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

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Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This year the British Association met at Nottingham, and Huxley was
president of Section D. In this capacity he invited Professor Haeckel to
attend the meeting, but the impending war with Austria prevented any
Prussian from leaving his country at the time, though Haeckel managed to
come over later.

Huxley did not deliver a regular opening address to the section on the
Thursday, but on the Friday made a speech, which was followed by a
discussion upon biology and its several branches, especially morphology
and its relation to physiology ("the facts concerning form are questions
of force, every form is force visible.") He lamented that the
subdivisions of the section had to meet separately as a result of
specialisation, the reason for which he found in the want of proper
scientific education in schools. And this was the fault of the
universities, for just as in the story, "Stick won't beat dog, dog won't
bite pig, and so the old woman can't get home," science would not be
taught in the schools until it is recognised by the universities.

This prepared the way for Dean Farrar's paper on science teaching in the
public schools. His experience as a master at Harrow made him strongly
oppose the existing plan of teaching all boys classical composition
whether they were suited for it or no. He wished to exchange a great
deal of Latin verse-making for elementary science.

This paper was doubly interesting to Huxley, as coming from a classical
master in a public school, and he remarked, "He felt sure that at the
present time, the important question for England was not the duration of
her coal, but the due comprehension of the truths of science, and the
labours of her scientific men."

On the practical side, however, Mr. J. Payne said the great difficulty
was the want of teachers; and suggested that if men of science were
really in earnest they would condescend to teach in the schools.

It was to a certain extent in answer to this appeal that Huxley gave his
lectures on Physiography in 1869, and instituted the course of training
for science teachers in 1871.

He concluded his work at Nottingham by a lecture to working men.

The following is in reply to Mr. Spencer who had accused himself of
losing his temper in an argument:--]

26 Abbey Place, Sunday, November 8, 1868.

My dear Spencer,

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--n my
eyes" you can do so and have a balance left.

Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to apologise
to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--nd or und--d)

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

26 Abbey Place, November 11, 1866.

My dear Darwin,

I thank you for the new edition of the "Origin," and congratulate you on
having done with it for a while, so as to be able to go on to that book
of a portion of which I had a glimpse years ago. I hear good accounts of
your health, indeed the last was that you were so rampageous you meant
to come to London and have a spree among its dissipations. May that be
true.

I am in the thick of my work, and have only had time to glance at your
"Historical Sketch."

What an unmerciful basting you give "our mutual friend." I did not know
he had put forward any claim! and even now that I read it black and
white, I can hardly believe it.

I am glad to hear from Spencer that you are on the right (that is MY)
side in the Jamaica business. But it is wonderful how people who
commonly act together are divided about it.

My wife joins with me in kindest wishes to Mrs. Darwin and yourself.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

You will receive an elementary physiology book, not for your reading but
for Miss Darwin's. Were you not charmed with Haeckel?

[The "Jamaica business" here alluded to was Governor Eyre's suppression
of the negro rising, in the course of which he had executed, under
martial law, a coloured leader and member of the Assembly, named Gordon.
The question of his justification in so doing stirred England
profoundly. It became the touchstone of ultimate political convictions.
Men who had little concern for ordinary politics, came forward to defend
a great constitutional principle which they conceived to be endangered.
A committee was formed to prosecute Governor Eyre on a charge of murder,
in order to vindicate the right of a prisoner to trial by due process of
law. Thereupon a counter-committee was organised for the defence of the
man who, like Cromwell, judged that the people preferred their real
security to forms, and had presumably saved the white population of
Jamaica by striking promptly at the focus of rebellion.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" of October 29, 1866, made a would-be smart
allusion to the part taken in the affair by Huxley, which evoked, in
reply, a calm statement of his reasons for joining the prosecuting
committee:--

It is amusing (says the "Pall Mall") to see how the rival committees,
the one for the prosecution and the other for the defence of Mr. Eyre,
parade the names of distinguished persons who are enrolled as
subscribers on either side. Mill is set against Carlyle, and to
counterbalance the adhesion of the Laureate to the Defence Fund, the
"Star" hastens to announce that Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Huxley
have given their support to the Jamaica Committee. Everything, of
course, depends on the ground on which the subscriptions are given. One
can readily conceive that Mr. Tennyson has been chiefly moved by a
generous indignation at the vindictive behaviour of the Jamaica
Committee. It would be curious also to know how far Sir Charles Lyell's
and Mr. Huxley's peculiar views on the development of species have
influenced them in bestowing on the negro that sympathetic recognition
which they are willing to extend even to the ape as "a man and a
brother."

The reply appeared in the "Pall Mall" of October 31:--]

Sir,

I learn from yesterday evening's "Pall Mall Gazette" that you are
curious to know whether certain "peculiar views on the development of
species," which I am said to hold in the excellent company of Sir
Charles Lyell, have led me to become a member of the Jamaica Committee.

Permit me without delay to satisfy a curiosity which does me honour. I
have been induced to join that committee neither by my "peculiar views
on the development of species," nor by any particular love for, or
admiration of the negro--still less by any miserable desire to wreak
vengeance for recent error upon a man whose early career I have often
admired; but because the course which the committee proposes to take
appears to me to be the only one by which a question of the profoundest
practical importance can be answered. That question is, Does the killing
a man in the way Mr. Gordon was killed constitute murder in the eye of
the law, or does it not?

You perceive that this question is wholly independent of two others
which are persistently confused with it, namely--was Mr. Gordon a
Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing fire-brand? and was Mr. Eyre
actuated by the highest and noblest motives, or was he under the
influence of panic-stricken rashness or worse impulses?

I do not presume to speak with authority on a legal question; but,
unless I am misinformed, English law does not permit good persons, as
such, to strangle bad persons, as such. On the contrary, I understand
that, if the most virtuous of Britons, let his place and authority be
what they may, seize and hang up the greatest scoundrel in Her Majesty's
dominions simply because he is an evil and troublesome person, an
English court of justice will certainly find that virtuous person guilty
of murder. Nor will the verdict be affected by any evidence that the
defendant acted from the best of motives, and, on the whole, did the
State a service.

Now, it MAY be that Mr. Eyre was actuated by the best of motives; it MAY
be that Jamaica is all the better for being rid of Mr. Gordon; but
nevertheless the Royal Commissioners, who were appointed to inquire into
Mr. Gordon's case, among other matters, have declared that:--

The evidence, oral and documentary, appears to us to be wholly
insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner took his
trial. ("Report" page 37.)

And again that they

Cannot see in the evidence which has been adduced, any sufficient proof,
either of his (Mr. Gordon's) complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay,
or of his having been a party to any general conspiracy against the
Government. ("Report" page 38.)

Unless the Royal Commissioners have greatly erred, therefore, the
killing of Mr. Gordon can only be defended on the ground that he was a
bad and troublesome man; in short, that although he might not be guilty,
it served him right.

I entertain so deeply-rooted an objection to this method of killing
people--the act itself appears to me to be so frightful a precedent,
that I desire to see it stigmatised by the highest authority as a crime.
And I have joined the committee which proposes to indict Mr. Eyre, in
the hope that I may hear a court of justice declare that the only
defence which can be set up (if the Royal Commissioners are right) is no
defence, and that the killing of Mr. Gordon was the greatest offence
known to the law--murder.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.

T.H. Huxley.

The Atehnaeum Club, October 30, 1866.

[Two letters to friends who had taken the opposite side in this burning
question show how resolutely he set himself against permitting a
difference on matters of principle to affect personal relations with his
warmest opponents.]

Jermyn Street, November 8, 1866.

My dear Kingsley,

The letter of which you have heard, containing my reasons for becoming a
member of the Jamaica Committee was addressed to the "Pall Mall Gazette"
in reply to some editorial speculations as to my reasons for so doing.

I forget the date of the number in which my letter appeared, but I will
find it out and send you a copy of the paper.

Mr. Eyre's personality in this matter is nothing to me; I know nothing
about him, and, if he is a friend of yours, I am very sorry to be
obliged to join in a movement which must be excessively unpleasant to
him.

Furthermore, when the verdict of the jury which will try him is once
given, all hostility towards him on my part will cease. So far from
wishing to see him vindictively punished, I would much rather, if it
were practicable, indict his official hat and his coat than himself.

I desire to see Mr. Eyre indicted and a verdict of guilty in a criminal
court obtained, because I have, from its commencement, carefully watched
the Gordon case; and because a new study of all the evidence which has
now been collected has confirmed my first conviction that Gordon's
execution was as bad a specimen as we have had since Jeffries' time of
political murder.

Don't suppose that I have any particular admiration for Gordon. He
belongs to a sufficiently poor type of small political agitator--and
very likely was a great nuisance to the Governor and other respectable
persons.

But that is no reason why he should be condemned, by an absurd tribunal
and with a brutal mockery of the forms of justice, for offences with
which impartial judges, after a full investigation, declare there is no
evidence to show that he was connected.

Ex-Governor Eyre seized the man, put him in the hands of the
preposterous subalterns, who pretended to try him--saw the evidence and
approved of the sentence. He is as much responsible for Gordon's death
as if he had shot him through the head with his own hand. I daresay 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 sympathise 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.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

November 9, 1866.

My dear Tyndall,

Many thanks for the kind note which accompanied your letter to the
Jamaica Committee.

When I presented myself at Rogers' dinner last night I had not heard of
the letter, and Gassiot began poking fun at me, and declaring that your
absence was due to a quarrel between us on the unhappy subject.

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 cause.

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 admired without being able to
recognise 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.

If not, we shall come to grief. I mean to do my best.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Huxley was always of opinion that to write a good elementary text-book
required a most extensive and intimate knowledge of the subject under
discussion. Certainly the "Lessons on Elementary Physiology" which
appeared at the end of 1866 were the outcome of such knowledge, and met
with a wonderful and lasting success as a text-book. A graceful
compliment was passed upon it by Sir William Lawrence, when, in thanking
the author for the gift of the book, he wrote (January 24, 1867), "in
your modest book 'indocti discant, ament meminisse periti!'"

This was before the days of American copyright, and English books were
usually regarded as fair prey by the mass of American publishers. Among
the exceptions to this practical rule were the firm of D. Appleton &
Co., who made it a point of honour to treat foreign authors as though
they were legally entitled to some equitable rights. On their behalf an
arrangement was made for an authorised American edition of the
"Physiology" by Dr. Youmans, whose acquaintance thus made my father did
not allow to drop.

It is worth noting that by the year 1898 this little book had passed
through four editions, and been reprinted thirty-one times.]

CHAPTER 1.21.

1867.

[It has already been noted that Huxley's ethnological work continued
this year with a second series of lectures at the Royal Institution,
while he enlarged his paper on "Two widely contrasted forms of Human
Crania," and published it in the "Journal of Anatomy." One
paleontological memoir of his appeared this year on Acanthopholis, a
fossil from the chalk marl, an additional piece of work for which he
excuses himself to Sir Charles Lyell (January 4, 1867):--]

The new reptile advertised in "Geol. Mag." has turned up in the way of
business, and I could not help giving a notice of it, or I should not
have undertaken anything fresh just now.

The Spitzbergen things are very different, and I have taken sundry looks
at them and put them by again to let my thoughts ripen.

They are Ichthyosaurian, and I am not sure they do not belong to two
species. But it is an awful business to compare all the Ichthyosaurians.
I THINK that one form is new. Please to tell Nordenskiold this much.

[However, his chief interest was in the anatomy of birds, at which he
had been working for some time, and especially the development of
certain of the cranial bones as a basis of classification. On April 11,
expanding one of his Hunterian Lectures, he read a paper on this subject
at the Zoological Society, afterwards published in their "Proceedings"
for 1867.

As he had found the works of Professor Cornay of help in the preparation
of this paper, he was careful to send him a copy with an acknowledgment
of his indebtedness, eliciting the reply, "c'est si beau de trouver chez
l'homme la science unie a la justice."

He followed this up with another paper on "The Classification and
Distribution of the Alectoromorphae and Heteromorphae" in 1868, and to
the work upon this the following letter to his ally, W.K. Parker,
refers:--]

Royal Geological Survey of Great Britain, Jermyn Street, July 17, 1867.

My dear Parker,

Nothing short of the direct temptation of the evil one could lead you to
entertain so monstrous a doctrine, as that you propound about
Cariamidae.

I recommend fasting for three days and the application of a scourge
thrice in the twenty-four hours! Do this, and about the fourth day you
will perceive that the cranial differences alone are as great as those
between Cathartes and Serpentarius.

If you want to hear something new and true it is this:--

1. That Memora is more unlike all the other Passerines (i.e.
Coracomorphae) than they are unlike one another, and that it will have
to stand in a group by itself.

It is as much like a wren as you are--less so, in fact, if you go on
maintaining that preposterous fiction about Serpentarius.

2. Wood-peckers are more like crows than they are like cuckoos.

Aegithognathae.

Coracomorphae.

Desmognathae.

*Cypselomorphae.--Coccygomorphae.--*Gecinomorphae.
[*Shown on a horizontal line between Coracomorphae and Desmognathae.]

3. Sundevell is the sharpest fellow who has written on the
classification of birds.

4. Nitzsch and W.K. Parker [Except in the case of Serpentarius.] are the
sharpest fellows who have written on their osteology.

5. Though I do not see how it follows naturally on the above, still,
where can I see a good skeleton of Glareola?

None in college, B.M.S. badly prepared.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[An incident which diversified one of the Gilchrist lectures to working
men is thus recorded by the "Times" of January 23, 1867:--]

A GOOD EXAMPLE.

Last night, at the termination of a lecture on ethnology, delivered by
Professor Huxley to an audience which filled the theatre of the London
Mechanics' Institute in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, the
lecturer said that he had received a letter as he entered the building
which he would not take the responsibility of declining to read,
although it had no reference to the subject under consideration. He then
read the letter, which was simply signed "A Regular Attendant at Your
Lectures," and which in a few words drew attention to the appalling
distress existing among the population out of work at the East End, and
suggested that all those present at the lecture that night should be
allowed the opportunity of contributing one or two pennies each towards
a fund for their relief, and that the professor should become the
treasurer for the evening. This suggestion was received by the audience
with marks of approval. The professor said he would not put pressure on
anyone; he would simply place his own subscription in one of the skulls
on the table. This he did, and all the audience coming on the platform,
threw in money in copper and silver until the novel cash box was filled
with coin which amounted to a large sum. A gentleman present expressed a
hope that the example set by that audience might be followed with good
results wherever large bodies assembled either for educational or
recreative purposes.

[At the end of April this year my father spent a week in Brittany with
Dr. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock, rambling about the neighbourhood of
Rennes and Vannes, and combining the examination of prehistoric remains
with the refreshment of holiday making.

Few letters of this period exist. The x Club was doing its work. Most of
those to whom he would naturally have written he met constantly. Two
letters to Professor Haeckel give pieces of his experience. One suggests
the limits of aggressive polemics, as to which I remember his once
saying that he himself had only twice been the aggressor in controversy,
without waiting to be personally attacked; once where he found his
opponent was engaged in a flanking movement; the other when a man of
great public reputation had come forward to champion an untenable
position of the older orthodoxy, and a blow dealt to his pretensions to
historical and scientific accuracy would not only bring the question
home to many who neglected it in an impersonal form, but would also
react upon the value of the historical arguments with which he sought to
stir public opinion in other spheres. The other letter touches on the
influence, at once calming and invigorating, as he had known it to the
full for the last twelve years, which a wife can bring in the midst of
outward struggles to the inner life of the home.]

Jermyn Street, London, May 20, 1867.

My dear Haeckel,

Your letter, though dated the 12th, has but just reached me. I mention
this lest you should think me remiss, my sin in not writing to you
already being sufficiently great. But your book did not reach me until
November, and I have been hard at work lecturing, with scarcely an
intermission ever since.

Now I need hardly say that the "Morphologie" is not exactly a novel to
be taken up and read in the intervals of business. On the contrary,
though profoundly interesting, it is an uncommonly hard book, and one
wants to read every sentence of it over.

I went through it within a fortnight of its coming into my hands, so as
to get at your general drift and purpose, but up to this time I have not
been able to read it as I feel I ought to read it before venturing upon
criticism. You cannot imagine how my time is frittered away in these
accursed lectures and examinations.

There can be but one opinion, however, as to the knowledge and
intellectual grasp displayed in the book; and, to me, the attempt to
systematise biology as a whole is especially interesting and valuable.

I shall go over this part of your work with great care by and by, but I
am afraid you must expect that the number of biologists who will do so,
will remain exceedingly small. Our comrades are not strong in logic and
philosophy.

With respect to the polemic excursus, of course, I chuckle over them
most sympathetically, and then say how naughty they are! I have done too
much of the same sort of thing not to sympathise entirely with you; and
I am much inclined to think that it is a good thing for a man, once at
any rate in his life, to perform a public war-dance against all sorts of
humbug and imposture.

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