendships Charles Darwin would assuredly have +been invited to belong had he been other than an invalid living +away from London; for he was the warm and revered friend not only of +Huxley, but still more of Hooker, who in age stood midway between the +two--eight years younger than the one and eight years older than the +other--and who, for some fifteen years before the publication of the +_Origin of Species_, had been Darwin's most intimate friend and aid in +his work. + +Huxley had made Darwin's acquaintance early in the fifties, and soon +fell under the spell of his deep thought, his utter sincerity and +generous warmth of heart. Darwin, for his part, was strongly attracted +by his new friend's penetrating knowledge, incisive criticism, and +brilliant conversation. When, in 1858, he began to write out the +_Origin_, Huxley was one of the three men he fixed upon by whose +judgment of the book he meant to abide. Lyell, who had read the book +before it came out, was the first; Hooker, his long-time aid and +critic and finally convert, the second. On the eve of publication, +secure of these, he adds: "If I can convert Huxley I shall be +content." + +On all three the effect of the completed book, with its array of +detailed argument and evidence, was far greater than that of +previous discussions. With one or two reservations as to the logical +completeness of the theory, Huxley accepted it as a well-founded +working hypothesis, calculated to explain problems otherwise +inexplicable. There were evolutionists before Darwin, from Lamarck and +the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_ to Herbert Spencer; but as +there was no evidence to bear out the orthodox creational view of the +Book of _Genesis_, enlarged upon in detail by Milton, so before Darwin +the evidence in favour of the transmutation of species was wholly +insufficient, and no suggestion which had been made to the causes +of the assumed transmutation was in any way adequate to explain +the phenomena. Under such conditions only an agnostic attitude was +possible. "So," writes Huxley-- + + I took refuge in that "_thaetige Skepsis_," which Goethe has so + well defined, and, reversing the apostolic precept to be all + things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of + the received doctrines when I had to do with the + transmutationists, and stood up for the possibility of + transmutation among the orthodox, thereby, no doubt, + increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, + reputation for needless combativeness. + +Then came the publication of the Darwin-Wallace paper in 1858, and of +the _Origin_ in 1859, the effect of which he compares to-- + + the flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself on a + dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes + him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which + we were looking for, and could not find, was an hypothesis + respecting the origin of known organic forms which assumed + the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be + actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or + any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite + conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and + have their validity tested. The _Origin_ provided us with the + working hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the immense + service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma--refuse to + accept the creation hypothesis and what have you to propose + that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857 I had + no answer ready, and I do not think that any one else had. + A year later we reproached ourselves with dullness for being + perplexed with such an inquiry. My reflection, when I first + made myself master of the central idea of the _Origin_, was: + "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." I suppose + that Columbus's companions said much the same when he made the + egg stand on end. The facts of variability, of the struggle + for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious + enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the + heart of the species problem lay through them until Darwin + and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the + _Origin_ guided the benighted. + + Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of Evolution, + as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands would + prove to be final or not, was to me a matter of indifference. + In my earliest criticisms of the _Origin_ I ventured to + point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as + experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties + which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains + up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt + which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian + hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the + creation hypothesis. And if we had none of us been able to + discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent + and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to + speak, thrust under our noses, what force remained in the + dilemma--creation or nothing? It was obvious that hereafter + the probability would be immensely greater, that the links + of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than + that natural causation should be incompetent to produce all + the phenomena of nature. The only rational course for those + who had no other object than the attainment of truth was to + accept "Darwinism" as a working hypothesis and see what could + be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate + the facts of organic life or it would break down under the + strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense, and for + once common sense carried the day. + +Mention has been made of the instant support he was able to lend the +_Origin_ in the _Times_ review of the book, and the extension of its +doctrines in regard to man. Even before the book appeared, however, he +began to act as what Darwin laughingly called his "general agent." +His address on "Persistent Types" (June, 1859) aimed at clearing up in +advance one of the obvious objections raised against acceptance of the +doctrine of Evolution--namely, how is it that, if evolution is ever +progressive, progress is not universal? How is it that all forms do +not necessarily advance, and that simple organisms still exist? As +it happened, Darwin did not discuss this point when he first put +the _Origin_ together, and speedily came to regard this as the most +serious omission in the book. + +Great, then, was the debt of all science to Darwin. And not of science +only. The fight for freedom of thought and speech in science, into +which Huxley especially threw himself, was the more successful because +the immediate cause he upheld was so overwhelmingly strong in reason +and demonstration; and, the supreme curb upon thought being once +broken, a wider freedom was gained. + +For Darwin, therefore, Huxley had the reverence due to one who had +forged a new and mighty weapon in the war for plain truth. But, +while he could not but uphold a theory so much in accord with his own +knowledge and so fruitful in its promise of new knowledge, whether the +author of it were his friend or not, admiration and affection for a +man of such utter sincerity, such selfless respect for truth, and warm +personality, led him, when those views were stupidly or maliciously +attacked, to take more trouble in his defence and support, and to +strike out much harder at his adversary than he would otherwise have +done. Darwin's friends were well assured that the scanty time which +his health allowed for work was far too precious to be wasted in +controversy; for his own sake and for the sake of the calm atmosphere +in which a great theory should be worked out, they thought that the +battling on a lower plane should be left to them. "You ought to be +like one of the blessed gods of Elysium, and let the inferior deities +do battle with the infernal powers." "If I say a savage thing," Huxley +told him, "it is only 'pretty Fanny's way'; but if you do, it is not +likely to be forgotten." Hence a dash of personal pleasure was infused +into the duty of upholding and defending the bringer of new light. + +The acquaintance had begun about 1851; there was a common bond in +their sea experiences and explorations, as well as in their search +after a wider philosophy, to include the teachings of natural science; +the older man found in the younger a source of much biological and +other information, a suggestive critic and a stimulating companion. +Their relations took a long step towards intimacy after 1861, when, +after the loss of her eldest child, Mrs. Huxley and her other children +made a long stay at Down, and entered upon a life-long friendship with +Mrs. Darwin and the family. Thereafter followed many visits to Down, +and, whenever Darwin was in London, the certainty of half-an-hour's +keen talk--all that the doctor allowed--with his friend and +fellow-worker on some critical question of the moment. + +Darwin's admiration of his friend's powers was outspoken. To quote one +or two expressions of it: Huxley had delivered, in 1862, six lectures +to working men, which were printed off each week as delivered in +"little green pamphlets," under the general title of "On Our Knowledge +of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," winding up with +an account of the bearing of the _Origin_ upon the complete theory of +these causes. Acknowledging Nos. IV and V, Darwin writes:-- + + They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; + but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down No. + IV with this reflection: "What is the good of me writing a + thundering big book when everything is in this green little + book, so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is + good and bad, I may as well shut up shop altogether. + +After reading the article "Mr. Darwin's Critics" in 1871, he wrote yet +more enthusiastically. Mr. Mivart, in an apologia for the attitude of +Roman Catholicism towards Evolution, twitted the generality of men of +science with their ignorance of the real doctrines of his Church, and +cited the Jesuit theologian, Suarez, the latest great representative +of scholasticism, as following St. Augustine in asserting derivative +creation--that is, evolution from primordial matter endowed with +certain powers. Huxley thereupon examined the works of the learned +Jesuit, and found not only that the particular reference was not +to the point, but that, in his tract on the "Six Days of Creation," +Suarez expressly rejects the doctrine and reprehends Augustine +for holding it. "So," write Huxley gleefully at the irony of the +situation, "I have come out in the new character of a defender of +Catholic orthodoxy, and upset Mivart out of the mouth of his own +prophet." + +In the course of a most appreciative letter Darwin exclaimed:-- + + What a wonderful man you are to grapple with those old + metaphysico-divinity books.... The pendulum is now swinging + against our side, but I feel positive it will soon swing the + other way; and no mortal man will do half as much as you in + giving it a start in the right direction, as you did at the + commencement. + +And then, after "mounting climax on climax," he adds: + + "I must tell you what Hooker said to me a few years ago. 'When + I read Huxley I feel quite infantile in intellect.'" + +The most touching act of friendship, and one which assuredly gave +personal point to Huxley's remark in another connection, "Darwin is +in all things noble and generous--one of those people who think it +a privilege to let him help," took place when Huxley's health had +utterly broken down in 1873, and he was as depressed in mind as +in body. Who could say No to these words from the oldest and most +venerated among his devoted friends?-- + + Down, Beckenham, Kent. + April 23, 1873. + + My dear Huxley, + + I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in + number,) to inform you that they have placed through Robarts, + Lubbock, and Company the sum of L2,100 to your account at your + bankers. We have done this to enable you to get such complete + rest as you may require for the re-establishment of your + health; and in doing this we are convinced that we act for + the public interest, as well as in accordance with our most + earnest desires. Let me assure you that we are all your warm + personal friends, and that there is not a stranger or mere + acquaintance among us. If you could have heard what was + said, or could have read what was, as I believe, our inmost + thoughts, you would know that we all feel towards you as we + should to an honoured and much-loved brother. I am sure that + you will return this feeling, and will therefore be glad to + give us the opportunity of aiding you in some degree, as this + will be a happiness to us to the last day of our lives. Let + me add that our plan occurred to several of your friends at + nearly the same time, and quite independently of one another. + My dear Huxley, your affectionate friend, + + CHARLES DARWIN. + +Huxley was deeply moved. "What have I done to deserve this?" he +exclaimed. Before this generosity he at last allowed himself to +confess that, in the long struggle against ill health, he had been +beaten; but, as he said, only enough to teach him humility. + +The relief from anxieties, the ultimate restoration to health through +a clear holiday, were an unforgettable gift from this "band of +brothers," and the sufferer who had been healed rejoiced when not +long after an opportunity arose to share in a similar gift of help and +healing to another of the same good fellowship. + + + + +XVI + +HOOKER, FORBES, TYNDALL, AND SPENCER + + +Of his nearer contemporaries the two most intimate and faithful of +his life-long friendships were with Tyndall and Hooker, concerning the +utter frankness of which he writes to the latter:-- + + I wish you wouldn't be apologetic about criticism from + people who have a right to criticize. I always look upon any + criticism as a compliment, not but what the old Adam in T.H.H. + _will_ arise and fight vigorously against all impugnment and + irrespective of all odds in the way of authority, but that + is the way of the beast. Why I value your and Tyndall's and + Darwin's friendship so much is, among other things, that you + all pitch into me when necessary. You may depend upon it, + however blue I may look when in the wrong, it's wrath with + myself and nobody else. + +The common note in these friendships was not only community of aims, +but an essential generosity and sincerity. This it was that had drawn +him so strongly to Edward Forbes among the leaders of biology when he +returned, an unknown but promising pioneer of science, from the voyage +of the _Rattlesnake_. For Forbes inspired his admiration and affection +as a man of letters and an artist who had not merged the _man_ in +the man of science; free from pedantry or jealousy--the two besetting +faults of literary and scientific men; earnest, disinterested, ready +to give his time and influence to help any man who was working for the +cause; one of the few to whom a proud man could feel obliged without +losing a particle of independence or self-respect. + + My notions [he writes] are diametrically opposed to his in + some matters, and he helps me to oppose him.... I had a long + paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his + views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it + afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such + a man and yet respect myself. + +Without his aid and sympathy the young man would never have persevered +in the course he ventured to choose, and in following which it was one +of his greatest hopes that they should work in harmony for long years +at the aims so dear to both. + +"One could trust him so thoroughly!" There lay the root of friendship. +And the trust was thoroughly reciprocated. The entire frankness +between friends is brightly illustrated by the history of the award +of the Royal Medal in 1854. As a member of the Royal Society Council, +Huxley had to vote on the names proposed for the various medals. +For the Royal Medal first Hooker was named, and received his hearty +support; then Forbes was put up, in his eyes equally deserving, and +almost more closely bound to him by ties of active friendship, so +that, whichever way he ultimately voted, his action might possibly be +ascribed to personal, not scientific, motives. Thereupon he explained +to the Council that he considered their claims equal; that, whichever +chanced to have been put forward first, he would never have proposed +the other in opposition to him. As he had spoken of Hooker's +merits, so also he spoke of Forbes's, positively, and not by way of +comparison; and this done, voted for both! + +Hooker was actually elected. Huxley then wrote to both his friends, +explaining fully what he had done. Had he felt that one of the two had +strongly superior claims, and thought it right to vote for him only, +the other, he was sure, would have fully appreciated his motives, and +it would have done no injury to their friendship. + +He was not mistaken. Among his most precious possessions he kept +Forbes's reply:-- + + I heartily concur in the course you have taken, and, had I + been placed as you have been, would have done exactly + the same.... Your way of proceeding was as true an act of + friendship as any that could be performed. As to myself, I + dream so little about medals that the notion of being on the + list never entered my brain, even when asleep. If it ever + comes, I shall be pleased and thankful; if it does not, it is + not the sort of thing to break my equanimity. Indeed, I would + always like to see it given not as a mere honour, but as a + help to a good man, and this it is assuredly in Hooker's case. + Government people are so ignorant that they require to have + people's merits drummed into their heads by all possible + means, and Hooker's getting the medal may be of real service + to him before long. I am in a snug, though not an idle, nest; + he has not got his resting-place yet. And so, my dear Huxley, + I trust that you know me too well to think that I am either + grieved or envious; and you, Hooker, and I are much of the + same way of thinking. + +Frankness was the only remedy for such an imbroglio, and, as Huxley +wrote to Hooker about a similar case a couple of years later:-- + + It's deuced hard to keep straight in this wicked world, but, + as you say, the only chance is to out with it, and I thank you + much for writing so frankly about the matter. + +[Illustration: From a Photograph by Downey, 1890 To face p. 102] + +With Hooker, the keen observer and critical reasoner, the man of warm +impulses and sane judgments, he had a peculiarly intimate bond of +friendship summed up in a letter of 1888, when they had received the +Copley medal in successive years:-- + + 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 that I + owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of + things gained in the old _Rattlesnake_. + +From earliest days, soon after they had returned, the one from the +South Seas, the other from the Himalayas, they had stood shoulder +to shoulder confidently in the struggle to put science on a firm +and independent footing. When the future of the Natural History +Collections at the British Museum was in the balance, they +energetically resolved to constitute themselves into a permanent +"Committee of Safety," to watch over what was being done and take +measures with the advice of others when necessary. Together as +biologists they realized the greatness of Darwin's vision; together +they bore the brunt of the battle of the _Origin_ at Oxford. In +seeking a good mouthpiece for scientific opinion, in reorganizing +and administering the great scientific societies, in their work for +scientific education, they shared the same ideas, and their friendship +and Tyndall's formed the starting-point of the _x_ Club, with its +regular meetings of old friends. More than once they went off on a +short holiday tour together, and when Huxley was invalided in 1873 it +was Hooker who took charge and carried him off for a month's active +trip in the geological paradise of the Auvergne. The care and company +of so good a friend made the crowning ingredient in a most successful +prescription. And when both had retired from official life a new +interest in common sprang up through Huxley's incursion into botany. +While recruiting his health in the high Alps, his interest was aroused +by the Gentians, and he wrote a valuable paper on their morphology +and distribution. This interest continued itself into the making of +a rock-garden in his Eastbourne home, where, in his spare hours, +he proceeded to put into happy practice Candide's famous maxim, +"_Cultivons notre jardin_," and drew from this occupation the simile +of the wild chalk down and the cultivated garden in his Romanes +Lecture to illustrate the contrast between the cosmic process and the +social organism. + +Hooker often sent his friend plants from his own garden, sometimes +banteringly including one which would "flourish in any neglected +corner." + +An unclouded intimacy of friendship lasted to the end, and it was +Hooker who received the last letter written by his friend. + +Close as a brother, too, and claiming the name of brother in +affectionate adoption, was John Tyndall, radiant in genial warmth +and high spirits. They, too, were at one in thoughts, sympathies, and +aims; they travelled together, especially in the Alps, where Tyndall +mainly carried out the investigation of certain problems in relation +to the glaciers which Huxley had suggested to him, and, being "a +masterful man and over-generous," insisted that the resulting paper on +glaciers should bear both their names. + +Tyndall came to the School of Mines as Professor of Physics in 1859 at +his friend's instigation, and for nine years they were, as colleagues, +in daily contact, and indeed were not far separated when Tyndall +succeeded Faraday at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street. + +Tyndall, who remained a bachelor till late in middle life, always +found a warm corner beside his friend's hearth. From the earliest days +of the household in the little house at Waverley Place he was admitted +to the inner circle of a lively friendship by Mrs. Huxley also, that +keen judge of character, and to the children ranked as a kind of +unofficial uncle. On New Year's Day he was chief among the two or +three intimates who were bidden here, having no domestic hearth of +their own, Herbert Spencer and Hirst being the other "regulars," and +later Michael Foster. + +As the two men both had ready pens and stood side by side in many +controversies, they came to be regarded by the public as a pair of +Great Twin Brethren, the Castor and Pollux of many a scientific battle +of Lake Regillus. Odd confusions sometimes followed. In 1876, not +long after Tyndall's marriage to the daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, +Huxley was described in a newspaper paragraph as setting out for +America "with his titled bride," and even, on Tyndall's death, +received the doubtful honour of a funeral sermon. + +True that they did not see eye to eye on some of the most fundamental +matters of social and political principle, and where they did +Tyndall's vehement enthusiasm would sometimes sweep him into +activities where his friend could not follow. But these things were +no bar to their mutual affection and esteem, and in token of this two +letters of 1866 may be quoted, when England was sharply divided on the +question of Governor Eyre's action in suppressing an incipient revolt +in Jamaica. + +In particular, a negro preacher named Gordon had been arrested, +court-martialled, and summarily executed. A Royal Commission appointed +to inquire into the case declared that the evidence given appeared to +be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner +took his trial, and that in the evidence adduced they could not see +any sufficient proof of Gordon's complicity in the outbreak, or of +having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government. + +To many thoughtful and law-abiding persons such a proceeding +appeared to be no better than judicial murder, constituting a hideous +precedent; a committee was formed to present a formal indictment +against Governor Eyre and obtain a judicial pronouncement on the +question, quite apart from the two other questions persistently +confused with it--namely, was Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a +psalm-singing firebrand, and was Governor Eyre actuated by the highest +and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken +rashness or worse impulses? + +With this high constitutional end in view--the protection of +individual liberty--Huxley joined the committee. To Charles Kingsley, +who confessed to taking the hero-worshipper's view of Governor Eyre, +Huxley replied:-- + + I dare say he did all this with the best of motives and in a + heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes + have no more right to kill people in this fashion than other + folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas + or some other quiet place where there is less hero-worship + and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more + importance than hero-worship. + + In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much + by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their + deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of + the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is + that it will help a great many people to find out what their + profoundest political beliefs are. + + The hero-worshippers who believe that the world is to be + governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, + justly if they can, but, if not, unjustly drive or kick them + the right way, will sympathize with Mr. Eyre. + + The other sect (to which I belong), who look upon hero-worship + as no better than any other idolatry and upon the attitude of + mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think + it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right + in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice + as between man and man as of far greater importance than even + the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre + has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in + authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain + a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law + of England. + + People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert + one another. To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom + I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed + to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and + wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle + and without bitterness. + +To Tyndall, whose convictions were bred in Ulster and fostered by an +ardent devotion to Carlyle, he wrote in the same strain, apropos of a +friend's banter on their sudden division:-- + + I replied to the jest earnestly enough--that I hoped and + believed our old friendship was strong enough to stand any + strain that might be put on it, much as I grieved that we + should be ranged in opposite camps in this or any other case. + + That you and I have fundamentally different political + principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us + during the progress of the American War. The fact is made + still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit + of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in + it any important fact or argument which had not passed through + my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee. + + Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ, + each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and + respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing + his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is + at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in + which Englishmen have for many years been engaged. + + If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be + able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another + which I value as one of the good things of my life. + +That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship +he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private +encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most +tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life. + +It was probably after a meeting of the _x_ Club, in the freedom of +which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote +accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following +reply:-- + + Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme + and unjust severity. + + I recollect you _looked_ rather savage at one point in our + discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt + act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully + deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made + upon you. + + What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know, + but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said + that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than + yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the + extent to which I have tried your patience. + + So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of + accumulated merit, _envers moi_; and if you should ever feel + inclined to "d---- my eyes," you can do so and have a balance + left. + + Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to + apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--ned + or und--d),--Ever yours faithfully.... + +If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation, +he was a living inspiration to the friends of the next generation, +especially to the pupils and teaching lieutenants who worked in +close touch with him. His younger disciples always felt that in acute +criticism and vast learning nobody surpassed him; but what they yet +more admired than his learning was his wisdom. It was a delight to +read an essay fresh from his pen, but an ever so much higher delight +to hear him talk for five minutes. "His," says Professor Hubrecht, +"was the most beautiful and the most manly intellect I ever knew +of." The personal affection as well as admiration he inspired may be +gathered from Sir E. Ray Lankester's words: "There has been no man or +woman whom I have met in my journey through life whom I have loved +and regarded as I have him, and I feel that the world has shrunk +and become a poor thing now that his splendid spirit and delightful +presence are gone from it." And Professor Jeffery Parker concludes his +Recollections of his old chief with these words:-- + + Whether a professor is usually a hero to his demonstrator I + cannot say; I only know that, looking back across an interval + of many years and a distance of half the circumference of the + globe, I have never ceased to be impressed with the manliness + and sincerity of his character, his complete honesty of + purpose, his high moral standard, his scorn of everything mean + or shifty, his firm determination to speak what he held to be + truth at whatever cost of popularity. And for these things + "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side + idolatry, as much as any." + +Indeed, his relations with his demonstrators were typical of his +judgment of men, his distinction between the essential and the +unessential, which made him a successful administrator. + + To a new subordinate "The General," as he was always called, + was rather stern and exacting; but when once he was convinced + that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him + take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, + accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good + humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word + of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling + to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the + laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when + neither sun nor stars in many days appeared." "Never mind, + Parker," he said, instantly capping my quotation, "cast four + anchors out of the stern and wish for day." + +The first passport to his friendship was entire sincerity. Whatever +other claims might be advanced, he would shut out from any approach to +intimacy those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. +Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and +dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters +of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods +of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold +correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead +of raising it. + + + + +XVII + +IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE + + +His acquaintance and friendship were eagerly sought, and to those who +entered the circle he gave abundantly of his brilliant gifts and of +friendly affection; but the inmost circle was small--the men who were +comrades and brothers; the sister and the brother united with him in +love and trust; the wife to win whom he served so long, and without +whose sustaining help and comradeship his quick spirit and nervous +temperament could hardly have endured the long and often embittered +struggle. + +In this inmost circle he was at once strong and tender. The friend who +most cordially admired his intellectual vigour and unflinching honesty +could write after his death that-- + + what now dwells most in my mind is the memory of old kindness, + and of the days when I used to see him with (his wife) and his + children. I may safely say that I never came from your + house without thinking how good he is; what a tender and + affectionate nature the man has. It did me good simply to see + him. + +Always the home was the inmost centre of his own life. Here he found +personal solace in his long struggle; the sympathy that was the pillar +and stay of his genius, the twin incentive to labour and achievement, +the warmth that gave a fuller value to the light he ensued. None knew +more perfectly than himself what he owed to his life-long companion, +who, in turn, was as much uplifted by his eager spirit as she was +proud to be the cherisher of big aspirations and the active minister +to his attainment. To her critical ear he gave the first reading of +his essays; the judgment and the praise that he most valued were hers, +and, as he put it towards the end of his life, when he was travelling +with his son in Madeira and had been cut off from letters longer than +he liked:-- + + Catch me going out of reach of letters again. I have been + horridly anxious. Nobody--children or any one else--can be + to me what you are. Ulysses preferred his old woman to + immortality, and this absence has led me to see that he was as + wise in that as in other things. + +Quick and keen-edged as he was, I cannot recall his ever losing his +temper with any of us at home. Firm he was under his great tenderness +for children; those nearest him felt a certain awe before the +infallible force of his moral judgments; his arbitrament, though +rarely invoked, was instant and final. Going out into the world +afterwards, I think we did not fail to realize how different the +home atmosphere must be where self-control does not rule, and the +inevitable rubs of life find vent in irritable and ill-considered +words. + +It was one of the penalties of his hard-driven existence that for the +first fifteen or twenty years of his married life he had scarcely any +time to devote to his children. The "lodger," as he used to describe +himself, who went out early and came back late, could sometimes +spare half-an-hour just before or just after dinner to draw wonderful +pictures for the little ones, or on a Sunday he would now and then +walk with the elder ones to Hampstead Heath or to the Zoo, where, as +a constant visitant to the prosector's laboratory, he was a well-known +figure, and admitted by the keepers to their arcana. But, while he +often told us stories of the sea and of animals, he did not talk +"shop" to us, as many people seemed to expect by their inquiries +whether we did not receive quite a scientific education from his +companionship. + +At the same time, he was anything but a Bohemian. His inborn gaiety +and high spirits, his humour and love of adventure, found from the +first a balance in his love of science; and the rough experience +of his early days intensified by contrast the spiritual serenity +of united love. Lack of order, whether in mind or in outward +surroundings, was no recommendation to him; and so far as the +conventions represented in brief some valid results of social +experience, he observed them and upheld them. They are not always dry +husks out of which reason has evaporated. But where such were merely +unreasoned custom, he was ready to set aside his mere likes and +dislikes on good cause shown, and to follow reason as against the +simple prejudice of custom, even his own. + +On the whole, he made his impression on his children more by example +than by spoken precept; much of his attitude may be gathered from a +letter to his son on his twenty-first birthday:-- + + You will have a son some day yourself, I suppose, and, if you + do, I can wish you no greater satisfaction than to be able to + say that he has reached manhood without having given a serious + anxiety, and that you can look forward with entire confidence + to his playing the man in the battle of life. I have tried to + make you feel your responsibilities and act independently as + early as possible; but, once for all, remember that I am not + only your father but your nearest friend, ready to help you in + all things reasonable, and perhaps in a few unreasonable. + +After he had retired from his professorial work and settled down at +Eastbourne, his grandchildren reaped the advantage of his leisure. +His natural love for children had scope for expression, and children +themselves had an instinctive confidence in the power and sympathy +that irradiated his face and gave his square, rugged features the +beauty of wisdom and kindliness. He could captivate them alike by +lively fun and excellent nonsense, and by lucid explanations of the +wonders of the world about which children love to hear. He fired one +small granddaughter with a love of astronomy, and one day a visitor, +entering unexpectedly, was startled to find the pair of them kneeling +on the floor of the entrance hall before a large sheet of paper, on +which the professor was drawing a diagram of the solar system, with +a little pellet and a big ball to represent earth and sun, while the +child was listening with rapt attention to an account of the planets +and their movements, which he knew so well how to make simple and +precise without ever being dull. + +One of the most charming unions of the playful and serious was his +letter to the small boy, still under five, who was reading _The Water +Babies_, wherein his grandfather's name is genially made fun of among +the authorities on Water Babies and Water Beasts of every description. +Moreover, there is a picture by Linley Sambourne, showing Huxley and +Owen examining a bottled Water Baby under big magnifying glasses. +Now, as the child greatly desired more light on the reality of Water +Babies, here was an authority to consult. And, as he had already +learned to write, he indited a letter of inquiry, first anxiously +asking his mother if he would receive in reply a "proper letter" that +he could read for himself, or a "wrong letter" that must be read to +him. The hint bore fruit, and to his carefully pencilled epistle: + + Have you seen a Water Baby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it + wonder if it could get out? Can I see it some day? + +came a reply from his grandfather, neatly printed, letter by letter, +very unlike the orderly confusion with which his pen usually rushed +across the paper--to the great perplexity, often, of his foreign +correspondents and sometimes of correspondents nearer home:-- + + I never could make sure about that Water Baby. I have seen + Babies in water and Babies in bottles; but the Baby in the + water was not in a bottle, and the Baby in the bottle was not + in water. + + My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very + kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as + much in the water as he did. There are some people who see a + great deal and some who see very little in the same things. + + When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal + seers and see things more wonderful than Water Babies where + other folks can see nothing. + +There is a story of Mohammed that once, rather than disturb a +favourite cat, he cut off the sleeve of his robe on which it lay +asleep. Whether in like circumstances my father would have done the +same--had flowing sleeves been a Victorian fashion--I cannot certainly +say, though he once was found similarly dispossessed of his favourite +study chair; but he always regarded this anecdote as displaying +an agreeable trait in the Prophet. For he himself was very fond +of animals, and, though we seldom kept dogs in London, cats were +invariable members of the household. Apropos of these, a letter may +be quoted which was written in 1893 in reply to an inquiry from a +journalist who was collecting anecdotes for an article on the Home +Pets of Celebrities:-- + + A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the + last forty years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry to say that I + have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral + excellences. + + The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, + grey Tabby--Oliver by name. Not that he is in any sense a + protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a + mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly + of the season, and trust that this germ of courage, thus + manifested, may develop with age into efficient mousing. + + As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the + warmest place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible; + his punctuality at meal-times is admirable; and his + pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders, till they + give him some of the best of what is going, indicates great + firmness. + + + + +XVIII + +SOME LETTERS AND TABLE TALK + + +My father's letters were seldom without a dash of playfulness or +humour somewhere; a thing always fresh and spontaneous, unlike the +calculated or laboured playfulness sometimes to be observed in the +epistolary touch of literary folk. A capital example is a note to +Matthew Arnold, at whose house he had left his umbrella. Arnold, it +may be added, had recently been critically engaged upon the works of +Bishop Wilson:-- + + Look at Bishop Wilson on the sin of covetousness, and then + inspect your umbrella stand. You will there see a beautiful + brown smooth-handled umbrella which is _not_ your property. + + Think of what the excellent prelate would have advised, and + bring it with you next time you come to the Club. The porter + will take care of it for me. + +Sometimes the words will come trippingly from the pen as if they were +flung out in a brilliant flash of talk, like the following sketch of +human character:-- + + Men, my dear, are very queer animals, a mixture of + horse-nervousness, ass-stubbornness, and camel-malice--with + an angel bobbing about unexpectedly like the apple in the + posset--and when they can do exactly as they please they are + very hard to drive. + +As to his conversation, that, wrote the late Wilfrid Ward, + + was singularly finished and (if I may so express it) + clean cut; never long-winded or prosy; enlivened by vivid + illustrations. He was an excellent _raconteur_, and his + stories had a stamp of their own which would have made them + always and everywhere acceptable. His sense of humour and + economy of words would have made it impossible, had he lived + to ninety, that they should ever have been disparaged as + symptoms of what has been called "anecdotage." + +Some fragments of his talk have been preserved by the same hand. +Speaking of Tennyson's conversation, he said: "Doric beauty is its +characteristic--perfect simplicity, without any ornament or anything +artificial." + +Telling how he had been to a meeting of the British Museum Trustees, +he said: "After the meeting Archbishop Benson helped me on with +my greatcoat. I was _quite overcome_ by this species of spiritual +investiture. 'Thank you, Archbishop,' I said; 'I feel as if I were +receiving the pallium.'" + +On another occasion he drew a distinction between two writers, with +neither of whom he sympathized. "Don't mistake me. One is a thinker +and man of letters, the other is only a literary man. Erasmus was a +man of letters; Gigadibs a literary man. A.B. is the incarnation of +Gigadibs. I should call him _Gigadibsius Optimus Maximus_." + +Of his quickness in rising to the occasion Professor Howes tells a +story. Staying after a lecture to answer questions, he turned to a +student and said: "Well, I hope you understood it all." "All, sir, but +one part, during which you stood between me and the blackboard," was +the reply; the rejoinder: "I did my best to make myself clear, but +could not render myself transparent." + +From among my own recollections I give the following:--"It is one of +the most saddening things that, try as we may, we can never be certain +of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain +of making them unhappy." Of the attitude towards Spiritualism of a +certain member of the Society for Psychical Research:--"He doesn't +believe in it, yet lends it the cover of his name. He is one of those +people who talk of the 'possibility' of the thing, who think the +difficulties of disproving a thing as good as direct evidence in its +favour." + +Again:--"It is very strange how most men will do anything to evade +responsibility." Later, we were talking of the contrast between +Hellene and Hebrew. "The real chosen people," he said, "were the +Greeks. One of the most remarkable things about them is not only +the smallness but the late rise of Attica, whereas Magna +Graecia flourished in the eighth century. The Greeks were doing +everything--piracy, trade, fighting, expelling the Persians. Never was +there so large a number of self-governing communities. + +"They fell short of the Jews in morality. How curious is the tolerant +attitude of Socrates, like a modern man of the world talking to a +young fellow who runs after the girls. The Jew, however he fell short +in other respects, set himself a certain standard in cleanliness of +life, and would not fall below it. The more creditable to him, because +these vices were the offspring of the Semitic races among whom the Jew +lived. + +"There is a curious similarity between the position of the Jew in +ancient times and what it is now. They were procurers and usurers +among the Gentiles, yet many of them were singularly high-minded and +pure. All, too, with an intense clannishness, the secret of their +success, and a sense of superiority to the Gentile which would prevent +the meanest Jew from sitting at table with a pro-consul. + +"The most remarkable achievement of the Jew was to impose on Europe +for eighteen centuries his own superstitions--his ideas of the +supernatural. Jahveh was no more than Zeus or Milcom; yet the Jew got +established the belief in the inspiration of his Bible and his law. +If I were a Jew, I should have the same contempt as he has for the +Christian who acted in this way towards me, who took my ideas and +scorned me for clinging to them." + +Here may be quoted a passage from a letter to Professor George +Romanes:-- + + I have a great respect for the Nazarenism of Jesus--very + little for later "Christianity." But the only religion that + appeals to me is prophetic Judaism. Add to it something from + the best Stoics and something from Spinoza and something from + Goethe, and there is a religion for men. Some of these days I + think I will make a cento out of the works of these people. + +This cento, however, he never made. Had he done so, he would assuredly +have illustrated his saying to Charles Kingsley:-- + + My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves + to fact; not to try and make facts harmonize with my + aspirations-- + +a notion expanded thus:-- + + Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest + manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian + conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down + before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every + pre-conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever + abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only + begun to learn content and peace of mind since I resolved at + all costs to do this. + + + + +PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST., LONDON, E.C.4. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Henry Huxley, by Leonard Huxley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY *** + +***** This file should be named 15429.txt or 15429.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/4/2/15429/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, S.R.Ellison and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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