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Books: The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3

L >> Leonard Huxley >> The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3




[On the same day he writes to his eldest son:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 8, 1890.

Attacking the Salvation Army may look like the advance of a forlorn
hope, but this old dog has never yet let go after fixing his teeth into
anything or anybody, and he is not going to begin now. And it is only a
question of holding on. Look at Plumptre's letter exposing the Bank
swindle.

The "Times", too, is behaving like a brick. This world is not a very
lovely place, but down at the bottom, as old Carlyle preached, veracity
does really lie, and will show itself if people won't be impatient.

[No sooner had he begun to express these opinions in the columns of the
"Times" than additional information of all kinds poured in upon him,
especially from within the Army, much of it private for fear of injury
to the writers if it were discovered that they had written to expose
abuses; indeed in one case the writer had thought better of even
appending his signature to his letter, and had cut off his name from
the foot of it, alleging that correspondence was not inviolable. So far
were these persons from feeling hostility to the organisation to which
they belonged, that one at least hailed the Professor as the
divinely-appointed redeemer of the Army, whose criticism was to bring
it back to its pristine purity.

To his elder son:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 8, 1891.

Dear Lens,

It is very jolly to think of J. and you paying us a visit. It is
proper, also, the eldest son should hansel the house.

Is the Mr. Sidgwick who took up the cudgels for me so gallantly in the
"St. James'" one of your Sidgwicks? If so, I wish you would thank him
on my account. (The letter was capital.) [Mr. William C. Sidgwick had
written (January 4) an indignant letter to protest against the heading
of an article in the "Speaker", Professor Huxley as Titus Oates." "To
this monster of iniquity the "Speaker" compares an honourable English
gentleman, because he has ventured to dissuade his countrymen from
giving money to Mr. William Booth...Mr. Huxley's views on theology may
be wrong, but nobody doubts that he honestly holds them; they do not
bring Mr. Huxley wealth and honours, nor do they cause the murder of
the innocent. To insinuate a resemblance which you dare not state
openly is an outrage on common decency...] Generally people like me to
pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them, but don't care to take any
share in the burning of the fingers.

But the Boothites are hard hit, and may be allowed to cry out.

I begin to think that they must be right in saying that the Devil is at
work to destroy them. No other theory sufficiently accounts for the way
they play into my hands. Poor Clibborn-Booth has a long--columns
long--letter in the "Times" to-day, in which, all unbeknownst to
himself, he proves my case.

I do believe it is a veritable case of the herd of swine, and I shall
have to admit the probability of that miracle.

Love to J. and Co. from us all.

Ever your affectionate Pater.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 11, 1891.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

I am very much obliged to you for the number of the "St. James's
Gazette", which I had not seen. The leading article expresses exactly
the same conclusions as those at which I had myself arrived from the
study of the deed of 1878. But of course I was not going to entangle
myself in a legal discussion. However, I have reason to know that the
question will be dealt with by a highly qualified legal expert before
long. The more I see of the operations of headquarters the worse they
look. I get some of my most valuable information and heartiest
encouragement from officers of the Salvation Army; and I knew, in this
way, of Smith's resignation a couple of days before it was announced!
But the poor fellows are so afraid of spies and consequent persecution,
that some implore me not to notice their letters, and all pledge me to
secrecy. So that I am Vice-Fontanelle with my hand full of truth, while
I can only open my little finger.

It is a case of one down and t'other come on, just now. "--" will get
his deserts in due time. But, oh dear, what a waste of time for a man
who has not much to look to. No; "waste" is the wrong word; it's
useful, but I wish that somebody else would do it and leave me to my
books.

My wife desires her kind regards. I am happy to say she is now
remarkably well. If you are this way, pray look in at our Hermitage.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 30, 1891.

My dear Hooker,

I trust I have done with Booth and Co. at last. What an ass a man is to
try to prevent his fellow-creatures from being humbugged! Surely I am
old enough to know better. I have not been so well abused for an age.
It's quite like old times.

And now I have to settle accounts with the Duke and the G.O.M. I wonder
when the wicked will let me be at peace.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[Other letters touch upon the politics of the hour, especially upon the
sudden and dramatic fall of Parnell. He could not but admire the power
and determination of the man, and his political methods, an admiration
rashly interpreted by some journalist as admiration of the objects to
which these political methods were applied. (See Volume 2.)]

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, November 26, 1890.

My dear Lecky,

Very many thanks for your two volumes, which I rejoice to have,
especially as a present from you. I was only waiting until we were
settled in our new house--as I hope we shall be this time next week--to
add them to the set which already adorn my shelves, and I promise
myself soon to enjoy the reading of them.

The Unionist cause is looking up. What a strange thing it is that the
Irish malcontents are always sold, one way or the other, by their
leaders.

I wonder if the G.O.M. ever swears! Pity if he can't have that relief
just now.

With our united kind regards to Mrs. Lecky and yourself.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, November 29, 1890.

My dear Hooker,

I have filled up and sent your and my copies of entry for Athenaeum.

Carpenter has written the best popular statement I know of, of the
results of criticism, in a little book called "The First Three
Gospels", which is well worth reading. [See above.]

I have promised to go to the Royal Society dinner and propose Stokes'
health on Monday, but if the weather holds out as Arctic as it is now,
I shall not dare to venture. The driving east wind, blowing the snow
before it here, has been awful; for ten years they have had nothing
like it. I am glad to say that my little house turns out to be warm. We
go in next Wednesday, and I fear I cannot be in town on Thursday even
if the weather permits.

I have had pleurisy that was dangerous and not painful, then pleurisy
that was painful and not dangerous; there is only one further
combination, and I don't want that.

Politics now are immensely interesting. There must be a depth of
blackguardism in me, for I cannot help admiring Parnell. I prophesy
that it is Gladstone who will retire for a while, and then come back to
Parnell's heel like a whipped hound. His letter was carefully full of
loopholes.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 2, 1890.

My dear Hooker,

The question of questions now is whether the Unionists will have the
sense to carry a measure settling the land question at once. If they do
that, I do not believe it will be in the power of man to stir them
further. And my belief is that Parnell will be quite content with that
solution. He does not want to be made a nonentity by Davitt or the
Irish Americans.

But what ingrained liars they all are! That is the bottom of all Irish
trouble. Fancy Healy and Sexton going to Dublin to swear eternal
fidelity to their leader, and now openly declaring that they only did
so because they believed he would resign.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, January 10, 1891.

My dear Foster,

I am trying to bring the Booth business to an end so far as I am
concerned, but it's like getting a wolf by the ears; you can't let him
go exactly when you like.

But the result is quite worth the trouble. Booth, Stead, Tillett,
Manning and Co. have their little game spoilt for the present.

You cannot imagine the quantity of letters I get from the Salvation
Army subordinates, thanking me and telling me all sorts of stories in
strict confidence. The poor devils are frightened out of their lives by
headquarter spies. Some beg me not to reply, as their letters are
opened.

I knew that saints were not bad hands at lying before; but these Booth
people beat Banagher.

Then there is -- awaits skinning, and I believe the G.O.M. is to be
upon me! Oh for a quiet life.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[But by February 17 the Booth business was over, the final rejoinder to
Mr. Gladstone sent to press; and he writes to Sir J. Hooker:--]

Please the pigs, I have now done with them--wiped my month, and am
going to be good--till next time.

But in truth I am as sick of controversy as a confectioner's boy of
tarts.

I rather think I shall set up as a political prophet. Gladstone and all
the rest are coming to heel to their master.

Years ago one of the present leaders of the anti-Parnellites said to
me: "Gladstone is always in the hands of somebody stronger than
himself; formerly it was Bright, now it is Parnell."


CHAPTER 3.8.

1890-1891.

[The new house at Eastbourne has been several times referred to. As
usually happens, the move was considerably delayed by the slowness of
the workmen; it did not actually take place till the beginning of
December.

He writes to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, who also had just moved into a
new house:--]

You have all my sympathies on the buy, buy question. I never knew
before that when you go into a new house money runs out at the heels of
your boots. On former occasions, I have been too busy to observe the
fact. But I am convinced now that it is a law of nature.

[The origin of the name given to the house appears from the following
letter:--]

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, October 15, 1890.

My dear Foster,

Best thanks for the third part of the "Physiology," which I found when
I ran up to town for a day or two last week. What a grind that book
must be.

How's a' wi' you? Let me have a line.

We ought to have been in our house a month ago, but fitters, paperers,
and polishers are like bugs or cockroaches, you may easily get 'em in,
but getting 'em out is the deuce. However, I hope to clear them out by
the end of this week, and get in by the end of next week.

One is obliged to have names for houses here. Mine will be "Hodeslea,"
which is as near as I can go to "Hodesleia," the poetical original
shape of my very ugly name.

There was a noble scion of the house of Huxley of Huxley who, having
burgled and done other wrong things (temp. Henry IV.), asked for
benefit of clergy. I expect they gave it him, not in the way he wanted,
but in the way they would like to "benefit" a later member of the
family.

[Rough sketch of one priest hauling the rope taut over the gallows,
while another holds a crucifix before the suspended criminal.]

Between this gentleman and my grandfather there is unfortunately a
complete blank, but I have none the less faith in him as my ancestor.

My wife, I am sorry to say, is in town--superintending packing up--no
stopping her. I have been very uneasy about her at times, and shall be
glad when we are quietly settled down. With kindest regards to Mrs.
Foster.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[His own principal task was in getting his library ready for the move.]

Most of my time [he writes on November 16] for the last fortnight has
been spent in arranging books and tearing up papers till my back aches
and my fingers are sore.

[However, he did not take all his books with him. There was a quantity
of biological works of all sorts which had accumulated in his library
and which he was not likely to use again; these he offered as a parting
gift to the Royal College of Science. On December 8, the Registrar
conveys to him the thanks of the Council for "the valuable library of
biological works," and further informs him that it was resolved:--

That the library shall be kept in the room formerly occupied by the
Dean, which shall be called "The Huxley Laboratory for Biological
Research," and be devoted to the prosecution of original researches in
Biological Science, with which the name of Professor Huxley is
inseparably associated.

Huxley replied as follows:--]

Dear Registrar,

I beg you convey my hearty thanks to the Council for the great kindness
of the minute and resolution which you have sent me. My mind has never
been greatly set on posthumous fame; but there is no way of keeping
memory green which I should like so well as that which they have
adopted towards me.

It has been my fate to receive a good deal more vilipending than (I
hope) I deserve. If my colleagues, with whom I have worked so long, put
too high a value upon my services, perhaps the result may be not far
off justice.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

In addition to the directly controversial articles in the early part of
the year, two other articles on controversial subjects belong to 1891.
"Hasisadra's Adventure," published in the "Nineteenth Century" for
June, completed his long-contemplated examination of the Flood myth. In
this he first discussed the Babylonian form of the legend recorded upon
the clay tablets of Assurbanipal--a simpler and less exaggerated form
as befits an earlier version, and in its physical details keeping much
nearer to the bounds of probability.

The greater part of the article, however, is devoted to a wider
question--How far does geological and geographical evidence bear
witness to the consequences which must have ensued from a universal
flood, or even from one limited to the countries of Mesopotamia? And he
comes to the conclusion that these very countries have been singularly
free from any great changes of the kind for long geological periods.

The sarcastic references in this article to those singular reasoners
who take the possibility of an occurrence to be the same as scientific
testimony to the fact of its occurrence, lead up, more or less, to the
subject of an essay, "Possibilities and Impossibilities," which
appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1892, actually published in
October 1891, and to be found in "Collected Essays", 5 192.

This was a restatement of the fundamental principles of the agnostic
position, arising out of the controversies of the last two years upon
the demonology of the New Testament. The miraculous is not to be denied
as impossible; as Hume said, "Whatever is intelligible and can be
distinctly conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved
false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori,"
and these combinations of phenomena are perfectly conceivable.
Moreover, in the progress of knowledge, the miracles of to-day may be
the science of to-morrow. Improbable they are, certainly, by all
experience, and therefore they require specially strong evidence. But
this is precisely what they lack; the evidence for them, when examined,
turns out to be of doubtful value.]

I am anxious [he says] to bring about a clear understanding of the
difference between "impossibilities" and "improbabilities," because
mistakes on this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical
apologists of the type of the late Cardinal Newman.

When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of "miracles" is, in my
judgment, unassailable. We are NOT justified in the a priori assertion
that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to us, cannot
change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is
illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute.
Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of our
faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us in
anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the present
and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based upon careful
observations of past events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We should be
foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through life. But,
for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain on the
level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high probabilities.
For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence shaped on the
model of that of men, however superior it might be, which could be any
better off than our own in this respect; that is, which could possess
logically justifiable grounds for certainty about the constancy of the
order of things, and therefore be in a position to declare that such
and such events are impossible. Some of the old mythologies recognised
this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and Odin, there lay the
unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or other, would crumple up
them and the world they ruled to give place to a new order of things.

I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any
desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely
desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk
about "impossibilities," or "violation of natural laws," another.
Rational certainty rests upon two grounds; the one that the evidence in
favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other, that
such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the
statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until
something arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly
reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being
never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.

To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs
would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life, with due
thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be alive an
hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by nature, and we
have to make the best of them. And I think that the greatest mistake
those of us who are interested in the progress of free thought can make
is to overlook these limitations, and to deck ourselves with the
dogmatic feathers which are the traditional adornment of our opponents.
Let us be content with rational certainty, leaving irrational
certainties to those who like to muddle their minds with them.

[As for the difficulty of believing miracles in themselves, he gives in
this paper several examples of a favourite saying of his, that Science
offers us much greater marvels than the miracles of theology; only the
evidence for them is very different.

The following letter was written in acknowledgment of a paper by the
Reverend E. McClure, which endeavoured to place the belief in an
individual permanence upon the grounds that we know of no leakage
anywhere in nature; that matter is not a source, but a transmitter of
energy; and that the brain, so far from originating thought, is a mere
machine responsive to something external to itself, a revealer of
something which it does not produce, like a musical instrument. This
"something" is the universal of thought, which is identified with the
general logos of the fourth gospel. Moral perfection consists in
assimilation to this; sin is the falling short of perfect revealing of
the eternal logos.

Huxley's reply interested his correspondent not only for the brief
opinion on the philosophic question, but for the personal touch in the
explanation of the motives which had guided his life-work, and his
"kind feeling towards such of the clergy as endeavoured to seek
honestly for a natural basis to their faith."

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 17, 1891.

Dear Mr. McClure,

I am very much obliged for your letter, which belongs to a different
category from most of those which I receive from your side of the hedge
that, unfortunately, separates thinking men.

So far as I know myself, after making due deduction for the ambition of
youth and a fiery temper, which ought to (but unfortunately does not)
get cooler with age, my sole motive is to get at the truth in all
things.

I do not care one straw about fame, present or posthumous, and I loathe
notoriety, but I do care to have that desire manifest and recognised.

Your paper deals with a problem which has profoundly interested me for
years, but which I take to be insoluble. It would need a book for full
discussion. But I offer a remark only on two points.

The doctrine of the conservation of energy tells neither one way nor
the other. Energy is the cause of movement of body, i.e. things having
mass. States of consciousness have no mass, even if they can be
conceded to be movable. Therefore even if they are caused by molecular
movements, they would not in any way affect the store of energy.

Physical causation need not be the only kind of causation, and when
Cabanis said that thought was a function of the brain, in the same way
as bile secretion is a FUNCTION of the liver, he blundered
philosophically. Bile is a product of the transformation of material
energy. But in the mathematical sense of the word "function," thought
may be a function of the brain. That is to say, it may arise only when
certain physical particles take on a certain order.

By way of a coarse analogy, consider a parallel-sided piece of glass
through which light passes. It forms no picture. Shape it so as to be
bi-convex, and a picture appears in its focus.

Is not the formation of the picture a "function" of the piece of glass
thus shaped?

So, from your own point of view, suppose a mind-stuff--logos---a
noumenal cosmic light such as is shadowed in the fourth gospel. The
brain of a dog will convert it into one set of phenomenal pictures, and
the brain of a man into another. But in both cases the result is the
consequence of the way in which the respective brains perform their
"functions."

Yet one point.

The actions we call sinful are as much the consequence of the order of
nature as those we call virtuous. They are part and parcel of the
struggle for existence through which all living things have passed, and
they have become sins because man alone seeks a higher life in
voluntary association.

Therefore the instrument has never been marred; on the contrary, we are
trying to get music out of harps, sacbuts, and psalteries, which never
were in tune and seemingly never will be.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Few years passed without some utterance from Huxley on the subject of
education, especially scientific education. This year we have a letter
to Professor Ray Lankester touching the science teaching at Oxford.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 28, 1891.

Dear Lankester,

I met Foster at the Athenaeum when I was in town last week, and we had
some talk about your "very gentle" stirring of the Oxford pudding. I
asked him to let you know when occasion offered, that (as I had already
said to Burdon Sanderson) I drew a clear line apud biology between the
medical student and the science student.

With respect to the former, I consider it ought to be kept within
strict limits, and made simply a Vorschule to human anatomy and
physiology.

On the other hand, the man who is going out in natural science ought to
have a much larger dose, especially in the direction of morphology.
However, from what I understood from Foster, there seems a doubt about
the "going out" in "Natural Science", so I had better confine myself to
the medicos. Their burden is already so heavy that I do not want to see
it increased by a needless weight even of elementary biology.

Very many thanks for the "Zoological articles" just arrived.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Don't write to the "Times" about anything; look at the trouble that
comes upon a harmless man for two months, in consequence.

[The following letter, which I quote from the "Yorkshire Herald" of
April 11, 1891, was written in answer to some inquiries from Mr. J.
Harrison, who read a paper on Technical Education as applied to
Agriculture, before the Easingwold Agricultural Club.]

I am afraid that my opinion upon the subject of your inquiry is worth
very little--my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound.
However, there are some general principles which apply to all technical
training; the first of these, I think, is that practice is to be
learned only by practice. The farmer must be made by and through farm
work. I believe I might be able to give you a fair account of a bean
plant and of the manner and condition of its growth, but if I were to
try to raise a crop of beans, your club would probably laugh consumedly
at the result. Nevertheless, I believe that you practical people would
be all the better for the scientific knowledge which does not enable me
to grow beans. It would keep you from attempting hopeless experiments,
and would enable you to take advantage of the innumerable hints which
Dame Nature gives to people who live in direct contact with things. And
this leads me to the second general principle which I think applies to
all technical teaching for school-boys and school-girls, and that is,
that they should be led from the observation of the commonest facts to
general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of
elementary instruction preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure that I
should attempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology or geology, as such.
It is a method fraught with the danger of spending too much time and
attention on abstraction and theories, on words and notions instead of
things. The history of a bean, of a grain of wheat, of a turnip, of a
sheep, of a pig, or of a cow properly treated--with the introduction of
the elements of chemistry, physiology, and so on as they come in--would
give all the elementary science which is needed for the comprehension
of the processes of agriculture in a form easily assimilated by the
youthful mind, which loathes everything in the shape of long words and
abstract notions, and small blame to it. I am afraid I shall not have
helped you very much, but I believe that my suggestions, rough as they
are, are in the right direction.