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

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Some of these days I shall look up the ape question again and go over
the rest of the organisation in the same way. But in order to get a
thorough grip of the question I must examine into a good many points for
myself. The results, when they do come out, will, I foresee, astonish
the natives.

[Full of interest in this theme, he made it the subject of his popular
lectures in the spring of 1861.

Thus from February to May he lectured weekly to working men on "The
Relation of Man to the rest of the Animal Kingdom," and on March 22
writes to his wife:--]

My working men stick by me wonderfully, the house being fuller than ever
last night. By next Friday evening they will all be convinced that they
are monkeys...Said lecture, let me inform you, was very good. Lyell came
and was rather astonished at the magnitude and attentiveness of the
audience.

[These lectures to working men were published in the "Natural History
Review," as was a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution
(February 8) on "The Nature of the Earliest Stages of Development of
Animals."

Meanwhile the publication of these researches led to another pitched
battle, in which public interest was profoundly engaged. The controversy
which raged had some resemblance to a duel over a point of honour and
credit. Scientific technicalities became the catchwords of society, and
the echoes of the great Hippocampus question linger in the delightful
pages of the "Water-Babies." Of this fight Huxley writes to Sir J.
Hooker on April 18, 1861:--]

A controversy between Owen and myself, which I can only call absurd (as
there is no doubt whatever about the facts), has been going on in the
"Athenaeum," and I wound it up in disgust last week.

[And again on April 27:--]

Owen occupied an entirely untenable position--but I am nevertheless
surprised he did not try "abusing plaintiff's attorney." The fact is he
made a prodigious blunder in commencing the attack, and now his only
chance is to be silent and let people forget the exposure. I do not
believe that in the whole history of science there is a case of any man
of reputation getting himself into such a contemptible position. He will
be the laughing-stock of all the continental anatomists.

Rolleston has a great deal of Oxford slough to shed, but on that very
ground his testimony has been of most especial service. Fancy that man
-- telling Maskelyne that Rolleston's observations were entirely
confirmatory of Owen.

[About the same time he writes to his wife:--]

April 16.

People are talking a good deal about the "Man and the Apes" question,
and I hear that somebody, I suspect Monckton-Milnes, has set afloat a
poetical squib on the subject...

[The squib in question, dated "the Zoological Gardens," and signed
"Gorilla," appeared in "Punch" for May 15, 1861, under a picture of that
animal, bearing the sign, "Am I a Man and a Brother?"

The concluding verses run as follows:

Next HUXLEY replies
That OWEN he lies
And garbles his Latin quotation;
That his facts are not new,
His mistakes not a few,
Detrimental to his reputation.

"To twice slay the slain"
By dint of the Brain
(Thus Huxley concludes his review),
Is but labour in vain,
Unproductive of gain,
And so I shall bid you "Adieu!"]

Some think my winding-up too strong, but I trust the day will never come
when I shall abstain from expressing my contempt for those who
prostitute Science to the Service of Error. At any rate I am not old
enough for that yet. Darwin came in just now. I get no scoldings for
pitching into the common enemy now!!

I would give you fifty guesses [he writes to Hooker on April 30], and
you should not find out the author of the "Punch" poem. I saw it in MS.
three weeks ago, and was told the author was a friend of mine. But I
remained hopelessly in the dark till yesterday. What do you say to Sir
Philip Egerton coming out in that line? I am told he is the author, and
the fact speaks volumes for Owen's perfect success in damning himself.

[In the midst of the fight came a surprising invitation. On April 10 he
writes to his wife:--]

They have written to me from the Philosophical Institute of Edinburgh to
ask me to give two lectures on the "Relation of Man to the Lower
Animals" next session. I have replied that if they can give me January 3
and 7 for lecture days I will do it--if not, not. Fancy unco guid
Edinburgh requiring illumination on the subject! They know my views, so
if they did not like what I have to tell them, it is their own fault.

[These lectures were eventually delivered on January 4 and 7, 1862, and
were well reported in the Edinburgh papers. The substance of them
appears as Part 2 in "Man's Place in Nature," the first lecture
describing the general nature of the process of development among
vertebrate animals, and the modifications of the skeleton in the
mammalia; the second dealing with the crucial points of comparison
between the higher apes and man, namely the hand, foot, and brain. He
showed that the differences between man and the higher apes were no
greater than those between the higher and lower apes. If the Darwinian
hypothesis explained the common ancestry of the latter, the anatomist
would have no difficulty with the origin of man, so far as regards the
gap between him and the higher apes.

Yet, though convinced that] "that hypothesis is as near an approximation
to the truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true
theory of the planetary motions," [he steadfastly refused to be an
advocate of the theory,] "if by an advocate is meant one whose business
it is to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade when he cannot
convince."

[In common fairness he warned his audience of the one missing link in
the chain of evidence--the fact that selective breeding has not yet
produced species sterile to one another. But it is to be adopted as a
working hypothesis like other scientific generalisations,] "subject to
the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by
selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the
undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence of the
hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject
to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same
reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount of prima facie
probability; that it is the only means at present within reach of
reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is
the most powerful instrument of investigation which has been presented
to naturalists since the invention of the natural system of
classification, and the commencement of the systematic study of
embryology."

[As for the repugnance of most men to admitting kinship with the apes,]
"thoughtful men," [he says,] once escaped from the blinding influences
of traditional prejudices, will find in the lowly stock whence man has
sprung the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will
discern, in his long progress through the past, a reasonable ground of
faith in his attainment of a nobler future."

[A simile, with which he enforced this elevating point of view, which
has since eased the passage of many minds to the acceptance of
evolution, seems to have been much appreciated by his audience. It was a
comparison of man to the Alps, which turn out to be] "of one substance
with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of
proud and seemingly inaccessible glory."

[The lectures were met at first with astonishing quiet, but it was not
long before the stones began to fly. The "Witness" of January 11 lashed
itself into a fury over the fact that the audience applauded this
"anti-scriptural and most debasing theory...standing in blasphemous
contradiction to biblical narrative and doctrine," instead of expressing
their resentment at this "foul outrage committed upon them individually,
and upon the whole species as 'made in the likeness of God,'" by
deserting the hall in a body, or using some more emphatic form of
protest against the corruption of youth by "the vilest and beastliest
paradox ever vented in ancient or modern times amongst Pagans or
Christians." In his finest vein of sarcasm, the writer expresses his
surprise that the meeting did not instantly resolve itself into a
"Gorilla Emancipation Society," or propose to hear a lecture from an
apostle of Mormonism; "even this would be a less offensive, mischievous,
and inexcusable exhibition than was made in the recent two lectures by
Professor Huxley," etc.]

Jermyn Street, January 13, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

In the first place a new year's greeting to you and yours. In the next,
I enclose this slip (please return it when you have read it) to show you
what I have been doing in the north.

Everybody prophesied I should be stoned and cast out of the city gate,
but, on the contrary, I met with unmitigated applause!! Three cheers for
the progress of liberal opinion!!

The report is as good as any, but they have not put quite rightly what I
said about your views, respecting which I took my old line about the
infertility difficulty.

Furthermore, they have not reported my statement that whether you were
right or wrong, some form of the progressive development theory is
certainly true. Nor have they reported here my distinct statement that I
believe man and the apes to have come from one stock.

Having got thus far, I find the lecture better reported in the
"Courant," so I send you that instead.

I mean to publish the lecture in full by and by (about the time the
orchids come out).

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I deserved the greatest credit for not having made an onslaught on
Brewster for his foolish impertinence about your views in "Good Words,"
but declined to stir nationality, which you know (in him) is rather more
than his Bible.

Jermyn Street, January 16, 1862.

My dear Hooker,

I wonder if we are ever to meet again in this world! At any rate I send
to the remote province of Kew, Greeting, and my best wishes for the new
year to you and yours. I also inclose a slip from an Edinburgh paper
containing a report of my lecture on the "Relation of Man," etc. As you
will see, I went in for the entire animal more strongly, in fact, than
they have reported me. I told them in so many words that I entertained
no doubt of the origin of man from the same stock as the apes.

And to my great delight, in saintly Edinburgh itself the announcement
met with nothing but applause. For myself I can't say that the praise or
blame of my audience was much matter, but it is a grand indication of
the general disintegration of old prejudices which is going on.

I shall see if I cannot make something more of the lectures by
delivering them again in London, and then I shall publish them.

The report does not put nearly strongly enough what I said in favour of
Darwin's views. I affirmed it to be the only scientific hypothesis of
the origin of species in existence, and expressed my belief that one gap
in the evidence would be filled up, as I always do.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, January 20, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

The inclosed article, which has been followed up by another more
violent, more scurrilously personal, and more foolish, will prove to you
that my labour has not been in vain, and that your views and mine are
likely to be better ventilated in Scotland than they have been.

I was quite uneasy at getting no attack from the "Witness," thinking I
must have overestimated the impression that I had made, and the
favourableness of the reception of what I said. But the raving of the
"Witness" is clear testimony that my notion was correct.

I shall send a short reply to the "Scotsman" for the purpose of further
advertising the question.

With regard to what are especially your doctrines, I spoke much more
favourably than I am reported to have done. I expressed no doubt as to
their ultimate establishment, but as I particularly wished not to be
misrepresented as an advocate trying to soften or explain away real
difficulties, I did not in speaking enter into the details of what is to
be said in diminishing the weight of the hybrid difficulty. All this
will be put fully when I print the Lecture.

The arguments put in your letter are those which I have urged to other
people--of the opposite side--over and over again. I have told my
students that I entertain no doubt that twenty years' experiments on
pigeons conducted by a skilled physiologist, instead of by a mere
breeder, would give us physiological species sterile inter se, from a
common stock (and in this, if I mistake not, I go further than you do
yourself), and I have told them that when these experiments have been
performed I shall consider your views to have a complete physical basis,
and to stand on as firm ground as any physiological theory whatever.

It was impossible for me, in the time I had, to lay all this down to my
Edinburgh audience, and in default of full explanation it was far better
to seem to do scanty justice to you. I am constitutionally slow of
adopting any theory that I must needs stick by when I have gone in for
it; but for these two years I have been gravitating towards your
doctrines, and since the publication of your primula paper with
accelerated velocity. By about this time next year I expect to have shot
past you, and to find you pitching into me for being more Darwinian than
yourself. However, you have set me going, and must just take the
consequences, for I warn you I will stop at no point so long as clear
reasoning will carry me further.

My wife and I were very grieved to hear you had had such a sick house,
but I hope the change in the weather has done you all good. Anything is
better than the damp warmth we had.

I will take great care of the three "Barriers." [A pamphlet called "The
Three Barriers" by G.R., being notes on Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species"
1861, 8vo." Habitat, structure, and procreative power are given as these
three barriers to Darwinism, against which natural theology takes its
stand on Final Causes.] I wanted to cut it up in the "Saturday," but how
I am to fulfil my benevolent intentions--with five lectures a week--a
lecture at the Royal Institution and heaps of other things on my hands,
I don't know.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I am very glad to hear about Brown Sequard; he is a thoroughly good man,
and told me it was worth while to come all the way to Oxford to hear the
Bishop pummelled.

[In the above-mentioned letter to the "Scotsman" of January 24 he
expresses his unfeigned satisfaction at the fulfilment of the three
objects of his address, namely, to state fully and fairly his
conclusions, to avoid giving unnecessary offence, and thirdly,] "while
feeling assured of the just and reasonable dealing of the respectable
part of the Scottish press, I naturally hoped for noisy injustice and
unreason from the rest, seeing, as I did, the best security for the
dissemination of my views through regions which they might not otherwise
reach, in the certainty of a violent attack by [the 'Witness'."

The applause of the audience, he says, afforded him genuine
satisfaction,] "because it bids me continue in the faith on which I
acted, that a man who speaks out honestly and fearlessly that which he
knows, and that which he believes, will always enlist the good-will and
the respect, however much he may fail in winning the assent, of his
fellow-men."

[About this time a new field of interest was opened out to him, closely
connected with, indeed, and completing, the ape question. Sir Charles
Lyell was engaged in writing his "Antiquity of Man," and asked Huxley to
supply him with various anatomical data touching the ape question, and
later to draw him a diagram illustrating the peculiarities of the newly
discovered Neanderthal skull as compared with other skulls. He points
out in his letters to Lyell that the range of cranial capacity between
the highest and the lowest German--"one of the mediatised princes, I
suppose" [The minor princes of Germany, whose territories were annexed
to larger states, and who thus exchanged a direct for a mediate share in
the imperial government.--or the Himalayan or Peruvian, is almost 100
per cent; in absolute amount twice as much as the difference between
that of the largest simian and the smallest human capacity, so that in
seeking an ordinal difference between man and the apes, "it would
certainly be well to let go the head, though I am afraid it does not
mend matters much to lay hold of the foot."

And on January 25, 1862:--]

I have been skull-measuring all day at the College of Surgeons. The
NEANDERTHAL SKULL may be described as a slightly exaggerated
modification of one of the two types (and the lower) of Australian
skulls.

After the fashion of accounting for the elephant of old, I suppose it
will be said that it was imported. But luckily the differences, though
only of degree, are rather too marked for this hypothesis.

I only wish I had a clear six months to work at the subject. Little did
I dream what the undertaking to arrange your three woodcuts would lead
to. It will come in the long-run, I believe, to a new ethnological
method, new modes of measurement, a new datum line, and new methods of
registration.

If one had but two heads and neither required sleep!

[One immediate result of his investigations, which appeared in a lecture
at the Royal Institution (February 7, 1862), "On the Fossil Remains of
Man," was incorporated in "Man's Place in Nature." But a more important
consequence of this impulse was that he went seriously into the study of
Ethnology. Of his work in this branch of natural science, Professor
Virchow, speaking at the dinner given him by the English medical
profession on October 5, 1898, declared that in the eyes of German
savants it alone would suffice to secure immortal reverence for his
name.

The concluding stage in the long controversy raised first at Oxford, was
the British Association meeting at Cambridge in 1862. It was here that
Professor (afterwards Sir W.H.) Flower made his public demonstration of
the existence in apes of the cerebral characters said to be peculiar to
man.

From the 1st to the 9th of October Huxley stayed at Cambridge as the
guest of Professor Fawcett at Trinity Hall, running over to Felixstow on
the 5th to see his wife, whose health did not allow her to accompany
him.

As President of Section D he had a good deal to do, and he describes the
course of events in a letter to Darwin:--]

26 Abbey Place, October 9, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

It is a source of sincere pleasure to me to learn that anything I can
say or do is a pleasure to you, and I was therefore very glad to get
your letter at that whirligig of an association meeting the other day.
We all missed you, but I think it was as well you did not come, for
though I am pretty tough, as you know, I found the pace rather killing.
Nothing could exceed the hospitality and kindness of the University
people--and that, together with a great deal of speaking on the top of a
very bad cold, which I contrived to catch just before going down, has
somewhat used me up.

Owen came down with the obvious intention of attacking me on all points.
Each of his papers was an attack, and he went so far as to offer stupid
and unnecessary opposition to proposals of mine in my own committee.
However, he got himself sold at all points...The Polypterus paper and
the Aye-Aye paper fell flat. The latter was meant to raise a discussion
on your views, but it was all a stale hash, and I only made some half
sarcastic remarks which stopped any further attempts at discussion...

I took my book to Scotland but did nothing. I shall ask leave to send
you a bit or two as I get on.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

A "Society for the propagation of common honesty in all parts of the
world" was established at Cambridge. I want you to belong to it, but I
will say more about it by and by.

[This admirable society, which was also to "search for scientific truth,
especially in biology," seems to have been but short lived. At all
events, I can find only two references to subsequent meetings, on
October 7 and December 19 in this year.

A few days later a final blow was struck in the battle over the ape
question. He writes on October 15 how he has written a letter to the
"Medical Times"--his last word on the subject, summing up in most
emphatic terms:--]

I have written the letter with the greatest care, and there is nothing
coarse or violent in it. But it shall put an end to all the humbug that
has been going on...Rolleston will come out with his letter in the same
number, and the smash will be awful, but most thoroughly merited.

[These several pieces of work, struck out at different times in response
to various impulses, were now combined and re-shaped into "Man's Place
in Nature," the first book which was published by him. Thus he writes to
Sir Charles Lyell on May 5, 1862:--]

Of course I shall be delighted to discuss anything with you [Referring
to the address on "Geological Contemporaneity" delivered in 1862 at the
Geological Society.], and the more so as I mean to put the whole
question before the world in another shape in my little book, whose
title is announced as "Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature." I have
written the first two essays, the second containing the substance of my
Edinburgh Lecture. I recollect you once asked me for something to quote
on the Man question, so if you want anything in that way the MS. is at
your service.

[Lyell looked over the proofs, and the following letters are in reply to
his criticisms:--]

Ardrishaig, Loch Fyne, August 17, 1862.

My dear Sir Charles,

I take advantage of my first quiet day to reply to your letter of the
9th; and in the first place let me thank you very much for your critical
remarks, as I shall find them of great service.

With regard to such matters as verbal mistakes, you must recollect that
the greater part of the proof was wholly uncorrected. But the reader
might certainly do his work better. I do not think you will find room to
complain of any want of distinctness in my definition of Owen's position
touching the Hippocampus question. I mean to give the whole history of
the business in a note, so that the paraphrase of Sir Philip Egerton's
line "To which Huxley replies that Owen he lies," shall be unmistakable.

I will take care about the Cheiroptera, and I will look at Lamarck
again. But I doubt if I shall improve my estimate of the latter. The
notion of common descent was not his--still less that of modification by
variation--and he was as far as De Maillet from seeing his way to any
vera causa by which varieties might be intensified into species.

If Darwin is right about natural selection--the discovery of this vera
causa sets him to my mind in a different region altogether from all his
predecessors--and I should no more call his doctrine a modification of
Lamarck's than I should call the Newtonian theory of the celestial
motions a modification of the Ptolemaic system. Ptolemy imagined a mode
of explaining those motions. Newton proved their necessity from the laws
and a force demonstrably in operation. If he is only right Darwin will,
I think, take his place with such men as Harvey, and even if he is wrong
his sobriety and accuracy of thought will put him on a far different
level from Lamarck. I want to make this clear to people.

I am disposed to agree with you about the "emasculate" and
"uncircumcised"-partly for your reasons, partly because I believe it is
an excellent rule always to erase anything that strikes one as
particularly smart when writing it. But it is a great piece of
self-denial to abstain from expressing my peculiar antipathy to the
people indicated, and I hope I shall be rewarded for the virtue.

As to the secondary causes I only wished to guard myself from being
understood to imply that I had any comprehension of the meaning of the
term. If my phrase looks naughty I will alter it. What I want is to be
read, and therefore to give no unnecessary handle to the enemy. There
will be row enough whatever I do.

Our Commission here [The Fishery Commission] implicates us in an inquiry
of some difficulty, and which involves the interests of a great many
poor people. I am afraid it will not leave me very much leisure. But we
are in the midst of a charming country, and the work is not unpleasant
or uninteresting. If the sun would only shine more than once a week it
would be perfect.

With kind remembrances to Lady Lyell, believe me, faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

We shall be here for the next ten days at least. But my wife will always
know my whereabouts.

Jermyn Street, March 23, 1863.

My dear Sir Charles,

I suspect that the passage to which you refer must have been taken from
my unrevised proofs, for it corresponds very nearly with what is written
at page 97 of my book.

Flower has recently discovered that the Siamang's brain affords an even
more curious exception to the general rule than that of Mycetes, as the
cerebral hemispheres leave part not only of the sides but of the hinder
end of the cerebellum uncovered.

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