Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1

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Many thanks for writing to my wife. She sends her kindest remembrances
to you.

Ever yours,

T.H.H.

[The year 1857 was the last in which Huxley apparently had time to go so
far in journal-writing as to draw up a balance-sheet at the year's end
of work done and work undone. Though he finds] "as usual a lamentable
difference between agenda and acta; many things proposed to be done not
done, and many things not thought of finished," [still there is enough
noted to satisfy most energetic people. Mention has already been made of
his lectures--sixty-six at Jermyn Street, twelve Fullerian, and as many
more to prepare for the next year's course; seven to working men, and
one at the Royal Institution, together with the rearrangement of
specimens at the Jermyn Street Museum, and the preparation of the
Explanatory Catalogue, which this year was published to the extent of
the Introduction and the Tertiary collections. To these may be added
examinations at the London University, where he had succeeded Dr.
Carpenter as examiner in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy in 1856,
reviews, translations, a report on Deep Sea Soundings, and ten
scientific memoirs.

The most important of the unfinished work consists of the long-delayed
"Oceanic Hydrozoa," the "Manual of Comparative Anatomy," and a report on
Fisheries. The rest of the unfinished programme shows the usual
commixture of technical studies in anatomy and paleontology, with essays
on the philosophical and educational bearings of his work. On the one
hand are memoirs of Daphnia, Nautilus, and the Herring, the affinities
of the Paleozoic Crustacea, the Ascidian Catalogue and Positive
Histology; on the other, the Literature of the Drift, a review of the
present state of philosophical anatomy, and a scheme for arranging the
Explanatory Catalogue to serve as an introductory textbook to the Jermyn
Street lectures and the paleontological demonstrations. Here, too, would
fall a proposed "Letter on the Study of Comparative Anatomy," to do for
those subjects what Henslow had done in his "Letter" for Botany.

In addition to the fact of his being forced to take up Paleontology, it
was perhaps the philosophic breadth of view with which he regarded his
subject at any time, and the desire of getting to the bottom of each
subsidiary problem arising from it, that made him for many years seem
constantly to spring aside from his own subject, to fly off at a tangent
from the line in which he was assured of unrivalled success did he but
devote to it his undivided powers. But he was prepared to endure the
charge of desultoriness with equanimity. In part, he was still studying
the whole field of biological science before he would claim to be a
master in one department; in part, he could not yet tell to what post he
might succeed when he left--as he fully expected to leave--the
Professorship at Jermyn Street.

One characteristic of his early papers should not pass unnoticed. This
was his familiarity with the best that had been written on his subjects
abroad as well as in England. Thoroughness in this respect was rendered
easier by the fact that he read French and German with almost as much
facility as his mother tongue. "It is true, of course, that scientific
men read French and German before the time of Huxley; but the deliberate
consultation of all the authorities available has been maintained in
historical succession since Huxley's earliest papers, and was absent in
the papers of his early contemporaries." (P. Chalmers Mitchell in
"Natural Science" August 1895.)

About this time his activity in several branches of science began to
find recognition from scientific societies at home and abroad. In 1857
he was elected honorary member of the Microscopical Society of Giessen;
and in the same year, of a more important body, the Academy of Breslau
(Imperialis Academia Caesariana Naturae Curiosum). He writes to
Hooker:--]

14 Waverley Place, April 3, 1857.

Having subsided from standing upon my head--which was the immediate
causation of your correspondence about the co-extension Imperialis
Academia Caesariana Naturae Curiosum (don't I know their thundering long
title well!)--I have to say that I was born on the 4th of May of the
year 1825, whereby I have now more or less mis-spent thirty-one years
and a bittock, nigh on thirty-two.

Furthermore, my locus natalis is Ealing, in the county of Middlesex.
Upon my word, it is very obliging of the "curious naturals," and I must
say wholly surprising and unexpected.

I shall hold up my head immensely to-morrow when (blessed be the Lord) I
give my last Fullerian.

Among other things, I am going to take Cuvier's crack case of the
'Possum of Montmartre as an illustration of MY views.

I wondered what had become of you, but the people have come talking
about me this last lecture or two, so I supposed you had erupted to Kew.

My glacier article is out; tell me what you think of it some day.

I wrote a civil note to Forbes yesterday, charging myself with my crime,
and I hope that is the end of the business. [Principal James Forbes,
with whose theory of glaciers Huxley and Tyndall disagreed.]

My wife is mending slowly, and if she were here would desire to be
remembered to you.

[In December 1858 he became a Fellow of the Linnean, and the following
month not only Fellow but Secretary of the Geological Society.

In 1858 also he was elected to the Athenaeum Club under Rule 2, which
provides that the committee shall yearly elect a limited number of
persons distinguished in art, science, or letters. His proposer was Sir
R. Murchison, who wrote:--

Athenaeum, January 26.

My dear Huxley,

I had a success as to you that I never had or heard of before. Nineteen
persons voted, and of these eighteen voted for you and no one against
you. You, of course, came in at the head of the poll; no other having,
i.e. Cobden, more than eleven.

Yours well satisfied,

Rod. I. Murchison.

[From this time forth he corresponded with many foreign men of science;
in these years particularly with Victor Carus, Lacaze Duthiers,
Kolliker, and de Quatrefages, in reference to their common interest in
the study of the invertebrates.

At home, the year 1857 opened very brightly for Huxley with the birth of
his first child, a son, on the eve of the New Year. A Christmas child,
the boy was named Noel, and lived four happy years to be the very
sunshine of home, the object of passionate devotion, whose sudden loss
struck deeper and more ineffaceably than any other blow that befell
Huxley during all his life.

As he sat alone that December night, in the little room that was his
study in the house in Waverley Place, waiting for the event that was to
bring him so much happiness and so much sorrow, he made a last entry in
his journal, full of hope and resolution. In the blank space below
follows a note of four years later, when "the ground seemed cut from
under his feet," yet written with restraint and without bitterness.]

December 31, 1856.

...1856-7-8 must still be "Lehrjahre" to complete training in principles
of Histology, Morphology, Physiology, Zoology, and Geology by
Monographic Work in each department. 1860 will then see me well grounded
and ready for any special pursuits in either of these branches.

It is impossible to map out beforehand how this must be done. I must
seize opportunities as they come, at the risk of the reputation of
desultoriness.

In 1860 I may fairly look forward to fifteen or twenty years
"Meisterjahre," and with the comprehensive views my training will have
given me, I think it will be possible in that time to give a new and
healthier direction to all Biological Science.

To smite all humbugs, however big; to give a nobler tone to science; to
set an example of abstinence from petty personal controversies, and of
toleration for everything but lying; to be indifferent as to whether the
work is recognised as mine or not, so long as it is done:--are these my
aims? 1860 will show.

Willst du dir ein hubsch Leben zimmern,
Musst dich ans Vergangene nicht bekummern;
Und ware dir auch was Verloren,
Musst immer thun wie neugeboren.
Was jeder Tag will, sollst du fragen;
Was jeder Tag will, wird er sagen.
Musst dich an eigenem Thun ergotzen;
Was andere thun, das wirst du schatzen.
Besonders keinen Menschen hassen
Und das Ubrige Gott uberlassen.

[Wilt shape a noble life? Then cast
No backward glances to the past.
And what if something still be lost?
Act as new-born in all thou dost.
What each day wills, that shalt thou ask;
Each day will tell its proper task;
What others do, that shalt thou prize,
In thine own work thy guerdon lies.
This above all: hate none.
The rest--Leave it to God.
He knoweth best.]

Half-past ten at night.

Waiting for my child. I seem to fancy it the pledge that all these
things shall be.

Born five minutes before twelve. Thank God. New Year's Day, 1857.

September 20, 1860.

And the same child, our Noel, our first-born, after being for nearly
four years our delight and our joy, was carried off by scarlet fever in
forty-eight hours. This day week he and I had a great romp together. On
Friday his restless head, with its bright blue eyes and tangled golden
hair, tossed all day upon his pillow. On Saturday night the fifteenth, I
carried him here into my study, and laid his cold still body here where
I write. Here too on Sunday night came his mother and I to that holy
leave-taking.

My boy is gone, but in a higher and better sense than was in my mind
when I wrote four years ago what stands above--I feel that my fancy has
been fulfilled. I say heartily and without bitterness--Amen, so let it
be.

CHAPTER 1.12.

1859-1860.

[The programme laid down in 1857 was steadily carried out through a
great part of 1859. Huxley published nine monographs, chiefly on fossil
Reptilia, in the proceedings of the Geological Society and of the
Geological Survey, one on the armour of crocodiles at the Linnean, and
"Observations on the Development of some Parts of the Skeleton of
Fishes," in the "Journal of Microscopical Science."

Among the former was a paper on Stagonolepis, a creature from the Elgin
beds, which had previously been ranked among the fishes. From some new
remains, which he worked out of the stone with his own hands, Huxley
made out that this was a reptile closely allied to the Crocodiles; and
from this and the affinities of another fossil, Hyperodapedon, from
neighbouring beds, determined the geological age to which the Elgin beds
belonged. A good deal turned upon the nature of the scales from the back
and belly of this animal, and a careful comparison with the scales of
modern crocodiles--a subject till then little investigated--led to the
paper at the Linnean already mentioned.

The paper on fish development was mainly based upon dissections of the
young of the stickleback. Fishes had been divided into two classes
according as their tails are developed evenly on either side of the line
of the spine, which was supposed to continue straight through the centre
of the tail, or lopsided, with one tail fin larger than the other. This
investigation showed that the apparently even development was only an
extreme case of lopsidedness, the continuation of the "chorda," which
gives rise to the spine, being at the top of the upper fin, and both
fins being developed on the same side of it. Lopsidedness as such,
therefore, was not to be regarded as an embryological character in
ancient fishes; what might be regarded as such was the absence of a bony
sheath to the end of the "chorda" found in the more developed fishes.
Further traces of this bony structure were shown to exist, among other
piscine resemblances, in the Amphibia. Finally the embryological facts
now observed in the development of the bones of the skull were of great
importance,] "as they enable us to understand, on the one hand, the
different modifications of the palato-suspensorial apparatus in fishes,
and on the other hand the relations of the components of this apparatus
to the corresponding parts in other Vertebrata," [fishes, reptiles, and
mammals presenting a well-marked series of gradations in respect to this
point.

This part of the paper had grown out of the investigations begun for the
essay on the Vertebrate Skull, just as that on Jacare and Caiman from
inquiry into the scales of Stagonolepis.

Thus he was still able to devote most of his time to original research.
But though in his letter of March 27, 1855, below, he says,] "I never
write for the Reviews now, as original work is much more to my taste,"
[it appears from jottings in his 1859 notebook, such as "Whewell's
'History of Scientific Ideas,' as a Peg on which to hang Cuvier
article," [that he again found it necessary to supplement his income by
writing. He was still examiner at London University, and delivered six
lectures on Animal Motion at the London Institution and another at
Warwick. This lecture he had offered to give at the Warwick Museum as
some recognition of the willing help he had received from the assistants
when he came down to examine certain fossils there. On the way he
visited Rolleston at Oxford. The knowledge of Oxford life gained from
this and a later visit led him to write:--]

The more I see of the place the more glad I am that I elected to stay in
London. I see much to admire and like; but I am more and more convinced
that it would not suit me as a residence.

[Two more important points remain to be mentioned among the occupations
of the year. In January Huxley was elected Secretary of the Geological
Society, and with this office began a form of administrative work in the
scientific world which ceased only with his resignation of the
Presidency of the Royal Society in 1885.

Part of the summer Huxley spent in the North. On August 3 he went to
Lamlash Bay in Arran. Here Dr. Carpenter had, in 1855, discovered a
convenient cottage on Holy Island--the only one, indeed, on the
island--well suited for naturalists; the bay was calm and suitable both
for the dredge and for keeping up a vivarium. He proposed that either
the Survey should rent the whole island at a cost of some 50 pounds
sterling, or, failing this, that he would take the cottage himself, if
Huxley would join him for two or three seasons and share the expense.
Huxley laid the plan before Sir R. Murchison, the head of the Survey,
who consented to try the plan for a course of years, during three months
in each year. "But," [he added,] "keep it experimental; for there are no
USEFUL fisheries such as delight Lord Stanley." [Here, then, with an
ascent of Goatfell for variety on the 21st, a month was passed in
trawling, and experiments on the spawning of the herring appear to have
been continued for him during the winter in Bute.

On the 29th Huxley left Lamlash for a trip through central and southern
Scotland, continuing his geological work for the Survey; and wound up by
attending the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen, leaving
his wife and the three children at Aberdour, on the Fifeshire coast.

From Aberdeen, where Prince Albert was President of the Association,
Huxley writes on September 15:--]

Owen's brief address on giving up the presidential chair was exceedingly
good...I shall be worked like a horse here. There are all sorts of new
materials from Elgin, besides other things, and I daresay I shall have
to speak frequently. In point of attendance and money this is the best
meeting the Association ever had. In point of science, we shall
see...Tyndall has accepted the Physical chair with us, at which I am
greatly delighted.

[In this connection the following letter to Tyndall is interesting:--]

Aberdour, Fife, N. B., September 5, 1859.

My dear Tyndall,

I met Faraday on Loch Lomond yesterday, and learned from him that you
had returned, whereby you are a great sinner for not having written to
me. Faraday told me you were all sound, wind and limb, and had carried
out your object, which was good to hear.

Have you had any letter from Sir Roderick? If not, pray call in Jermyn
Street and see Reeks as soon as possible. [Mr. Trenham Reeks, who died
in 1879, was Registrar of the School of Mines, and Curator and Librarian
of the Museum of Practical Geology.]

The thing I have been hoping for for years past has come about,--Stokes
having resigned the Physical Chair in our place, in consequence of his
appointment to the Cambridge University Commission. This unfortunately
occurred only after our last meeting for the session, and after I had
left town, but Reeks wrote to me about it at once. I replied as soon as
I received his letter, and told him that I would take upon myself the
responsibility of saying that you would accept the chair if it were
offered you. I thought I was justified in this by various conversations
we have had; and, at any rate, I felt sure that it was better that I
should get into a mess than that you should lose the chance.

I know that Sir Roderick has written to you, but I imagine the letter
has gone to Chamounix, so pray put yourself into communication with
Reeks at once.

You know very well that the having you with us at Jermyn Street is a
project that has long been dear to my heart, partly on your own account,
but largely for the interest of the school. I earnestly hope that there
is no impediment in the way of your coming to us. How I am minded
towards you, you ought to know by this time; but I can assure you that
all the rest of us will receive you with open arms. Of that I am quite
sure.

Let me have a line to know your determination. I am on tenterhooks till
the thing is settled.

Can't you come up this way as you go to Aberdeen?

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--I thought I might mention the Jermyn Street matter to Faraday
privately, and did so. He seemed pleased that the offer had been made.

[The acceptance of the lectureship at the School of Mines brought
Tyndall into the closest contact with Huxley for the next nine years,
until he resigned his lectureship in 1868 on succeeding Faraday as
superintendent of the Royal Institution.

On September 17 he writes:--]

Yesterday Owen and I foregathered in Section D. He read a very good and
important paper, and I got up afterwards and spoke exactly as I thought
about it, and praising many parts of it strongly. In his reply he was
unco civil and complimentary, so that the people who had come in hopes
of a row were (as I intended they should be) disappointed.

[A number of miscellaneous letters of this period are here grouped
together.]

14 Waverley Place, January 30, 1858.

My dear Hooker,

...I wish you wouldn't be apologetic about criticism from people who
have a right to criticise. 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.

[To his sister.]

The Government School of Mines, Jermyn Street, March 27, 1858.

My dearest Lizzie,

It is a month since your very welcome letter reached me. I had every
inclination and every intention to answer it at once, but the wear and
tear of incessant occupation (for your letter arrived in the midst of my
busiest time) has, I will not say deprived me of the leisure, but of
that tone of mind which one wants for writing a long letter. I fully
understand--no one should be better able to comprehend--how the same
causes may operate on you, but do not be silent so long again; it is bad
for both of us. I have loved but few people in my life, and am not
likely to care for any more unless it be my children. I desire therefore
rather to knit more firmly than to loosen the old ties, and of these
which is older or stronger than ours? Don't let us drift asunder again.

Your letter came just after the birth of my second child, a little girl.
I registered her to-day in the style and title of Jessie Oriana Huxley.
The second name is a family name of my wife's and not, as you might
suppose, taken from Tennyson. You will know why my wife and I chose the
first. We could not make you a godmother, as my wife's mother is one,
and a friend of ours had long since applied for the other vacancy, but
perhaps this is a better tie than that meaningless formality. My little
son is fifteen months old; a fair-haired, blue-eyed, stout little
Trojan, very like his mother. He looks out on the world with bold
confident eyes and open brow, as if he were its master. We shall try to
make him a better man than his father. As for the little one, I am told
she is pretty, and slavishly admit the fact in the presence of mother
and nurse, but between ourselves I don't see it. To my carnal eyes her
nose is the image of mine, and you know what that means. For though
wandering up and down the world and work have begun to sow a little
silver in my hair, they have by no means softened the outlines of that
remarkable feature.

You want to know what I am and where I am--well, here's a list of
titles. T.H.H., Professor of Natural History, Government School of
Mines, Jermyn Street; Naturalist to the Geological Survey; Curator of
the Paleontological collections (NON-OFFICIAL maid-of-all-work in
Natural Science to the Government); Examiner in Physiology and
Comparative Anatomy to the University of London; Fullerian Professor of
Physiology to the Royal Institution (but that's just over); F.R.S.,
F.G.S., etc. Member of a lot of Societies and Clubs, all of which cost
him a mint of money. Considered a rising man and not a bad fellow by his
friends--per contra greatly over-estimated and a bitter savage critic by
his enemies. Perhaps they are both right. I have a high standard of
excellence and am no respecter of persons, and I am afraid I show the
latter peculiarity rather too much. An internecine feud rages between
Owen and myself (more's the pity) partly on this account, partly from
other causes.

This is the account any third person would give you of what I am and of
what I am doing. He would probably add that I was very ambitious and
desirous of occupying a high place in the world's estimation. Therein,
however, he would be mistaken. An income sufficient to place me above
care and anxiety, and free scope to work, are the only things I have
ever wished for or striven for. But one is obliged to toil long and hard
for these, and it is only now that they are coming within my grasp. I
gave up the idea of going to Edinburgh because I doubted whether leaving
London was wise. Recently I have been tempted to put up for a good
physiological chair which is to be established at Oxford; but the
Government propose to improve my position at the School of Mines, and
there is every probability that I shall now permanently remain in
London. Indeed, it is high time that I should settle down to one line of
work. Hitherto, as you see by the somewhat varied list of my duties,
etc., above, I have been ranging over different parts of a very wide
field. But this apparent desultoriness has been necessary, for I knew
not for what branch of science I should eventually have to declare
myself. There are very few appointments open to men of science in this
country, and one must take what one can get and be thankful.

My health was very bad some years ago, and I had great fear of becoming
a confirmed dyspeptic, but thanks to the pedestrian tours in the Alps I
have taken for the past two years, I am wonderfully better this session,
and feel capable of any amount of work. It was in the course of one of
these trips that I went, as you have rightly heard, half way up Mont
Blanc. But I was not in training and stuck at the Grands Mulets, while
my three companions went on. I spent seventeen hours alone on that grand
pinnacle, the latter part of the time in great anxiety, for I feared my
friends were lost; and as I had no guide my own neck would have been in
considerable jeopardy in endeavouring to return amidst the maze of
crevasses of the Glacier des Bois. But it was glorious weather and the
grandest scenery in the world. In the previous year I saw much of the
Bernese and Monte Rosa country, journeying with a great friend of mine
well known as a natural philosopher, Tyndall, and partly seeking health
and partly exploring the glaciers. You will find an article of mine on
that subject in the "Westminster Review" for 1857.

I used at one time to write a good deal for that Review, principally the
Quarterly notice of scientific books. But I never write for the Reviews
now, as original work is much more to my taste. The articles you refer
to are not mine, as, indeed, you rightly divined. The only considerable
book I have translated is Kolliker's Histology--in conjunction with Mr.
Busk, an old friend of mine. All translation and article writing is
weary work, and I never do it except for filthy lucre. Lecturing I do
not like much better; though one way or another I have to give about
sixty or seventy a year.

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