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

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June 6, 1851.

The other day I received an intimation that my presence was required at
Somerset House. I rather expected the mandate, as six months' leave was
up. Sir William was very civil, and told me that the Commander of the
"Fisguard" had applied to the Admiralty to know what was to be done with
me, as my leave had expired. "Now," said he, "go to Forest" (his
secretary), "write a letter to me, stating what you want, and I will get
it done for you." So away I went and applied for an indefinite amount of
leave, on condition of reporting the progress of my work every six
months, and as I suppose I shall get it, I feel quite easy on that head.

[In May 1851 he applied to the Royal Society for help from the
Government Grant towards publishing the bulk of his work as a whole, for
much of its value would be lost if scattered fragmentarily among the
Transactions of various learned societies. Personally, the members of
the committee were very willing to make the grant, but on further
consideration it appeared that the money was to be applied for promoting
research, not for assisting publication; and moreover, it was desirable
not to establish a precedent for saddling the funds at the disposal of
the Society with all the publications which it was the clear duty of the
Government to undertake. On this ground the application was refused, but
at the same time it was resolved that the Government be formally asked
to give the necessary subvention towards bringing out these valuable
papers.

A similar resolution was passed at the Ipswich meeting of the British
Association in July 1851, and at a meeting of its Council in March 1852
the President declared himself ready to carry it into effect by asking
the Treasury for the needful 300 pounds sterling. But at the July
meeting he could only report a non possumus answer for the current year
(1852) from the Government, and a resolution was passed recommending
that application on the subject be renewed by the British Association in
the following year.

Meanwhile, weary of official delay, Huxley had conceived the idea of
writing direct to the Duke of Northumberland, then First Lord of the
Admiralty, whom he knew to take an interest in scientific research. At
the same time he stirred Lord Rosse, the President of the Royal Society,
to repeat his application to the Treasury. Although the Admiralty in
April 1852 again refused money help, and bade him apply to the Royal
Society for a portion of the Government Grant (which the latter had
already refused him), the Hydrographer was directed to make inquiries as
to the propriety of granting him an extension of leave. To his question
asking the exact amount of time still required for finishing the work of
publication, Huxley returned what he described as a "savage reply," that
his experience of engravers led him to think that the plates could be
published in eight or nine months from the receipt of a grant; that he
had reason to believe this grant might soon be promised, but that the
long delay was solely due to the remissness of those whose duty it was
to represent his claims to the Government; and finally, that he must ask
for a year's extension of leave.

For these expressions his conscience smote him when, on June 12, at a
soiree of the Royal Society, Lord Rosse took him aside and informed him
that he had seen Sir C. Trevelyan, the Under Secretary to the Treasury,
who said there would be no difficulty in the matter if it were properly
laid before the Prime Minister, Lord Derby. To Lord Derby therefore he
went, and was told that Mr. Huxley should go to the Treasury and arrange
matters in person with Trevelyan. At the same time the indignant tone of
his letter to the Hydrographer seemed to have done good; he was invited
to explain matters in person, and was granted the leave he asked for.

Everything now seemed to point to a speedy solution of his difficulties.
The promise of a grant, of course, did nothing immediate, but assured
him a good position, and settled all the scruples of the Admiralty with
regard to time.] "You have no notion," [he writes,]" of the trouble the
grant has cost me. It died a natural death till I wrote to the Duke in
March, and brought it to life again. The more opposition there is, the
more determined I am to carry it through." [But he was doomed to a worse
disappointment than before. Trevelyan received him very civilly, but had
heard nothing on the matter from Lord Derby, and accordingly sent him in
charge of his private secretary to see Lord Derby's secretary. The
latter had seen no papers relating to any such matter, and supposed Lord
Derby had not brought them from St. James' Square, "but promised to
write to me as soon as anything was learnt. I look upon it as adjourned
sine die." Parliament breaking up immediately after gave the officials a
good excuse for doing nothing more.

When his year's leave expired in June 1853, he wrote the following
letter to Sir William Burnett:--]

As the period of my leave of absence from H.M.S. "Fisguard" is about to
expire, I have the honour to report that the duty on which I have been
engaged has been carried out, as far as my means permit, by the
publication of a "Memoir upon the Homologies of the Cephalous Mollusca,"
with four plates, which appeared in the "Philosophical Transactions" for
1852 (published 1853), being the fourth memoir resulting from the
observations made during the voyage of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" which has
appeared in these "Transactions."

I have the pleasure of being able to add that the President and Council
of the Royal Society have considered these memoirs worthy of being
rewarded by the Royal Medal in Physiology for 1852, which they did me
the honour to confer in the November of that year.

I regret that no definite answer of any kind having as yet been given to
the strong representations which were made by the Presidents both of the
Royal Society and of the British Association in 1852 to H.M.
Government--representations which have recently been earnestly
repeated--in order to obtain a grant for the purpose of publishing the
remainder of these researches in a separate form, I have been unable to
proceed any further, and I beg to request a renewal of my leave of
absence from H.M.S. "Fisguard," so that if H.M. Government think fit to
give the grant applied for, it may be in my power to make use of it; or
that, should it be denied, I may be enabled to find some other means of
preventing the total loss of the labour of some years.

[Hereupon he was allowed six months longer, but with the intimation that
no further leave would be granted. A final application from the
scientific authorities resulted in fresh inquiries as to the length of
time still required, and the deadlock between the two departments of
State being unchanged, he replied to the same effect as before, but to
no purpose. His formal application for leave in January 1854 was met by
orders to join the "Illustrious" at Portsmouth. He appealed to the
Admiralty that this appointment might be cancelled, giving a brief
summary of the facts, and pointing out that it was the inaction of the
Treasury which had absolutely prevented him from completing his work.]

I would therefore respectfully submit that, under these circumstances,
my request to be permitted to remain on half-pay until the completion of
the publication of the results of some years' toil is not wholly
unreasonable. It is the only reward for which I would ask their
Lordships, and indeed, considering the distinct pledge given in the
minute to which I have referred, to grant it would seem as nearly to
concern their Lordships' honour as my advantage.

[The counter to this bold stroke was crushing, if not convincing. He was
ordered to join his ship immediately under pain of being struck off the
Navy list. He was of course prepared for this ultimatum, and whether he
could manage to pursue science in England or might be compelled to set
up as a doctor in Sydney, he considered that he would be better off than
as an assistant surgeon in the Navy. Accordingly he stood firm, and the
threat was carried into effect in March 1854. An unexpected consequence
followed. As long as he was in the navy, with direct claims upon a
Government department for assistance in publishing his work, the Royal
Society had not felt justified in allotting him any part of the
Government Grant. But now that he had left the service, this objection
was removed, and in June 1854 the sum of 300 pounds sterling was
assigned for this purpose, while the remainder of the expense was borne
by the Ray Society, which undertook the publication under the title of
"Oceanic Hydrozoa." Thus he was able to record with some satisfaction
how he at last has got the grant, though indirectly, from the
Government, and considers it something of a triumph for the principle of
the family motto, tenax propositi.

While these fruitless negotiations with the Admiralty were in progress,
he had done a good deal, both in publishing what he could of his
"Rattlesnake" work, and in trying to secure some scientific appointment
which would enable him to carry out his two chief objects: the one his
marriage, the other the unhampered pursuit of science. In addition to
the papers sent home from the cruise--one on the Medusae, published in
the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" for 1849, and one
on the Animal of Trigonia, published in the "Proceedings of the
Zoological Society" for the same year--he had reported to the Admiralty
in June 1851 the publication of seven memoirs:--

1. On the Auditory Organs of the Crustacea. Published in the "Annals of
Natural History."

2. On the Anatomy of the genus Tethea. Published in the "Annals of
Natural History."

3. Report upon the Development of the Echinoderms. To appear in the
"Annals" for July.

4. On the Anatomy and Physiology of the Salpae, with four plates. Read
at the Royal Society, and to be published in the next part of the
"Philosophical Transactions."

5. On two Genera of Ascidians, Doliolum and Appendicularia, with one
plate. Read at the Royal Society, and to be published in the next part
of the "Philosophical Transactions."

6. On some peculiarities in the Circulation of the Mollusca. Sent to M.
Milne-Edwards, at his request, to be published in the "Annales des
Sciences."

7. On the Generative Organs of the Physophoridae and Diphydae. Sent to
Professor Muller of Berlin for publication in his "Archiv."

By the end of the year he had four more to report:--

1. On the Hydrostatic Acalephae; 2. On the genus Sagitta, both published
in the "Report of the British Association" for 1851; 3. On Lacinularia
socialis, a contribution to the anatomy and physiology of the Rotifera,
in the "Transactions of the Microscopical Society" 4. On Thalassicolla,
a new zoophyte, in the "Annals of Natural History." Next year he read
before the British Association a paper entitled "Researches into the
Structure of the Ascidians," and a very important one on the Morphology
of the Cephalous Mollusca, afterwards published in the "Philosophical
Transactions." In addition he had prepared a great part of his longer
work for publication; out of twenty-four or twenty-five plates, nineteen
were ready for the engraver when he wrote his appeal to the Duke of
Northumberland. In this same year, 1852, he was also awarded the Royal
Medal in Physiology for the value of his contributions to the
"Philosophical Transactions."

In 1853, besides seeing some of these papers through the press, he
published one on the existence of Cellulose in the Tunic of Ascidians,
read before the Microscopical Society, and two papers on the Structure
of the Teeth; the latter, of course, like a paper of the previous year
on Echinococcus, being distinct from the "Rattlesnake" work. The greater
work on Oceanic Hydrozoa, over which the battle of the grant in aid had
been waged so long, did not see the light until 1858, when his interest
had been diverted from these subjects, and to return to them was more a
burden than a pleasure.

In the second place, the years 1851-53, so full of profitless successes
in pure science, and delusive hopes held out by the Government, were
marked by an equally unsuccessful series of attempts to obtain a
professorship. If a chair of Natural History had been established, as he
hoped, in the projected university at Sydney, he would gladly have stood
for it. Sydney was a second home to him; he would have been backed by
the great influence of Macleay; and in his eyes a naturalist could not
desire a finer field for his labours than the waters of Port Jackson.
But this was not to be, and the first chair he tried for was the
newly-instituted chair of Zoology at the University of Toronto. The
vacancy was advertised in the summer of 1851; the pay of full 300 pounds
sterling a year was enough to marry on; his friends reassured him as to
his capacity to fill the post, which, moreover, did not debar him from
the hope of returning some day to fill a similar post in England.]

1 Edward Street, St. John's Wood Terrace,

July 29 [1851].

My dear Henfrey,

I have been detained in town, or I hope we should long since have had
our projected excursion.

What do you think of my looking out for a Professorship of Natural
History at Toronto? Pay 350 pounds sterling, with chances of extra fees.
I think that out there one might live comfortably upon that
sum--possibly even do the domestic and cultivate the Loves and Graces as
well as the Muses.

Seriously, however, I should like to know what you think of it. The
choice of getting anything over here without devoting one's self wholly
to Mammon, seems to me very small. At least it involves years of
waiting.

Toronto is not very much out of the way, and the pay is decent and would
enable me to devote myself wholly to my favourite pursuits. Were it in
England, I could wish nothing better; and, as it is, I think it would
answer my purpose very well for some years at any rate.

If they go fairly to work I think I shall have a very good chance of
being elected; but I am told that these matters are often determined by
petty intrigues.

Francis and I looked for you everywhere at the Botanic Gardens, and
finding you were too wise to come, came here, grieving your absence, and
had an aesthetic "Bier." [(Dr. William Francis, one of the editors of
the "Philosophical Magazine," and a member of the publishing firm of
Taylor and Francis.)

He obtained a remarkably strong set of testimonials from all the leading
anatomists and physiologists in the kingdom, as well as one from
Milne-Edwards in Paris.

I have put together [he writes] twelve or fourteen testimonials from the
first men. I will have no other.

[His newly-obtained F.R.S. was a recommendation in itself. So that he
writes:--]

There are, I learn, several other candidates, but no one I fear at all,
if they only have fair play. There is no one of the others who can
command anything like the scientific influence which is being exercised
for me, whatever private influence they may have.

What makes all the big-wigs so marvellously zealous on my behalf I know
not. I have sought none of them and flattered none of them, that I can
say with a good conscience, and I think you know me well enough to
believe it. I feel very grateful to them; and if it ever happens that I
am able to help a young man on (when I am a big-wig myself!) I shall
remember it.

[And again, September 23, 1851:--]

When I have once sent away my testimonials and done all that is to be
done, I shall banish the subject from my mind and make myself quite easy
as to results. For the present I confess to being somewhat anxious.

[Nevertheless, after many postponements, a near relative of an
influential Canadian politician was at length appointed late in 1853. By
an amusing coincidence, Huxley's newly-made friend, Tyndall, was
likewise a candidate for a chair at Toronto, and likewise rejected. Two
letters, concerning Tyndall's election to the Royal Society, contain
references both to Toronto and to Sydney.]

4 Upper York Place, St. John's Wood

December 4 [1851].

My dear Sir,

I was greatly rejoiced to find I could be of service to you in any way,
and I only regret, for your sake, that my name is not a more weighty
one. Your election, I should think, can be a matter of no doubt.

As to Toronto, I confess I am not very anxious about it. Sydney would
have been far more to my taste, and I confess I envy you what, as I
hear, is the very good chance you have of going there.

It used to be our headquarters in the "Rattlesnake" and my home for
three months in the year. Should you go, I should be very happy, if you
like, to give you letters to some of my friends.

Greatly as I wish we had been destined to do our work together, I cannot
but offer you the most hearty wishes for your success in Sydney.

Ever yours very faithfully,

Thomas H. Huxley.

John Tyndall, Esq.

41 North Bank, Regent's Park,

May 7, 1852.

My dear Tyndall,

Allow me to be one of the first to have the pleasure of congratulating
you on your new honours. I had the satisfaction last night to hear your
name read out as one of the selected of the Council of the Royal Society
for election to the Fellowship this year, and you are therefore as good
as elected.

I always made sure of your success, but I am not the less pleased that
it is now a fait accompli.

I am, my dear Tyndall, faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--I have heard nothing of Toronto, and I begin to think that the
whole affair, University and all, is a myth.

[His hopes of the Colonies failing, he tried each of the divisions of
the United Kingdom in turn, with uniform ill-success; in 1852-53 at
Aberdeen and at Cork; in 1853 at King's College, London. He had great
hopes of Aberdeen at first; the appointment lay with the Home Secretary,
a personal friend of Sir J. Clark, who was interested in Huxley though
not personally acquainted with him. But no sooner had he written to urge
the latter's claims than a change of ministry took place, and other
influences commanded the field. It was cold comfort that Clark told him
only to wait--something must turn up. There was still a great
probability of the Toronto chair falling to a Cork professor; so with
this in view, he gave up a trip to Chamounix with his brother, and
attended the meeting of the British Association at Belfast in August
1852, in order to make himself known to the Irish men of science, for,
as his friends told him, personal influence went for so much, and while
most men's reputations were better than themselves, he might flatter
himself that he was better than his reputation. But this, too, came to
nothing, and the King's College appointment also went to the candidate
who was backed by the most powerful influence.

A fatality seemed to dog his efforts; nevertheless he writes at the end
of 1851:--]

Among my scientific friends the monition I get on all sides is that of
Dante's great ancestor to him--

A te sequi la tua stella.

If this were from personal friends only, I should disregard it; but it
comes from men to whose approbation it would be foolish affectation to
deny the highest value. I find myself treated on a footing of equality
("my proud self," as you may suppose, would not put up with any other)
by men whose names and works have been long before the world. My
opinions are treated with a respect altogether unaccountable to me, and
what I have done is quoted as having full authority. Without canvassing
a soul or making use of any influence, I have been elected into the
Royal Society at a time when that election is more difficult than it has
ever been in the history of the Society. Without my knowledge I was
within an ace of getting the Royal Society medal this year, and if I go
on I shall very probably get it next time.

[In 1852 he was not only to receive this coveted honour (See Chapter
7.), but also to be elected upon the Royal Society Council. In January
1852, when standing for Toronto, he describes how Colonel Sabine, then
Secretary of the Royal Society, dissuaded him from the project, saying
that a brilliant prospect lay before him if he would only wait.]

"Make up your mind to get something fairly within your reach, and you
will have us all with you." Professor Owen again offers to do anything
in his power for me; Professor Forbes will move heaven and earth for me
if he can; Gray, Bell, and all the leading men are, I know, similarly
inclined. Fate says wait, and you shall reach the goal which from a
child you have set before yourself. On the other hand, a small voice
like conscience speaks of one who is wasting youth and life away for
your sake.

[Other friends, who, while recognising his general capacities, were not
scientific, and had no direct appreciation of his superlative powers in
science, thought he was following a course which would never allow him
to marry, and urged him to give up his unequal battle with fate, and
emigrate to Australia. Of this he writes on August 5, 1852, to Miss
Heathorn:--]

I must make up my mind to it if nothing turns up. However, I look upon
such a life as would await me in Australia with great misgiving. A life
spent in a routine employment, with no excitement and no occupation for
the higher powers of the intellect, with its great aspirations stifled
and all the great problems of existence set hopelessly in the
background, offers to me a prospect that would be utterly intolerable
but for your love...Sometimes I am half mad with the notion of bringing
all my powers in a surer struggle for a livelihood. Sometimes I am
equally wild at thinking of the long weary while that has passed since
we met. There are times when I cannot bear to think of leaving my
present pursuits, when I feel I should be guilty of a piece of cowardly
desertion from my duty in doing it, and there come intervals when I
would give truth and science and all hopes to be folded in your arms...I
know which course is right, but I never know which I may follow; help
me...for there is only one course in which there is either hope or peace
for me.

[These repeated disappointments deepened the fits of depression which
constantly assailed him. He was torn by two opposing thoughts. Was it
just, was it right, to demand so great a sacrifice from the woman who
had entrusted her future to the uncertain chances of his fortunes? Could
he ask her to go on offering up the best years of her life to
aspirations of his which were possibly chimerical, or perhaps merely
selfishness in disguise, which ought to yield to more imperative duties?
Why not clip the wings of Pegasus, and descend to the sober, everyday
jog-trot after plain bread and cheese like other plain people? Time
after time he almost made up his mind to throw science to the winds; to
emigrate and establish a practice in Sydney; to try even squatting or
storekeeping. And yet he knew only too well that with his temperament no
life would bring him the remotest approach to lasting happiness and
satisfaction except one that gave scope to his intellectual passion. To
yield to the immediate pressure of circumstances was perhaps ignoble,
was even more probably a surer road to the loss of happiness for himself
and for his wife than the repeated and painful sacrifices of the
present. With all this, however, and the more when assured of her entire
confidence in his judgment, he could not but feel a sense of remorse
that she willingly accepted the sacrifice, and feared that she might
have done so rather to gratify his wishes than because reason approved
it as the right course to follow.

Here is another typical extract from his correspondence. Hearing that
Toronto is likely to go to a relative of a Canadian minister, he writes,
January 2, 1852:--]

I think of all my dreams and aspirations, and of the path which I know
lies before me if I can only bide my time, and it seems a sin and a
shameful thing to allow my resolve to be turned; and then comes the
mocking suspicion, is this fine abstract duty of yours anything but a
subtlety of your own selfishness? Have you not other more imperative
duties?

You may fancy whether my life is a very happy one thus spent without
even the satisfaction of the sense of right-doing. I must come to some
resolution about it, and that shortly. I was talking seriously with
Fanning the other night about the possibility of finding some employment
of a profitable kind in Australia, storekeeping, squatting, or the like.
As I told him, any change in my mode of life must be TOTAL. If I am to
change at all, the change must be total and complete. I will not attempt
my own profession. I should only be led astray to think and to work as
of old, and sigh continually for my old dear and intoxicating pursuits.
I wish I understood Brewing, and I would make a proposition to come and
help your father. You may smile, but I am as serious as ever I was in my
life.

[The distance between them made it doubly difficult to keep in touch
with one another, when the post took from four and a half to five or
even six months to reach England from Australia. The answer to a letter
would come when the matter in question was long done with. The assurance
that he was doing right at one moment seemed inadequate when
circumstances had altered and hope sunk lower. It was all too easy to
suspect that she did not understand his aims, his thirst for action, nor
the fact that he was no longer free to do as he liked, whether to stay
in the navy, to go into practice, or follow his own pursuits and
pleasure. Yet it made him despair to be so hedged in by circumstances.
With all his efforts, he seemed as though he had done nothing but earn
the reputation of being a very promising young man. How much easier to
continue the struggle if he could but have seen her face to face, and
read her thoughts as to whether he were right or wrong in the course he
was pursuing. He appeals to her faith that he is choosing the nobler
path in pursuing knowledge, than in turning aside to the temptation of
throwing it up for the sake of their speedier union. Still she was right
in claiming a share in his work; but for her his life would have been
wasted.

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