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

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Macgillivray was naturalist--I was actually Assistant-Surgeon and
nothing else. But I was recommended to Stanley by Sir John Richardson,
my senior officer at Haslar, on account of my scientific proclivities.
But scientific work was no part of my duty. How odd it is to look back
through the vista of years! Reading your account of me, I had the
sensation of studying a fly in amber. I had utterly forgotten the
particular circumstance that brought us together. Considering what
wilful tykes we both are (you particularly), I think it is a great
credit to both of us that we are firmer friends now than we were then.
Your kindly words have given me much pleasure.

This is a deuce of a long letter to inflict upon you, but there is more
coming. The other day a Miss --, a very good, busy woman of whom I and
my wife have known a little for some years, sent me a proposal of the
committee of a body calling itself the London Liberty League (I think)
that I should accept the position of one of three honorary something or
others, you and Mrs. Fawcett being the other two.

Now you may be sure that I should be glad enough to be associated with
you in anything; but considering the innumerable battles we have fought
over education, vaccination, and so on, it seemed to me that if the
programme of the League were wide enough to take us both for
figure-heads, it must be so elastic as to verge upon infinite
extensibility; and that one or other of us would be in a false position.

So I wrote to Miss -- to that effect, and the matter then dropped.

Misrepresentation is so rife in this world that it struck me I had
better tell you exactly what happened.

On the whole, your account of your own condition is encouraging; not
going back is next door to going forward. Anyhow, you have contrived to
do a lot of writing.

We are all pretty flourishing, and if my wife does not get worn out
with cooks falling ill and other domestic worries, I shall be content.

Now this really is the end.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., March 7, 1887.

My dear Skelton [This letter is one of the twelve from T.H.H. already
published by Sir John Skelton in his "Table Talk of Shirley" page 295
sq.],

Wretch that I am, I see that I have never had the grace to thank you
for "Maitland of Lethington" which reached me I do not choose to
remember how long ago, and which I read straight off with lively
satisfaction.

There is a paragraph in your preface, which I meant to have charged you
with having plagiarised from an article of mine, which had not appeared
when I got your book. In that Hermitage of yours, you are up to any
Esotericobuddhistotelepathic dodge!

It is about the value of practical discipline to historians. Half of
them know nothing of life, and still less of government and the ways of
men.

I am quite useless, but have vitality enough to kick and scratch a
little when prodded.

I am at present engaged on a series of experiments on the thickness of
skin of that wonderful little wind-bag --. The way that second rate
amateur poses as a man of science, having authority as a sort of
papistical Scotch dominie, bred a minister, but stickit, really "rouses
my corruption." What a good phrase that is. I am cursed with a lot of
it, and any fool can strike ile.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Please remember me very kindly to Mrs. Skelton.

11 Eversfield Place, Hastings, November 18, 1887.

My dear Spencer,

I was very glad to get your letter this morning. I heard all about you
from Hirst before I left London, now nearly a month ago, and I promised
myself that instead of bothering you with a letter I would run over
from here and pay you a visit.

Unfortunately, my wife, who had been ill more or less ever since we
left Arolla and came here on Clark's advice, had an attack one night,
which frightened me a good deal, though it luckily turned out to arise
from easily remediable causes.

Under these circumstances you will understand how I have not made my
proposed journey to Brighton.

I am rejoiced to hear of your move. I believe in the skill of Dr. B.
Potter and her understanding of the case more than I do in all the
doctors and yourself put together. Please offer my respectful homage to
that eminent practitioner.

You see people won't let me alone, and I have had to tell the Duke to
"keep on board his own ship," as the Quaker said, once more. I seek
peace, but do not ensue it.

Send any quantity of proofs, they are a good sign. By the way, we move
to 85 Marina, St. Leonards, to-morrow.

Wife sends her kind regards.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 1887.

My dear Spencer,

I have nothing to criticise in the enclosed except that the itineraries
seem to me rather superfluous.

I am glad to find that you forget things that have happened to you as
completely as I do. I should cut almost as bad a figure as "Sir Roger"
if I were cross-examined about my past life.

Your allusion to sending me the proofs made me laugh by reminding me of
a particularly insolent criticism with which I once favoured you: "No
objection except to the whole."

It was some piece of diabolical dialectics, in which I could pick no
hole, if the premises were granted--and even then could be questioned
only by an ultra-sceptic!

Do you see that the American Association of Authors has adopted a
Resolution, which is a complete endorsement of my view of the
stamp-swindle?

We have got our operation over, and my wife is going on very well.
Overmuch anxiety has been telling on me, but I shall throw it off.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.3.

1888.

[Huxley had returned to town before Christmas, for the house in St.
John's Wood was still the rallying-point for the family, although his
elder children were now married and dispersed. But he did not stay
long.] "Wife wonderfully better," [he writes to Sir M. Foster on
January 8,] "self as melancholy as a pelican in the wilderness." [He
meant to have left London on the 16th, but his depressed condition
proved to be the beginning of a second attack of pleurisy, and he was
unable to start for Bournemouth till the 24th.

Here, however, his recovery was very slow. He was unable to come up to
the first meeting of the x Club.] "I trust," [he writes,] "I shall be
able to be at the next x--but I am getting on very slowly. I can't walk
above a couple of miles without being exhausted, and talking for twenty
minutes has the same effect. I suppose it is all Anno Domini."

[But he had a pleasant visit from one of the x, and writes:--]

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, January 29, 1888.

My dear Hooker,

Spencer was here an hour ago as lively as a cricket. He is going back
to town on Tuesday to plunge into the dissipations of the Metropolis. I
expect he will insist on you all going to Evans' (or whatever
represents that place to our descendants) after the x.

Bellows very creaky--took me six weeks to get them mended last time, so
I suppose I may expect as long now.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[As appears from the letters which follow, he had been busied with
writing an article for the "Nineteenth Century," for February, on the
"Struggle for Existence" ("Collected Essays" 9 195.), which on the one
hand ran counter to some of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories of society;
and on the other, is noticeable as briefly enunciating the main thesis
of his "Romanes Lecture" of 1893.]

85 Marina, St. Leonards, December 13, 1887.

My dear Knowles,

I have to go to town to-morrow for a day, so that puts an end to the
possibility of getting my screed ready for January. Altogether it will
be better to let it stand over.

I do not know whence the copyright extract came, except that, as
Putnam's name was on the envelope, I suppose they sent it.

Pearsall Smith's practice is a wonderful commentary on his theory.
Distribute the contents of the baker's shop gratis--it will give people
a taste for bread!

Great is humbug, and it will prevail, unless the people who do not like
it hit hard. The beast has no brains, but you can knock the heart out
of him.

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, January 9, 1888.

My dear Donnelly,

Here is my proof. Will you mind running your eye over it?

The article is long, and partly for that reason and partly because the
general public wants principles rather than details, I have condensed
the practical half.

H. Spencer and "Jus" will be in a white rage with me.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[To Professor Frankland, February 6:--]

I am glad you like my article. There is no doubt it is rather like a
tadpole, with a very big head and a rather thin tail. But the subject
is a ticklish one to deal with, and I deliberately left a good deal
suggested rather than expressed.

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, February 9, 1888.

My dear Donnelly,

No! I don't think softening has begun yet--vide "Nature" this week.
["Nature" 37 337 for February 9, 1888: review of his article in the
"Nineteenth Century" on the "Industrial Struggle for Existence."] I am
glad you found the article worth a second go. I took a vast of trouble
(as the country folks say) about it. I am afraid it has made Spencer
very angry--but he knows I think he has been doing mischief this long
time.

Bellows to mend! Bellows to mend! I am getting very tired of it. If I
walk two or three miles, however slowly, I am regularly done for at the
end of it. I expect there has been more mischief than I thought for.

How about the Bill?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, he and Mr. Spencer wrote their minds to each other on the
subject, and as Huxley remarks with reference to this occasion,] "the
process does us both good, and in no way interferes with our
friendship."

[The letter immediately following, to Mr. Romanes, answers an inquiry
about a passage quoted from Huxley's writings by Professor Schurman in
his "Ethical Import of Darwinism." This passage, made up of sentences
from two different essays, runs as follows:--]

It is quite conceivable that every species tends to produce varieties
of a limited number and kind, and that the effect of natural selection
is to favour the development of some of these, while it opposes the
development of others along their predetermined line of modification.
("Collected Essays" 2 223.) A whale does not tend to vary in the
direction of producing feathers, nor a bird in the direction of
producing whalebone. (In "Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays"
2 181.)

"On the strength of these extracts" (writes Mr. Romanes), "Schurman
represents you 'to presuppose design, since development takes place
along certain predetermined lines of modification.' But as he does not
give references, and as I do not remember the passages, I cannot
consult the context, which I fancy must give a different colouring to
the extracts."

4 Marlborough Place, January 5, 1888.

My dear Romanes,

They say that liars ought to have long memories. I am sure authors
ought to. I could not at first remember where the passage Schurman
quotes occurs, but I did find it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
article on "Evolution" ["Collected Essays" 2 223.], reprinted in
"Science and Culture," page 307.

But I do not find anything about the "whale" here. Nevertheless I have
a consciousness of having said something of the kind somewhere. [In
"Mr. Darwin's Critics" 1871 "Collected Essays" 2 181.]

If you look at the whole passage, you will see that there is not the
least intention on my part to presuppose design.

If you break a piece of Iceland spar with a hammer, all the pieces will
have shapes of a certain kind, but that does not imply that the Iceland
spar was constructed for the purpose of breaking up in this way when
struck. The atomic theory implies that of all possible compounds of A
and B only those will actually exist in which the proportions of A and
B by weight bear a certain numerical ratio. But it is mere arguing in a
circle to say that the fact being so is evidence that it was designed
to be so.

I am not going to take any more notice of the everlasting D--, as you
appropriately call him, until he has withdrawn his slanders....

Pray give him a dressing--it will be one of those rare combinations of
duty and pleasure.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[He was, moreover, constantly interested in schemes for the reform of
the scientific work of the London University, and for the enlargement
of the scope and usefulness of the Royal Society. As for the latter, a
proposal had been made for federation with colonial scientific
societies, which was opposed by some of his friends in the x Club; and
he writes to Sir E. Frankland on February 3:--]

I am very sorry you are all against Evans' scheme. I am for it. I think
it a very good proposal, and after all the talk, I do not want to see
the Society look foolish by doing nothing.

You are a lot of obstructive old Tories, and want routing out. If I
were only younger and less indisposed to any sort of exertion, I would
rout you out finely!

[With respect to the former, it had been proposed that medical degrees
should be conferred, not by the university, but by a union of the
several colleges concerned. He writes:--]

4 Marlborough Place, January 11, 1888.

My dear Foster,

I send back the "Heathen Deutscheree's" (whose ways are dark) letter
lest I forget it to-morrow.

Meanwhile perpend these two things:--

1. United Colleges propose to give just as good an examination and
require as much qualification as the Scotch Universities. Why then give
their degree a distinguishing mark?

2. "Academical distinctions" in medicine are all humbug. You are making
a medical technical school at Cambridge--and quite right too. The
United Colleges, if they do their business properly, will confer just
as much, or as little "academical distinction" as Cambridge by their
degree.

3. The Fellowship of the College of Surgeons is in every sense as much
an "academical distinction" as the Masterships in Surgery or Doctorate
of Medicine of the Scotch and English Universities.

4. You may as well cry for the moon as ask my colleagues in the Senate
to meddle seriously with the Matriculation. They are possessed by the
devil that cries continually, "There is only the Liberal education, and
Greek and Latin are his prophets."

[At Bournemouth he also applied himself to writing the Darwin obituary
notice for the Royal Society, a labour of love which he had long felt
unequal to undertaking. The manuscript was finally sent off to the
printer's on April 6, unlike the still longer unfinished memoir on
Spirula, to which allusion is made here, among other business of the
"Challenger" Committee, of which he was a member.

On February 12 he writes to Sir J. Evans:--]

Spirula is a horrid burden on my conscience--but nobody could make head
or tail of the business but myself.

That and Darwin's obituary are the chief subjects of my meditations
when I wake in the night. But I do not get much "forrarder," and I am
afraid I shall not until I get back to London.

Bournemouth, February 14, 1888.

My dear Foster,

No doubt the Treasury will jump at any proposition which relieves them
from further expense--but I cannot say I like the notion of leaving
some of the most important results of the "Challenger" voyage to be
published elsewhere than in the official record....

Evans made a deft allusion to Spirula, like a powder between two dabs
of jam. At present I have no moral sense, but it may awake as the days
get longer.

I have been reading the "Origin" slowly again for the nth time, with
the view of picking out the essentials of the argument, for the
obituary notice. Nothing entertains me more than to hear people call it
easy reading.

Exposition was not Darwin's forte--and his English is sometimes
wonderful. But there is a marvellous dumb sagacity about him--like that
of a sort of miraculous dog--and he gets to the truth by ways as dark
as those of the Heathen Chinee.

I am getting quite sick of all the "paper philosophers," as old Galileo
called them, who are trying to stand upon Darwin's shoulders and look
bigger than he, when in point of real knowledge they are not fit to
black his shoes. It is just as well I am collapsed or I believe I
should break out with a final "Fur Darwin."

I will think of you when I get as far as the fossils. At present I am
poking over P. sylvestris and P. pinnata in the intervals of weariness.

My wife joins with me in love to you both.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Snow and cold winds here. Hope you are as badly off at Cambridge.

Bournemouth, February 21, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We have had nothing but frost and snow here lately, and at present half
a gale of the bitterest north-easter I have felt since we were at
Florence is raging. [Similarly to Sir J. Evans on the 28th]--"I get my
strength back but slowly, and think of migrating to Greenland or
Spitzbergen for a milder climate."]

I believe I am getting better, as I have noticed that at a particular
stage of my convalescence from any sort of illness I pass through a
condition in which things in general appear damnable and I myself an
entire failure. If that is a sign of returning health you may look upon
my restoration as certain.

If it is only Murray's speculations he wants to publish separately, I
should say by all means let him. But the facts, whether advanced by him
or other people, ought all to be in the official record. I agree we
can't stir.

I scented the "goak." How confoundedly proud you are of it. In former
days I have been known to joke myself.

I will look after the questions if you like. In my present state of
mind I shall be a capital critic--on Dizzy's views of critics...

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[This year Huxley was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum, an
office which he had held ex officio from 1883 to 1885, as President of
the Royal Society.

This is referred to in the following letter of March 9:--]

My dear Hooker,

Having nothing to do plays the devil with doing anything, and I suppose
that is why I have been so long about answering your letter.

There is nothing the matter with me now except want of strength. I am
tired out with a three-mile walk, and my voice goes if I talk for any
time. I do not suppose I shall do much good till I get into high and
dry air, and it is too early for Switzerland yet....

You see I was honoured and gloried by a trusteeship of the British
Museum. [Replying on the 2nd to Sir John Evans' congratulations, he
says:--"It is some months since Lord Salisbury made the proposal to me,
and I was beginning to wonder what had happened--whether Cantaur had
put his foot down for example, and objected to bad company."] These
things, I suppose, normally come when one is worn-out. When Lowe was
Chancellor of the Exchequer I had a long talk with him about the
affairs of the Natural History Museum, and I told him that he had
better put Flower at the head of it and make me a trustee to back him.
Bobby no doubt thought the suggestion cheeky, but it is odd that the
thing has come about now that I don't care for it, and desire nothing
better than to be out of every description of bother and responsibility.

Have not Lady Hooker and you yet learned that a large country house is
of all places the most detestable in cold weather? The neuralgia was a
mild and kindly hint of Providence not to do it again, but I am
rejoiced it has vanished.

Pronouns got mixed somehow.

With our kindest regards.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

More last words:--What little faculty I have has been bestowed on the
obituary of Darwin for Royal Society lately. I have been trying to make
it an account of his intellectual progress, and I hope it will have
some interest. Among other things I have been trying to set out the
argument of the "Origin of Species," and reading the book for the nth
time for that purpose. It is one of the hardest books to understand
thoroughly that I know of, and I suppose that is the reason why even
people like Romanes get so hopelessly wrong.

If you don't mind, I should be glad if you would run your eye over the
thing when I get as far as the proof stage--Lord knows when that will
be.

[A few days later he wrote again on the same subject, after reading the
obituary of Asa Gray, the first American supporter of Darwin's theory.]

March 23, 1888.

I suppose Dana has sent you his obituary of Asa Gray.

The most curious feature I note in it is that neither of them seems to
have mastered the principles of Darwin's theory. See the bottom of page
19 and the top of page 20. As I understand Darwin there is nothing
"Anti-Darwinian" in either of the two doctrines mentioned.

Darwin has left the causes of variation and the question whether it is
limited or directed by external conditions perfectly open.

The only serious work I have been attempting lately is Darwin's
obituary. I do a little every day, but get on very slowly. I have read
the life and letters all through again, and the "Origin" for the sixth
or seventh time, becoming confirmed in my opinion that it is one of the
most difficult books to exhaust that ever was written.

I have a notion of writing out the argument of the "Origin" in
systematic shape as a sort of primer of Darwinismus. I have not much
stuff left in me, and it would be as good a way of using what there is
as I know of. What do you think?

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply to this Sir J. Hooker was inclined to make the biographer
alone responsible for the confusion noted in the obituary of Asa Gray.
He writes:--

March 27, 1888.

Dear Huxley,

Dana's Gray arrived yesterday, and I turned to pages 19 and 20. I see
nothing Anti-Darwinian in the passages, and I do not gather from them
that Gray did.

I did not follow Gray into his later comments on Darwinism, and I never
read his "Darwiniana." My recollection of his attitude after acceptance
of the doctrine, and during the first few years of his active
promulgation of it, is that he understood it clearly, but sought to
harmonise it with his prepossessions, without disturbing its physical
principles in any way.

He certainly showed far more knowledge and appreciation of the contents
of the "Origin" than any of the reviewers and than any of the
commentators, yourself excepted.

Latterly he got deeper and deeper into theological and metaphysical
wanderings, and finally formulated his ideas in an illogical fashion.

...Be all this as it may, Dana seems to be in a muddle on page 20, and
quite a self-sought one.

Ever yours,

J.D. Hooker.

The following is a letter of thanks to Mrs. Humphry Ward for her novel
"Robert Elsmere."]

Bournemouth, March 15, 1888.

My dear Mrs. Ward,

My wife thanked you for your book which you were so kind as to send us.
But that was grace before meat, which lacks the "physical basis" of
after-thanksgiving--and I am going to supplement it, after my most
excellent repast.

I am not going to praise the charming style, because that was in the
blood and you deserve no sort of credit for it. Besides, I should be
stepping beyond my last. But as an observer of the human
ant-hill--quite impartial by this time--I think your picture of one of
the deeper aspects of our troubled time admirable.

You are very hard on the philosophers. I do not know whether Langham or
the Squire is the more unpleasant--but I have a great deal of sympathy
with the latter, so I hope he is not the worst.

If I may say so, I think the picture of Catherine is the gem of the
book. She reminds me of her namesake of Siena--and would as little have
failed in any duty, however gruesome. You remember Sodoma's picture.

Once more, many thanks for a great pleasure.

My wife sends her love.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Meanwhile, he had been making no progress towards health; indeed, was
going slowly downhill. He makes fun of his condition when writing to
condole with Mr. Spencer on falling ill again after the unwonted spell
of activity already mentioned; but a few weeks later discovered the
cause of his weakness and depression in an affection of the heart. This
was not immediately dangerous, though he looked a complete wreck. His
letters from April onwards show how he was forced to give up almost
every form of occupation, and even to postpone his visit to
Switzerland, until he had been patched up enough to bear the journey.]

Casalini, West Cliff, Bournemouth, March 9, 1888.

My dear Spencer,

I am very sorry to hear from Hooker that you have been unwell again.
You see if young men from the country will go plunging into the
dissipations of the metropolis nemesis follows.

Until two days ago, the weather cocks never overstepped North on the
one side and East on the other ever since you left. Then they went west
with sunshine and most enjoyable softness--but next South with a gale
and rain--all ablowin' and agrowin' at this present.

I have nothing to complain of so long as I do nothing; but although my
hair has grown with its usual rapidity I differ from Samson in the
absence of a concurrent return of strength. Perhaps that is because a
male hairdresser, and no Delilah, cut it last! But I waste Biblical
allusions upon you.

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