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

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I chose the office of seconder in order that I might clearly define my
position and stop the mouths of blasphemers--who would have ascribed
silence or absence to all sorts of bad motives.

Whatever the man might be, he did a lot of first-rate work, and now
that he can do no more mischief he has a right to his wages for it.

If I only live another ten years I expect to be made a saint of myself.
"Many a better man has been made a saint of," as old Davie Hume said to
his housekeeper when they chalked up "St. David's Street" on his wall.

We have been jogging along pretty well, but wife has been creaky, and I
got done up in a brutal London fog struggling with the worse fog of the
New University.

I am very glad you like my poetical adventure.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[This speech had an unexpected sequel. Owen's grandson was so much
struck by it that he wrote asking Huxley to undertake a critical
account of his anatomical work for his biography,--another most
unexpected turn of events. It is not often that a conspicuous opponent
of a man's speculations is asked to pass judgment upon his entire work.
[See below.]

At the end of the year an anonymous attack upon the administration of
the Royal Society was the occasion for some characteristic words on the
endurance of abuse to his old friend, M. Foster, then Secretary of the
Royal Society.]

December 5, 1892.

My dear Foster,

The braying of my donkey prevented me from sending a word of sympathy
about the noise made by yours...Let not the heart be vexed because of
these sons of Belial. It is all sound and fury with nothing at the
bottom of it, and will leave no trace a year hence. I have been abused
a deal worse--without the least effect on my constitution or my comfort.

In fact, I am told that Harrison is abusing me just now like a
pickpocket in the "Fortnightly", and I only make the philosophical
reflection, No wonder! and doubt if the reading it is worth half a
crown.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the new edition of
Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazons", helps to remove a reproach
sometimes brought against the Royal Society, in that it ignored the
claims of distinguished men of Science to membership of the Society:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 9, 1892.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

Many thanks for the new edition of "Bates." I was reading the Life last
night with great interest; some of the letters you have printed are
admirable.

Lyell is hit off to the life. I never read a more penetrating
character-sketch. Hooker's letter of advice is as sage as might be
expected from a man who practised what he preached about as much as I
have done. I shall find material for chaff the next time my old friend
and I meet.

I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British Museum,
and especially on the Royal Society. The former are hampered by the
Treasury and the Civil Service regulations. If a Bates turned up now I
doubt if one could appoint him, however much one wished it, unless he
would submit to some idiotic examination. As to the Royal Society, I
undertake to say that Bates might have been elected fifteen years
earlier if he had so pleased. But the Council cannot elect a man unless
he is proposed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta
which stood in the way.

It is the same with --. Twenty years ago the Royal Society awarded him
the Royal Medal, which is about as broad an invitation to join us as we
could well give a man. In fact, I do not think he has behaved well in
quite ignoring it. Formerly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as
the annual subscription. But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more
pecunious Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of
abolishing this barrier. At present a man has to pay only 3 pounds a
year and no entrance. I believe the publications of the Society, which
he gets, will sell for more. [The "Fee Reduction Fund," as it is now
called, enables the Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even
of his annual fee, in that being F.R.S. costs him nothing.]

So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody who
ought to be in keeps out on the score of means.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.12.

1893.

[The year 1893 was, save for the death of three old friends, Andrew
Clark, Jowett, and Tyndall, one of the most tranquil and peaceful in
Huxley's whole life. He entered upon no direct controversy; he
published no magazine articles; to the general misapprehension of the
drift of his Romanes Lecture he only replied in the comprehensive form
of Prolegomena to a reprint of the lecture. He began to publish his
scattered essays in a uniform series, writing an introduction to each
volume. While collecting his "Darwiniana" for the second volume, he
wrote to Mr. Clodd:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 18, 1892.

I was looking through "Man's Place in Nature" the other day. I do not
think there is a word I need delete, nor anything I need add except in
confirmation and extension of the doctrine there laid down. That is
great good fortune for a book thirty years old, and one that a very
shrewd friend of mine implored me not to publish, as it would certainly
ruin all my prospects. I said, like the French fox-hunter in "Punch",
"I shall try."

[The shrewd friend in question was none other than Sir William
Lawrence, whose own experiences after publishing his book "On Man",
"which now might be read in a Sunday school without surprising
anybody," are alluded to in volume 1.

He had the satisfaction of passing on his unfinished work upon Spirula
to efficient hands for completion; and in the way of new occupation,
was thinking of some day "taking up the threads of late evolutionary
speculation" in the theories of Weismann and others [See letter of
September 28, to Romanes.], while actually planning out and reading for
a series of "Working-Men's Lectures on the Bible," in which he should
present to the unlearned the results of scientific study of the
documents, and do for theology what he had done for zoology thirty
years before.

The scheme drawn out in his note-book runs as follows:--

1. The subject and the method of treating it.

2. Physical conditions:--the place of Palestine in the Old World.

3. The Rise of Israel:--Judges, Samuel, Kings as far as Jeroboam II.

4. The Fall of Israel.

5. The Rise and Progress of Judaism. Theocracy.

6. The Final Dispersion.

7. Prophetism.

8. Nazarenism.

9. Christianity.

10. Muhammedanism.

11 and 12. The Mythologies.

Although this scheme was never carried out, yet it was constantly
before Huxley's mind during the two years left to him. If Death, who
had come so near eight years before, would go on seeming to forget him,
he meant to use these last days of his life in an effort to illuminate
one more portion of the field of knowledge for the world at large.

As the physical strain of the Romanes Lecture and his liability to loss
of voice warned him against any future attempt to deliver a course of
lectures, he altered his design and prepared to put the substance of
these Lectures to Working-Men into a Bible History for young people.
And indeed, he had got so far with his preparation, that the latter
heading was down in his list of work for the last year of his life,
1895. But nothing of it was ever written. Until the work was actually
begun, even the framework upon which it was to be shaped remained in
his mind, and the copious marks in his books of reference were the mere
guide-posts to a strong memory, which retained not words and phrases,
but salient facts and the knowledge of where to find them again.

I find only two occasions on which he wrote to the "Times" this year;
one, when the crusade was begun to capture the Board Schools of London
for sectarianism, and it was suggested that, when on the first School
Board, he had approved of some such definite dogmatic teaching. This he
set right at once in the following letter of April 28, with which may
be compared the letter to Lord Farrer of November 6, 1894:--]

In a leading article of your issue to-day you state, with perfect
accuracy, that I supported the arrangement respecting religious
instruction agreed to by the London School Board in 1871, and hitherto
undisturbed. But you go on to say that "the persons who framed the
rule" intended it to include definite teaching of such theological
dogmas as the Incarnation.

I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers of the
rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such interpretation
could fairly be put upon it, I should have opposed the arrangement to
the best of my ability.

In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an article in the
"Contemporary Review", entitled "The Board Schools--what they can do,
and what they may do," in which I argued that the terms of the
Education Act excluded such teaching as it is now proposed to include.
And I supported my contention by the following citation from a speech
delivered by Mr. Forster at the Birkbeck Institution in 1870:--

"I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of
the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truths of
Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know,
and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds,
theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from
understanding."

[The other was on a lighter, but equally perennial point of interest,
being nothing less than the Sea Serpent. In the "Times" of January 11,
he writes, that while there is no reason against a fifty-foot serpent
existing as in Cretaceous seas, still the evidence for its existence is
entirely inconclusive. He goes on to tell how a scientific friend's
statement once almost convinced him until he read the quartermaster's
deposition, which was supposed to corroborate it. The details made the
circumstances alleged by the former impossible, and on pointing this
out, he heard no more of the story, which was a good example of the
mixing up of observations with conclusions drawn from them.

And on the following day he replies to another such detailed story:--]

Admiral Mellersh says, "I saw a huge snake, at least 18 feet long," and
I have no doubt he believes he is simply stating a matter of fact. Yet
his assertion involves a hypothesis of the truth of which I venture to
be exceedingly doubtful. How does he know that what he saw was a snake?
The neighbourhood of a creature of this kind, within axe-stroke, is
hardly conducive to calm scientific investigation, and I can answer for
it that the discrimination of genuine sea-snakes in their native
element from long-bodied fish is not always easy. Further, that "back
fin" troubles me; looks, if I may say so, very fishy.

If the caution about mixing up observations with conclusions, which I
ventured to give yesterday, were better attended to, I think we should
hear very little either about antiquated sea-serpents or new
"mesmerism."

[It is perhaps not superfluous to point out that in this, as in other
cases of the marvellous, he did not merely pooh-pooh a story on the
ground of its antecedent improbability, but rested his acceptance or
rejection of it upon the strength of the evidence adduced. On the other
hand, the weakness of such evidence as was brought forward time after
time, was a justification for refusing to spend his time in listening
to similar stories based on similar testimony.

Among the many journalistic absurdities which fall in the way of
celebrities, two which happened this year are worth recording; the one
on account of its intrinsic extravagance, which succeeded nevertheless
in taking in quite a number of sober folk; the other on account of the
letter it drew from Huxley about his cat. The former appeared in the
shape of a highly-spiced advertisement about certain Manx Mannikins,
which could walk, draw, play, in fact do everything but speak--were
living pets which might be kept by any one, and indeed Professor Huxley
was the possessor of a remarkably fine pair of them. Apply, enclosing
stamps etc. Of course, the wonderful mannikins were nothing more than
the pair of hands which anybody could dress up according to the
instructions of the advertiser; but it was astonishing how many
estimable persons took them for some lusus naturae. A similar
advertisement in 1880 had been equally successful, and one exalted
personage wrote by the hand of a secretary to say what pleasure and
interest had been excited by the description of these strange
creatures, and begging Professor Huxley to state if the account was
true. Accordingly on January 27 he writes to his wife, who was on a
visit to her daughter:--]

Yesterday two ladies called to know if they could see the Manx
Mannikins. I think of having a board put up to say that in the absence
of the Proprietress the show is closed.

[The other incident was a request for any remarks which might be of use
in an article upon the Home Pets of Celebrities. I give the letter
written in answer to this, as well as descriptions of the same cat's
goings-on in the absence of its mistress.]

To Mr. J.G. Kitton.

Hodeslea, April 12, 1893.

A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the last forty
years, or thereabouts, but I am sorry to say that I have no pictorial
or other record of their physical and moral excellences.

The present occupant of the throne is a large, young, grey
Tabby--Oliver by name. Not that he is in any sense a protector, for I
doubt whether he has the heart to kill a mouse. However, I saw him
catch and eat the first butterfly of the season, and trust that this
germ of courage, thus manifested, may develop with age into efficient
mousing.

As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the warmest
place and the softest cushion in a room is infallible--his punctuality
at meal times is admirable; and his pertinacity in jumping on people's
shoulders, till they give him some of the best of what is going,
indicates great firmness.

[To his youngest daughter:--]

Hodeslea Eastbourne, January 8, 1893.

I wish you would write seriously to M--. She is not behaving well to
Oliver. I have seen handsomer kittens, but few more lively, and
energetically destructive. Just now he scratched away at something that
M-- says cost 13 shillings 6 pence a yard--and reduced more or less of
it to combings.

M-- therefore excludes him from the dining-room, and all those
opportunities of higher education which he would naturally have in MY
house.

I have argued that it is as immoral to place 13 shillings 6 pence a
yard-nesses within reach of kittens as to hang bracelets and diamond
rings in the front garden. But in vain. Oliver is banished--and the
protector (not Oliver) is sat upon.

In truth and justice aid your Pa.

[This letter is embellished with fancy portraits of:--]

Oliver when most quiescent (tail up; ready for action).
O. as polisher (tearing at the table leg).
O. as plate basket investigator.
O. as gardener (destroying plants in a pot).
O. as stocking knitter (a wild tangle of cat and wool).
O. as political economist making good for trade at 13 shillings 6 pence
a yard (pulling at a hassock).

[The following to Sir John Evans refers to a piece of temporary
forgetfulness.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 19, 1893.

My dear Evans,

It is curious what a difference there is between intentions and acts,
especially in the matter of sending cheques. The moment I saw the
project of the Lawes and Gilbert testimonial in the "Times", I sent my
contribution in imagination--and it is only the arrival of this
circular which has waked me up to the necessity of supplementing my
ideal cheque by the real one inclosed.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Reference has been made to the writing of the Romanes Lecture in 1892.
Mr. Gladstone had already consented to deliver the first lecture in
that year; and early in the summer Professor Romanes sounded Huxley to
find out whether he would undertake the second lecture for 1893. Huxley
suggested a possible bar in his precarious health; but subject to this
possibility, if the Vice-Chancellor did not regard it as a complete
disability, was willing to accept a formal invitation.

Professor Romanes reassured him upon this point, and further begged
him, if possible, to be ready to step into the breach if Mr. Gladstone
should be prevented from lecturing in the following autumn. The
situation became irresistible, and the second of the following letters
to Mr. Romanes displays no more hesitation.]

To Professor Romanes.

Hodeslea, June 3, 1892.

I should have written to you yesterday, but the book did not arrive
till this morning. Very many thanks for it. It looks appetising, and I
look forward to the next course.

As to the Oxford lecture, "Verily, thou almost persuadest me," though I
thought I had finished lecturing. I really should like to do it; but I
have a scruple about accepting an engagement of this important kind,
which I might not be able to fulfil.

I am astonishingly restored, and have not had a trace of heart trouble
for months. But I am quite aware that I am, physically speaking, on
good behaviour--and maintain my condition only by taking an amount of
care which is very distasteful to me.

Furthermore, my wife's health is, I am sorry to say, extremely
precarious. She was very ill a fortnight ago, and to my very great
regret, as well as hers, we are obliged to give up our intended visit
to Balliol to-morrow. She is quite unfit to travel, and I cannot leave
her here
alone for three days.

I think the state of affairs ought to be clear to the Vice-Chancellor.
If, in his judgment, it constitutes no hindrance, and he does me the
honour to send the invitation, I shall accept it.

To the same:--]

Hodeslea, June 7, 1892.

I am afraid that age hath not altogether cleared the spirit of mischief
out of my blood; and there is something so piquant in the notion of my
acting as substitute for Gladstone that I will be ready if necessity
arises.

Of course I will keep absolutely clear of Theology. But I have long had
fermenting in my head, some notions about the relations of Ethics and
Evolution (or rather the absence of such as are commonly supposed),
which I think will be interesting to such an audience as I may expect.
"Without prejudice," as the lawyers say, that is the sort of topic that
occurs to me.

[To the same:--]

Hodeslea, October 30, 1892.

I had to go to London in the middle of last week about the Gresham
University business, and I trust I have put a very long nail into the
coffin of that scheme. For which good service you will forgive my delay
in replying to your letter. I read all about your show--why not call it
"George's Gorgeous," tout court?

I should think that there is no living man, who, on such an occasion,
could intend and contrive to say so much and so well (in form) without
ever rising above the level of antiquarian gossip.

My lecture would have been ready if the G.O.M. had failed you, but I am
very glad to have six months' respite, as I now shall be able to write
and rewrite it to my heart's content.

I will follow the Gladstonian precedent touching cap and gown--but I
trust the Vice-Chancellor will not ask me to take part in a "Church
Parade" and read the lessons. I couldn't--really.

As to the financial part of the business, to tell you the honest truth,
I would much rather not be paid at all for a piece of work of this
kind. I am no more averse to turning an honest penny by my brains than
any one else in the ordinary course of things--quite the contrary; but
this is not an ordinary occasion. However, this is a pure matter of
taste, and I do not want to set a precedent which might be inconvenient
to other people--so I agree to what you propose.

By the way, is there any type-writer who is to be trusted in Oxford?
Some time ago I sent a manuscript to a London type-writer, and to my
great disgust I shortly afterwards saw an announcement that I was
engaged on the topic.

[On the following day he writes to his wife, who was staying with her
youngest daughter in town:--]

The Vice-Chancellor has written to me and I have fixed May--exact day
by and by. Mrs. Romanes has written a crispy little letter to remind us
of our promise to go there, and I have chirrupped back.

[The "chirrup" ran as follows:--]

Hodeslea, November 1, 1892.

My dear Mrs. Romanes,

I have just written to the Vice-Chancellor to say that I hope to be at
his disposition any time next May.

My wife is "larking"--I am sorry to use such a word, but what she is
pleased to tell me of her doings leaves me no alternative--in London,
whither I go on Thursday to fetch her back--in chains, if necessary.
But I know, in the matter of being "taken in and done for" by your
hospitable selves, I may, for once, speak for her as well as myself.

Don't ask anybody above the rank of a younger son of a Peer--because I
shall not be able to go in to dinner before him or her--and that part
of my dignity is naturally what I prize most. Would you not like me to
come in my P.C. suit? All ablaze with gold, and costing a sum with
which I could buy, oh! so many books!

Only if your late experiences should prompt you to instruct your other
guests not to contradict me--don't. I rather like it.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Bon Voyage! You can tell Mr. Jones [The hotel-keeper in Madeira.] that
I will have him brought before the Privy Council and fined, as in the
good old days, if he does not treat you properly.

[This letter was afterwards published in Mrs. Romanes' Life of her
husband, and three letters on that occasion, and particularly that in
which Huxley tried to guard her from any malicious interpretation of
his jests, are to be found on page 332.

On the afternoon of May 18, 1893, he delivered at Oxford his Romanes
Lecture, on "Evolution and Ethics," a study of the relation of ethical
and evolutionary theory in the history of philosophy, the text of which
is that while morality is necessarily a part of the order of nature,
still the ethical principle is opposed to the self-regarding principle
on which cosmic evolution has taken place. Society is a part of nature,
but would be dissolved by a return to the natural state of simple
warfare among individuals. It follows that ethical systems based on the
principles of cosmic evolution are not logically sound. A study of the
essays of the foregoing ten years will show that he had more than once
enunciated this thesis, and it had been one of the grounds of his
long-standing criticism of Mr. Spencer's system.

The essence of this criticism is given in portions of two letters to
Mr. F.J. Gould, who, when preparing a pamphlet on "Agnosticism writ
Plain" in 1889, wrote to inquire what was the dividing line between the
two Agnostic positions.]

As between Mr. Spencer and myself, the question is not one of "a
dividing line," but of entire and complete divergence as soon as we
leave the foundations laid by Hume, Kant, and Hamilton, who are MY
philosophical forefathers. To my mind the "Absolute" philosophies were
finally knocked on the head by Hamilton; and the "Unknowable" in Mr.
Spencer's sense is merely the Absolute redivivus, a sort of ghost of an
extinct philosophy, the name of a negation hocus-pocussed into a sham
thing. If I am to talk about that of which I have no knowledge at all,
I prefer the good old word "God", about which there is no scientific
pretence.

To my mind Agnosticism is simply the critical attitude of the thinking
faculty, and the definition of it should contain no dogmatic
implications of any kind. I, for my part, do not know whether the
problem of existence is insoluble or not; or whether the ultimate cause
(if there be such a thing) is unknown or not. That of which I am
certain is, that no satisfactory solution of this problem has been
offered, and that, from the nature of the intellectual faculty, I am
unable to conceive that such a solution will ever be found. But on
that, as on all other questions, my mind is open to consider any new
evidence that may be offered.

[And later:--]

I have long been aware of the manner in which my views have been
confounded with those of Mr. Spencer, though no one was more fully
aware of our divergence than the latter. Perhaps I have done wrongly in
letting the thing slide so long, but I was anxious to avoid a breach
with an old friend...

Whether the Unknowable or any other Noumenon exists or does not exist,
I am quite clear I have no knowledge either way. So with respect to
whether there is anything behind Force or not, I am ignorant; I neither
affirm nor deny. The tendency to idolatry in the human mind is so
strong that faute de mieux it falls down and worships negative
abstractions, as much the creation of the mind as the stone idol of the
hands. The one object of the Agnostic (in the true sense) is to knock
this tendency on the head whenever or wherever it shows itself. Our
physical science is full of it.

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