Charles Lyell - "The Antiquity of Man"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566"

Louisa May Alcott - "Marjorie's Three Gifts"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1605 07"

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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




Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Shortly afterwards, he received a long and rambling letter in
connection with this subject. Referring to the passage in the first
article, "the apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly' should be
the rule of life of a true agnostic," the writer began by begging him
"to 'suffer gladly' one fool more," and after several pages wound up
with a variation of the same phrase. It being impossible to give any
valid answer to his hypothetical inquiries, Huxley could not resist the
temptation to take the opening thus offered him, and replied:--]

Sir,

I beg leave to acknowledge your letter. I have complied with the
request preferred in its opening paragraph.

Faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter also arises out of this controversy:--

Its occasion (writes Mr. Taylor) was one which I had written on seeing
an article in which he referred to the Persian sect of the Babis. I had
read with much interest the account of it in Count Gobineau's book, and
was much struck with the points of likeness to the foundation of
Christianity, and the contrast between the subsequent history of the
two; I asked myself how, given the points of similarity, to account for
the contrast; is it due to the Divine within the one, or the human
surroundings? This question I put to Professor Huxley, with many
apologies for intruding on his leisure, and a special request that he
would not suffer himself to be further troubled by any reply.]

To Mr. Robert Taylor.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 8, 1889.

Sir,

In looking through a mass of papers, before I leave England for some
months among the mountains in search of health, I have come upon your
letter of 7th March. As a rule I find that out of the innumerable
letters addressed to me, the only ones I wish to answer are those the
writers of which are considerate enough to ask that they may receive no
reply, and yours is no exception.

The question you put is very much to the purpose: a proper and full
answer would take up many pages; but it will suffice to furnish the
heads to be filled up by your own knowledge.

1. The Church founded by Jesus has NOT made its way; has NOT permeated
the world--but DID become extinct in the country of its birth--as
Nazarenism and Ebionism.

2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the
4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than
Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and
Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and
demonology as could be got in under new or old names.

3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more
truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their
cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"--and who were fully
prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated
Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but
friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together
for all purposes--the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in
Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and
lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together
like Scotchmen.

If these things are so--and I appeal to your knowledge of history that
they are so--what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth
or falsehood of the story of Jesus?

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter was written in reply to one from Mr. Clodd on the
first of the articles in this controversy. This article, it must be
remembered, not only replied to Dr. Wace's attack, but at the same time
bantered Mr. Frederic Harrison's pretensions on behalf of Positivism at
the expense alike of Christianity and Agnosticism.]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 19, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

I am very much obliged to you for your cheery and appreciative letter.
If I do not empty all Harrison's vials of wrath I shall be astonished!
But of all the sickening humbugs in the world, the sham pietism of the
Positivists is to me the most offensive.

I have long been wanting to say my say about these questions, but my
hands were too full. This time last year I was so ill that I thought to
myself, with Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But my wiry constitution
has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I have every reason to
believe that with renunciation of the devil and all his works (i.e.
public speaking, dining and being dined, etc.) my faculties may be
unimpaired for a good spell yet. And whether my lease is long or short,
I mean to devote them to the work I began in the paper on the Evolution
of Theology.

You will see in the next "Nineteenth" a paper on the Evidence of
Miracles, which I think will be to your mind.

Hutton is beginning to drivel! There really is no other word for it.
[This refers to an article in the "Spectator" on "Professor Huxley and
Agnosticism," February 9, 1889, which suggests, with regard to demoniac
possession, that the old doctrine of one spirit driving out another is
as good as any new explanation, and fortifies this conclusion by a
reference to the phenomena of hypnotism.]

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[To the same:--]

4 Marlborough Place, April 15, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

The adventurous Mr. C. wrote to me some time ago. I expressed my regret
that I could do nothing for the evolution of tent-pegs. What wonderful
people there are in the world!

Many thanks for calling my attention to "Antiqua Mater." I will look it
up. I have such a rooted objection to returning books, that I never
borrow one or allow anybody to lend me one if I can help it.

I hear that Wace is to have another innings, and I am very glad of it,
as it will give me the opportunity of putting the case once more as a
connected argument.

It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of
Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his
followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with
those who take up a new idea.

I have had for some time the notion of dealing with the "Three great
myths"--1. Creation; 2. Fall; 3. Deluge; but I suspect I am getting to
the end of my tether physically, and shall have to start for the
Engadine in another month's time.

Many thanks for your congratulations about my daughter's marriage. No
two people could be better suited for one another, and there is a
charming little grand-daughter of the first marriage to be cared for.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[One more piece of writing dates from this time. He writes to his wife
on March 2:--]

A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a
sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for
something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad
taste of some of the notices, I have done that. I shall show it you
before it goes back to Engel in proof.

This sketch of his life is the brief autobiography which is printed at
the beginning of volume 1 of the "Collected Essays". He was often
pressed, both by friends and by strangers, to give them some more
autobiography; but moved either by dislike of any approach to egotism,
or by the knowledge that if biography is liable to give a false
impression, autobiography may leave one still more false, he constantly
refused to do so, especially so long as he had capacity for useful
work. I found, however, among his papers, an entirely different sketch
of his early life, half-a-dozen sheets describing the time he spent in
the East end, with an almost Carlylean sense of the horrible
disproportions of life. I cannot tell whether this was a first draft
for the present autobiography, or the beginnings of a larger
undertaking.

Several letters of miscellaneous interest were written before the move
to the Engadine took place. They touch on such points as the excessive
growth of scientific clubs, the use of alcohol for brain workers,
advice to one who was not likely to "suffer fools gladly" about
applying for the assistant secretaryship of the British Association,
and the question of the effects of the destruction of immature fish,
besides personal matters.]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 22, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I suppose the question of amalgamation with the Royal is to be
discussed at the Phil. Club. The sooner something of the kind takes
place the better. There is really no raison d'etre left for the Phil.
Club, and considering the hard work of scientific men in these days,
clubs are like hypotheses, not to be multiplied beyond necessity.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, March 26, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

The only science to which X. has contributed, so far as I know, is the
science of self-advertisement; and of that he is a master.

When you and I were youngsters, we thought it the great thing to
exorcise the aristocratic flunkeyism which reigned in the Royal
Society--the danger now is that of the entry of seven devils worse than
the first, in the shape of rich engineers, chemical traders, and
"experts" (who have sold their souls for a good price), and who find it
helps them to appear to the public as if they were men of science.

If the Phil Club had kept pure, it might have acted as a check upon the
intrusion of the mere trading element. But there seems to be no reason
now against Jack and Tom and Harry getting in, and the thing has become
an imposture.

So I go with you for extinction, before we begin to drag in the mud.

I wish I could take some more active part in what is going on. I am
anxious about the Society altogether. But though I am wonderfully well
so long as I live like a hermit, and get out into the air of the Downs,
either London, or bother, and still more both combined, intimate
respectfully but firmly, that my margin is of the narrowest.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following is to his daughter in Paris. Of course it was the
Tuileries, not the Louvre, which was destroyed in 1871.]

I think you are quite right about French women. They are like French
dishes, uncommonly well cooked and sent up, but what the dickens they
are made of is a mystery. Not but what all womenkind are mysteries, but
there are mysteries of godliness and mysteries of iniquity.

Have you been to see the sculptures in the Louvre?--dear me, I forgot
the Louvre's fate. I wonder where the sculpture is? I used to think it
the best thing in the way of art in Paris. There was a youthful Bacchus
who was the main support of my thesis as to the greater beauty of the
male figure!

Probably I had better conclude.

To Mr. E.T. Collings (of Bolton).

4 Marlborough Place, April 9, 1889.

Dear Sir,

I understand that you ask me what I think about "alcohol as a stimulant
to the brain in mental work"?

Speaking for myself (and perhaps I may add for persons of my
temperament), I can say, without hesitation, that I would just as soon
take a dose of arsenic as I would of alcohol, under such circumstances.
Indeed on the whole, I should think the arsenic safer, less likely to
lead to physical and moral degradation. It would be better to die
outright than to be alcoholised before death.

If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had
better turn to hand work--it is an indication on Nature's part that she
did not mean him to be a head worker.

The circumstances of my life have led me to experience all sorts of
conditions in regard to alcohol, from total abstinence to nearly the
other end of the scale, and my clear conviction is the less the better,
though I by no means feel called upon to forgo the comforting and
cheering effect of a little.

But for no conceivable consideration would I use it to whip up a tired
or sluggish brain. Indeed, for me there is no working time so good as
between breakfast and lunch, when there is not a trace of alcohol in my
composition.

4 Marlborough Place, May 6, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I meant to have turned up at the x on Thursday, but I was unwell and,
moreover, worried and bothered about Collier's illness at Venice, and
awaiting an answer to a telegram I sent there. He has contrived to get
scarlatina, but I hope he will get safe through it, as he seems to be
going on well. We were getting ready to go out until we were reassured
on that point.

I thought I would go to the Academy dinner on Saturday, and that if I
did not eat and drink and came away early, I might venture.

It was pleasant enough to have a glimpse of the world, the flesh (on
the walls, nude!), and the devil (there were several Bishops), but oh,
dear! how done I was yesterday.

However, we are off to Eastbourne to-day, and I hope to wash three
weeks' London out of me before long. I think we shall go to Maloja
again early in June.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Capital portrait in the New Gallery, where I looked in for a quarter of
an hour on Saturday--only you never were quite so fat in the cheeks,
and I don't believe you have got such a splendid fur-coat!

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.

...As to the Assistant Secretaryship of the British Association, I have
turned it over a great deal in my mind since your letter reached me,
and I really cannot convince myself that you would suit it or it would
suit you. I have not heard who are candidates or anything about it, and
I am not going to take any part in the election. But looking at the
thing solely from the point of view of your interests, I should
strongly advise you against taking it, even if it were offered.

My pet aphorism "suffer fools gladly" should be the guide of the
Assistant Secretary, who, during the fortnight of his activity, has
more little vanities and rivalries to smooth over and conciliate than
other people meet with in a lifetime. Now you do NOT "suffer fools
gladly" on the contrary, you "gladly make fools suffer." I do not say
you are wrong--No tu quoque [Cf. above. But for due cause he could
suffer them "with a difference"; of a certain caller he writes: "What
an effusive bore he is! But I believe he was very kind to poor
Clifford, and restrained my unregenerate impatience of that kind of
creature."]--but that is where the danger of the explosion lies--not in
regard to the larger business of the Association.

The risk is great and the 300 pounds a year is not worth it. Foster
knows all about the place; ask him if I am not right.

Many thanks for the suggestion about Spirula. But the matter is in a
state in which no one can be of any use but myself. At present I am at
the end of my tether and I mean to be off to the Engadine a fortnight
hence--most likely not to return before October.

Not even the sweet voice of -- will lure me from my retirement. The
Academy dinner knocked me up for three days, though I drank no wine,
ate very little, and vanished after the Prince of Wales' speech. The
truth is I have very little margin of strength to go upon even now,
though I am marvellously better than I was.

I am very glad that you see the importance of doing battle with the
clericals. I am astounded at the narrowness of view of many of our
colleagues on this point. They shut their eyes to the obstacles which
clericalism raises in every direction against scientific ways of
thinking, which are even more important than scientific discoveries.

I desire that the next generation may be less fettered by the gross and
stupid superstitions of orthodoxy than mine has been. And I shall be
well satisfied if I can succeed to however small an extent in bringing
about that result.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, May 25, 1889.

My dear Lankester,

I cannot attend the Council meeting on the 29th. I have a meeting of
the Trustees of the British Museum to-day, and to be examined by a
Committee on Monday, and as the sudden heat half kills me I shall be
fit for nothing but to slink off to Eastbourne again.

However, I do hope the Council will be very careful what they say or do
about the immature fish question. The thing has been discussed over and
over again ad nauseam, and I doubt if there is anything to be added to
the evidence in the blue-books.

The idee fixe of the British public, fishermen, M.P.'s and ignorant
persons generally is that all small fish, if you do not catch them,
grow up into big fish. They cannot be got to understand that the
wholesale destruction of the immature is the necessary part of the
general order of things, from codfish to men.

You seem to have some very interesting things to talk about at the
Royal Institution.

Do you see any chance of educating the white corpuscles of the human
race to destroy the theological bacteria which are bred in parsons?

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 19, 1889.

My dear Donnelly,

The Vice-President's letter has brought home to me one thing very
clearly, and that is, that I had no business to sign the Report. Of
course he has a right to hold me responsible for a document to which my
name is attached, and I should look more like a fool than I ever wish
to do, if I had to tell him that I had taken the thing entirely on
trust. I have always objected to the sleeping partnership in the
Examination; and unless it can be made quite clear that I am nothing
but a "consulting doctor," I really must get out of it entirely.

Of course I cannot say whether the Report is justified by the facts or
not, when I do not know anything about them. But from my experience of
what the state of things used to be, I should say that it is, in all
probability, fair.

The faults mentioned are exactly those which always have made their
appearance, and I expect always will do so, and I do not see why the
attention of the teachers should not as constantly be directed to them.
You talk of Eton. Well, the reports of the Examiners to the governing
body, year after year, had the same unpleasing monotony, and I do not
believe that there is any educational body, from the Universities
downwards, which would come out much better, if the Examiners' reports
were published and if they did their duty.

I am unable to see my way (and I suppose you are) to any better method
of State encouragement of science teaching than payment by results. The
great and manifest evil of that system, however, is the steady pressure
which it exerts in the development of every description of sham
teaching. And the only check upon this kind of swindling the public
seems to me to lie in the hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster
so, ages ago, when he talked to me about the gradual increase of the
expenditure, and I have been confirmed in my opinion by all subsequent
experience. What the people who read the reports may say, I should not
care one twopenny d-- if I had to administer the thing.

Nine out of ten of them are incompetent to form any opinion on an
educational subject; and as a mere matter of policy, I should, in
dealing with them, be only too glad to be able to make it clear that
some of the defects and shortcomings inherent in this (as in all
systems) had been disguised, and that even the most fractious of
Examiners had said their say without let or hindrance.

It is the nature of the system which seems to me to demand as a
corrective incessant and severe watchfulness on the part of the
Examiners, and I see no harm if they a little overdo the thing in this
direction, for every sham they let through is an encouragement to other
shams and pot-teaching in general.

And if the "great heart" of the people and its thick head can't be got
to appreciate honesty, why the sooner we shut up the better. Ireland
may be for the Irish, but science teaching is not for the sake of
science teachers.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.


CHAPTER 3.6.

1889-90.

From the middle of June to the middle of September, Huxley was in
Switzerland, first at Monte Generoso, then, when the weather became
more settled, at the Maloja. Here, as his letters show, he
"rejuvenated" to such an extent that Sir Henry Thompson, who was at the
Maloja, scoffed at the idea of his ever having had dilated heart.]

Monte Generoso, Tessin, Suisse, June 25, 1889.

My dear Hooker,

I am quite agreed with the proposed arrangements for the x, and hope I
shall show better in the register of attendance next session.

When I am striding about the hills here I really feel as if my
invalidism were a mere piece of malingering. When I am well I can walk
up hill and down dale as well as I did twenty years ago. But my margin
is abominably narrow, and I am at the mercy of "liver and lights."
Sitting up for long and dining are questions of margin.

I do not know if you have been here. We are close on 4000 feet up and
look straight over the great plain of North Italy on the one side and
to a great hemicycle of mountains, Monte Rosa among them, on the other.
I do not know anything more beautiful in its way. But the whole time we
have been here the weather has been extraordinary. On the average,
about two thunderstorms per diem. I am sure that a good meteorologist
might study the place with advantage. The barometer has not varied
three-twentieths of an inch the whole time, notwithstanding the storms.

I hear the weather has been bad all over Switzerland, but it is not
high and dry enough for me here, and we shall be off to the Maloja on
Saturday next, and shall stay there till we return somewhere in
September. Collier and Ethel will join us there in August. He is none
the worse for his scarlatina.

"Aged Botanist?" marry come up! [Sir J. Hooker jestingly congratulated
him on taking up botany in his old age.] I should like to know of a
younger spark. The first time I heard myself called "the old gentleman"
was years ago when we were in South Devon. A half-drunken Devonian had
made himself very offensive, in the compartment in which my wife and I
were travelling, and got some "simple Saxon" from me, accompanied, I
doubt not, by an awful scowl "Ain't the old gentleman in a rage," says
he.

I am very glad to hear of Reggie's success, and my wife joins with me
in congratulations. It is a comfort to see one's shoots planted out and
taking root, though the idea that one's cares and anxieties about them
are diminished, we find to be an illusion.

I inclose cheque for my contributions due and to come. [For the x
Club.] If I go to Davy's Locker before October, the latter may go for
consolation champagne!

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[He writes from the Maloja on August 16 to Sir M. Foster, who had been
sitting on the Vaccination Commission:--]

I wonder how you are prospering, whether you have vaccination or
anti-vaccination on the brain; or whether the gods have prospered you
so far as to send you on a holiday. We have been here since the
beginning of July. Monte Generoso proved lovely--but electrical. We had
on the average three thunderstorms every two days. Bellagio was as hot
as the tropics, and we stayed only a day, and came on here--where,
whatever else may happen, it is never too hot. The weather has been
good and I have profited immensely, and at present I do not know
whether I have a heart or not. But I have to look very sharp after my
liver. H. Thompson, who has been here with his son Herbert (clever
fellow, by the way), treats the notion that I ever had a dilated heart
with scorn! Oh these doctors! they are worse than theologians.

[And again on August 31:--]

I walked eighteen miles three or four days ago, and I think nothing of
one or two thousand feet up! I hope this state of things will last at
the sea-level.

I am always glad to hear of and from you, but I have not been idle long
enough to forget what being busy means, so don't let your conscience
worry you about answering my letters.

...X. is, I am afraid, more or less of an ass. The opposition he and
his friends have been making to the Technical Bill is quite
unintelligible to me. Y. may be, and I rather think is, a knave, but he
is no fool; and if I mistake not he is minded to kick the ultra-radical
stool down now that he has mounted by it. Make friends of that Mammon
of unrighteousness and swamp the sentimentalists.

...I despise your insinuations. All my friends here have been
theological--Bishop, Chief Rabbi, and Catholic Professor. None of your
Maybrick discussors.

On June 25 he wrote to Professor Ray Lankester, enclosing a letter to
be read at a meeting called by the Lord Mayor, on July 1, to hear
statements from men of science with regard to the recent increase of
rabies in this country, and the efficiency of the treatment discovered
by M. Pasteur for the prevention of hydrophobia.

[I quote the latter from the report in "Nature" for July 4:--]

Monte Generoso, Tessin, Suisse, June 25, 1889.

My dear Lankester,

I enclose herewith a letter for the Lord Mayor and a cheque for 5
pounds as my subscription. I wish I could make the letter shorter, but
it is pretty much "pemmican" already. However, it does not much matter
being read if it only gets into print.