Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3
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Leonard Huxley >> The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3
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LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
BY HIS SON
LEONARD HUXLEY.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME 3.
(PLATE: PORTRAIT OF T.H. HUXLEY, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY DOWNEY, 1890.
MCQUEEN, SC.)
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 3.1. 1887.
CHAPTER 3.2. 1887.
CHAPTER 3.3. 1888.
CHAPTER 3.4. 1888.
CHAPTER 3.5. 1889.
CHAPTER 3.6. 1889-1890.
CHAPTER 3.7. 1890-1891.
CHAPTER 3.8. 1890-1891.
CHAPTER 3.9. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.10. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.11. 1892.
CHAPTER 3.12. 1893.
CHAPTER 3.13. 1894.
CHAPTER 3.14. 1895.
CHAPTER 3.15.
CHAPTER 3.16. 1895.
APPENDIX 1.
APPENDIX 2.
APPENDIX 3.
APPENDIX 4.
INDEX.
CHAPTER 3.1.
1887.
[The first half of 1887, like that of the preceding year, was chequered
by constant returns of ill-health.] "As one gets older," [he writes in
a New Year's letter to Sir J. Donnelly, "hopes for oneself get more
moderate, and I shall be content if next year is no worse than the
last. Blessed are the poor in spirit!" [The good effects of the visit
to Arolla had not outlasted the winter, and from the end of February he
was obliged to alternate between London and the Isle of Wight.
Nevertheless, he managed to attend to a good deal of business in the
intervals between his periodic flights to the country, for he continued
to serve on the Royal Society Council, to do some of the examining work
at South Kensington, and to fight for the establishment of adequate
Technical Education in England. He attended the Senate and various
committees of the London University and of the Marine Biological
Association.
Several letters refer to the proposal--it was the Jubilee year--to
commemorate the occasion by the establishment of the Imperial
Institute. To this he gladly gave his support; not indeed to the merely
social side; but in the opportunity of organising the practical
applications of science to industry he saw the key to success in the
industrial war of the future. Seconding the resolution proposed by Lord
Rothschild at the Mansion House meeting on January 12, he spoke of the
relation of industry to science--the two great developments of this
century. Formerly practical men looked askance at science, "but within
the last thirty years, more particularly," continues the report in
"Nature" (volume 33 page 265) "that state of things had entirely
changed. There began in the first place a slight flirtation between
science and industry, and that flirtation had grown into an intimacy,
he must almost say courtship, until those who watched the signs of the
times saw that it was high time that the young people married and set
up an establishment for themselves. This great scheme, from his point
of view, was the public and ceremonial marriage of science and
industry."
Proceeding to speak of the contrast between militarism and
industrialism, he asked whether, after all, modern industry was not war
under the forms of peace. The difference was the difference between
modern and ancient war, consisting in the use of scientific weapons, of
organisation and information. The country, he concluded, had dropped
astern in the race for want of special education which was obtained
elsewhere by the artisan. The only possible chance for keeping the
industry of England at the head of the world was through organisation.
Writing on January 18, to Mr. Herbert Spencer, who had sent him some
proofs of his Autobiography to look through, he says:--]
I see that your proofs have been in my hands longer than I thought for.
But you may have seen that I have been "starring" at the Mansion House.
This was not exactly one of those bits of over-easiness to pressure
with which you reproach me--but the resultant of a composition of
pressures, one of which was the conviction that the "Institute" might
be made into something very useful and greatly wanted--if only the
projectors could be made to believe that they had always intended to do
that which your humble servant wants done--that is the establishment of
a sort of Royal Society for the improvement of industrial knowledge and
an industrial university--by voluntary association.
I hope my virtue may be its own reward. For except being knocked up for
a day or two by the unwonted effort, I doubt whether there will be any
other. The thing has fallen flat as a pancake, and I greatly doubt
whether any good will come of it. Except a fine in the shape of a
subscription, I hope to escape further punishment for my efforts to be
of use.
[However, this was only the beginning of his campaign.
On January 27, a letter from him appeared in the "Times," guarding
against a wrong interpretation of his speech, in the general
uncertainty as to the intentions of the proposers of the scheme.]
I had no intention [he writes] of expressing any enthusiasm on behalf
of the establishment of a vast permanent bazaar. I am not competent to
estimate the real utility of these great shows. What I do see very
clearly is that they involve difficulties of site, huge working
expenses, the potentiality of endless squabbles, and apparently the
cheapening of knighthood.
[As for the site proposed at South Kensington,] "the arguments used in
its favour in the report would be conclusive if the dry light of reason
were the sole guide of human action." [But it would alienate other
powerful and wealthy bodies, which were interested in the Central
Institute of the City and Guilds Technical Institute,] "which looks so
portly outside and is so very much starved inside."
[He wrote again to the "Times" on March 21:--]
The Central Institute is undoubtedly a splendid monument of the
munificence of the city. But munificence without method may arrive at
results indistinguishably similar to those of stinginess. I have been
blamed for saying that the Central Institute is "starved." Yet a man
who has only half as much food as he needs is indubitably starved, even
though his short rations consist of ortolans and are served upon gold
plate.
[Only half the plan of operations as drawn up by the Committee was, or
could be, carried out on existing funds.
The later part of his letter was printed by the Committee as defining
the functions of the new Institute:--]
That with which I did intend to express my strong sympathy was the
intention which I thought I discerned to establish something which
should play the same part in regard to the advancement of industrial
knowledge which has been played in regard to science and learning in
general, in these realms, by the Royal Society and the Universities...I
pictured the Imperial Institute to myself as a house of call for all
those who are concerned in the advancement of industry; as a place in
which the home-keeping industrial could find out all he wants to know
about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; as a sort
of neutral ground on which the capitalist and the artisan would be
equally welcome; as a centre of intercommunication in which they might
enter into friendly discussion of the problems at issue between them,
and, perchance, arrive at a friendly solution of them. I imagined it a
place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made
accessible to the public; in which the higher questions of commerce and
industry would be systematically studied and elucidated; and where, as
in an industrial university, the whole technical education of the
country might find its centre and crown. If I earnestly desire to see
such an institution created, it is not because I think that or anything
else will put an end to pauperism and want--as somebody has absurdly
suggested,--but because I believe it will supply a foundation for that
scientific organisation of our industries which the changed conditions
of the times render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not think I
am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, have already
entered, upon the most serious struggle for existence to which this
country has ever been committed. The latter years of the century
promise to see us embarked in an industrial war of far more serious
import than the military wars of its opening years. On the east, the
most systematically instructed and best-informed people in Europe are
our competitors; on the west, an energetic offshoot of our own stock,
grown bigger than its parent, enters upon the struggle possessed of
natural resources to which we can make no pretension, and with every
prospect of soon possessing that cheap labour by which they may be
effectually utilised. Many circumstances tend to justify the hope that
we may hold our own if we are careful to "organise victory." But to
those who reflect seriously on the prospects of the population of
Lancashire and Yorkshire--should the time ever arrive when the goods
which are produced by their labour and their skill are to be had
cheaper elsewhere--to those who remember the cotton famine and reflect
how much worse a customer famine would be, the situation appears very
grave.
[On February 19 and 22, he wrote again to the "Times" declaring against
the South Kensington site. It was too far from the heart of commercial
organisation in the city, and the city people were preparing to found a
similar institution of their own. He therefore wished to prevent the
Imperial Institute from becoming a weak and unworthy memorial of the
reign.
A final letter to the "Times" on March 21, was evoked by the fact that
Lord Hartington, in giving away the prizes at the Polytechnic Y.M.C.A.,
had adopted Huxley's position as defined in his speech, and declared
that science ought to be aided on precisely the same grounds on which
we aid the army and navy.
In this letter he asks, how do we stand prepared for the task thus
imperatively set us? We have the machinery for providing instruction
and information, and for catching capable men, but both in a disjointed
condition]--"all mere torsos--fine, but fragmentary." "The ladder from
the School Board to the Universities, about which I dreamed dreams many
years ago, has not yet acquired much more substantiality than the
ladder of Jacob's vision," [but the Science and Art Department, the
Normal School of Science, and the Central Institute only want the means
to carry out the recommendations already made by impartial and
independent authority.] "Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in
spending it wisely."
[He concluded with an appeal to Lord Hartington to take up this task of
organising industrial education and bring it to a happy issue.
A proposal was also made to the Royal Society to co-operate, and Sir M.
Foster writes on February 19: "We have appointed a Committee to
consider and draw up a draft reply with a view of the Royal Society
following up your letter."
To this Huxley replied on the 22nd:--]
...My opinion is that the Royal Society has no right to spend its money
or pledge its credit for any but scientific objects, and that we have
nothing to do with sending round the hat for other purposes.
The project of the Institute Committee as it stands connected with the
South Kensington site--is condemned by all the city people and will
receive none but the most grudging support from them. They are going to
set up what will be practically an Institute of their own in the city.
The thing is already a failure. I daresay it will go on and be
varnished into a simulacrum of success--to become eventually a ghost
like the Albert Hall or revive as a tea garden.
[The following letter also touches upon the function of the Institute
from the commercial side:--]
4 Marlborough Place, February 20, 1887.
My dear Donnelly,
Mr. Law's suggestion gives admirable definition to the notions that
were floating in my mind when I wrote in my letter to the "Times", that
I imagined the Institute would be a "place in which the fullest stores
of industrial knowledge would be made accessible to the public." A man
of business who wants to know anything about the prospects of trade
with, say, Boorioboola-Gha (vide Bleak House) ought to be able to look
into the Institute and find there somebody who will at once fish out
for him among the documents in the place all that is known about
Boorioboola.
But a Commercial Intelligence Department is not all that is wanted,
vide valuable letter aforesaid.
I hope your appetite for the breakfast was none the worse for last
night's doings--mine was rather improved, but I am dog-tired.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I return Miss --'s note. she evidently thinks my cage is labelled
"These animals bite."
[Later in the year, the following letters show him continuing the
campaign. But an attack of pleurisy, which began the very day of the
Jubilee, prevented him from coming to speak at a meeting upon Technical
Education. In the autumn, however, he spoke on the subject at
Manchester, and had the satisfaction of seeing the city "go solid," as
he expressed it, for technical education. The circumstances of this
visit are given later.]
4 Marlborough Place, May 1, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
I met Lord Hartington at the Academy Dinner last night and took the
opportunity of urging upon him the importance of following up his
technical education speech. He told me he had been in communication
with you about the matter, and he seemed to me to be very well disposed
to your plans.
I may go on crying in the wilderness until I am hoarse, with no result,
but if he and you and Mundella will take it up, something may be done.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, June 28, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
Donnelly was here on Sunday and was quite right up to date. I felt I
ought to be better, and could not make out why the deuce I was not.
Yesterday the mischief came out. There is a touch of pleurisy--which
has been covered by the muscular rheumatism.
So I am relegated to bed and told to stop there--with the company of
cataplasms to keep me lively.
I do not think the attack in any way serious--but M. Pl. is a gentleman
not to be trifled with, when you are over sixty, and there is nothing
for it but to obey my doctor's orders.
Pray do not suppose I would be stopped by a trifle, if my coming to the
meeting [Of July 1, on Technical Education.] would really have been of
use. I hope you will say how grieved I am to be absent.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, June 29, 1887.
My dear Roscoe,
I have scrawled a variety of comments on the paper you sent me. Deal
with them as you think fit.
Ever since I was on the London School Board I have seen that the key of
the position is in the Sectarian Training Colleges and that wretched
imposture, the pupil teacher system. As to the former Delendae sunt no
truce or pact to be made with them, either Church or Dissenting. Half
the time of their students is occupied with grinding into their minds
their tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee theological idiocies, and the other
half in cramming them with boluses of other things to be duly spat out
on examination day. Whatever is done do not let us be deluded by any
promises of theirs to hook on science or technical teaching to their
present work.
I am greatly disgusted that I cannot come to Tyndall's dinner
to-night--but my brother-in-law's death would have stopped me (the
funeral to-day)--even if my doctor had not forbidden me to leave my
bed. He says I have some pleuritic effusion on one side and must mind
my P's and Q's.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A good deal of correspondence at this time with Sir M. Foster relates
to the examinations of the Science and Art Department. He was still
Dean, it will be remembered, of the Royal College of Science, and
further kept up his connection with the Department by acting in an
honorary capacity as Examiner, setting questions, but less and less
looking over papers, acting as the channel for official communications,
as when he writes (April 24),] "I send you some Department
documents--nothing alarming, only more worry for the Assistant
Examiners, and that WE do not mind"; and finally signing the Report.
But to do this after taking so small a share in the actual work of
examining, grew more and more repugnant to him, till on October 12 he
writes:--]
I will read the Report and sign it if need be--though there really must
be some fresh arrangement.
Of course I have entire confidence in your judgment about the
examination, but I have a mortal horror of putting my name to things I
do not know of my own knowledge.
[In addition to these occupations, he wrote a short paper upon a
fossil, Ceratochelys, which was read at the Royal Society on March 31;
while on April 7 he read at the Linnean ("Botany" volume 24 pages
101-124), his paper, "The Gentians: Notes and Queries," which had
sprung from his holiday amusement at Arolla.
Philosophy, however, claimed most of his energies. The campaign begun
in answer to the incursion of Mr. Lilly was continued in the article
"Science and Pseudo-Scientific Realism" ("Collected Essays" 5 59-89)
which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for February 1887. The text
for this discourse was the report of a sermon by Canon Liddon, in which
that eminent preacher spoke of catastrophes as the antithesis of
physical law, yet possible inasmuch as a "lower law" may be "suspended"
by the "intervention of a higher," a mode of reasoning which he applied
to the possibility of miracles such as that of Cana.
The man of science was up in arms against this incarnation of abstract
terms, and offered a solemn protest against that modern recrudescence
of ancient realism which speaks of "laws of nature" as though they were
independent entities, agents, and efficient causes of that which
happens, instead of simply our name for observed successions of facts.
Carefully as all personalities had been avoided in this article, it
called forth a lively reply from the Duke of Argyll, rebuking him for
venturing to criticise the preacher, whose name was now brought forward
for the first time, and raising a number of other questions,
philosophical, geological, and biological, to which Huxley rejoined
with some selections from the authentic history of these points in
"Science and Pseudo-Science" ("Nineteenth Century" April 1887,
"Collected Essays" 5 90-125).
Moreover, judging from the vivacity of the duke's reply that some of
the shafts of the first article must have struck nearer home than the
pulpit of St. Paul's, he was induced to read "The Reign of Law," the
second chapter of which, dealing with the nature of "Law," he now
criticised sharply as] "a sort of 'summa' of pseudo-scientific
philosophy," [with its confusions of law and necessity, law and force,]
"law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause." [(Cf. his
treatment of the subject 24 years before, volume 1.)
He wound up with some banter upon the Duke's picture of a scientific
Reign of Terror, whereby, it seemed, all men of science were compelled
to accept the Darwinian faith, and against which Huxley himself was
preparing to rebel, as if:--]
Forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of "revolt," which
some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise before I dare
express my real opinions concerning questions about which we older men
had to fight in the teeth of fierce public opposition and obloquy--of
something which might almost justify even the grandiloquent epithet of
a Reign of Terror--before our excellent successors had left school.
[Here for a while the debate ceased. But in the September number of the
"Nineteenth Century" the Duke of Argyll returned to the fray with an
article called "A Great Lesson," in which he attempted to offer
evidence in support of his assertions concerning the scientific reign
of terror. The two chief pieces of evidence adduced were Bathybius and
Dr. (now Sir J.) Murray's theory of coral reefs. The former was
instanced as a blunder due to the desire of finding support for the
Darwinian theory in the existence of this widespread primordial life;
the latter as a case in which a new theory had been systematically
burked, for fear of damaging the infallibility of Darwin, who had
propounded a different theory of coral reefs!
Huxley's reply to this was contained in the latter half of an article
which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for November 1887, under the
title of "Science and the Bishops" (reprinted both in "Controverted
Questions" and in the "Collected Essays" 5 126, as "An Episcopal
Trilogy"). Preaching at Manchester this autumn, during the meeting of
the British Association, the Bishops of Carlisle, Bedford, and
Manchester had spoken of science not only with knowledge, but in the
spirit of equity and generosity.] "These sermons," [he exclaims,] "are
what the Germans call Epochemachend!"
How often was it my fate [he continues], a quarter of a century ago, to
see the whole artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine
of evolution and its supporters! Any one unaccustomed to the amenities
of ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to
be permitted to live.
[After thus welcoming these episcopal advances, he once more repudiated
the a priori argument against the efficacy of prayer, the theme of one
of the three sermons, and then proceeded to discuss another sermon of a
dignitary of the Church, which had been sent to him by an unknown
correspondent, for] "there seems to be an impression abroad--I do not
desire to give any countenance to it--that I am fond of reading
sermons."
[Now this preacher was of a very different mind from the three bishops.
Instead of dwelling upon the "supreme importance of the purely
spiritual in our faith," he warned his hearers against dropping off any
of the miraculous integument of their religion. "Christianity is
essentially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles be
impossible." He was uncompromisingly opposed to any accommodation with
advancing knowledge, or with the high standard of veracity, enforced by
the nature of their pursuits, in which Huxley found the only difference
between scientific men and any other class of the community.
But it was not merely this misrepresentation of science on its
speculative side which Huxley deplored; he was roused to indignation by
an attack on its morality. The preacher reiterated the charge brought
forward in the "Great Lesson," that Dr. Murray's theory of coral reefs
had been actually suppressed for two years, and that by the advice of
those who accepted it, for fear of upsetting the infallibility of the
great master.
Hereupon he turned in downright earnest upon the originator of the
assertion, who, he considered, had no more than the amateur's knowledge
of the subject. A plain statement of the facts was refutation enough.
The new theories, he pointed out, had been widely discussed; they had
been adopted by some geologists, although Darwin himself had not been
converted, and after careful and prolonged re-examination of the
question, Professor Dana, the greatest living authority on coral reefs,
had rejected them. As Professor Judd said, "If this be a 'conspiracy of
silence,' where, alas! can the geological speculator seek for fame?"
Any warning not to publish in haste was but advice to a still unknown
man not to attack a seemingly well-established theory without making
sure of his ground. (Letter in "Nature.")
As for the Bathybius myth, Huxley pointed out that his announcement of
the discovery had been simply a statement of the actual facts, and that
so far from seeing in it a confirmation of Darwinian hypotheses, he was
careful to warn his readers] "to keep the questions of fact and the
questions of interpretation well apart." "That which interested me in
the matter," he says, "was the apparent analogy of Bathybius with other
well-known forms of lower life,"..."if Bathybius were brought up alive
from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the
slightest bearing, that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations,
or upon any of the disputed problems of biology." [And as for his]
"eating the leek" [afterwards, his ironical account of it is an
instance of how the adoption of a plain, straightforward course can be
described without egotism.]
The most considerable difference I note among men [he concludes] is not
in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to
acknowledge these inevitable lapses.
[As the Duke in a subsequent article did not unequivocally withdraw his
statements, Huxley declined to continue public controversy with him.
Three years later, writing (October 10, 1890) to Sir J. Donnelly
apropos of an article by Mr. Mallock in the "Nineteenth Century," which
made use of the "Bathybius myth," he says:--]
Bathybius is far too convenient a stick to beat this dog with to be
ever given up, however many lies may be needful to make the weapon
effectual.
I told the whole story in my reply to the Duke of Argyll, but of course
the pack give tongue just as loudly as ever. Clerically-minded people
cannot be accurate, even the liberals.
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