1825-1842.
[In the year 1825 Ealing was as quiet a country village as could be
found within a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Here stood a large
semi-public school, which had risen to the front rank in numbers and
reputation under Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford, who in 1791
became the son-in-law and successor of the previous master.
The senior assistant-master in this school was George Huxley, a tall,
dark, rather full-faced man, quick tempered, and distinguished, in his
son's words, by "that glorious firmness which one's enemies called
obstinacy." In the year 1810 he had married Rachel Withers; she bore
five sons and three daughters, of whom one son and one daughter died in
infancy; the seventh and youngest surviving child was Thomas Henry.
George Huxley, the master at Ealing, was the second son of Thomas Huxley
and Margaret James, who were married at St. Michael's, Coventry, on
September 8, 1773. This Thomas Huxley continued to live at Coventry
until his death in January 1796, when he left behind him a large family
and no very great wealth. The most notable item in the latter is the
"capital Messuage, by me lately purchased of Mrs. Ann Thomas," which he
directs to be sold to pay his debts--an inn, apparently, for the
testator is described as a victualler. Family tradition tells that he
came to Coventry from Lichfield, and if so, he and his sons after him
exemplify the tendency to move south, which is to be observed in those
of the same name who migrated from their original home in Cheshire. This
home is represented to-day by a farm in the Wirral, about eight miles
from Chester, called Huxley Hall. From this centre Huxleys spread to the
neighbouring villages, such as Overton and Eccleston, Clotton and
Duddon, Tattenhall and Wettenhall; others to Chester and Brindley near
Nantwich. The southward movement carries some to the Welsh border,
others into Shropshire. The Wettenhall family established themselves in
the fourth generation at Rushall, and held property in Handsworth and
Walsall; the Brindley family sent a branch to Macclesfield, whose
representative, Samuel, must have been on the town council when the
Young Pretender rode through on his way to Derby, for he was mayor in
1746; while at the end of the sixteenth century, George, the
disinherited heir of Brindley, became a merchant in London, and
purchased Wyre Hall at Edmonton, where his descendants lived for four
generations, his grandson being knighted by Charles II in 1663.
But my father had no particular interest in tracing his early ancestry.
"My own genealogical inquiries," he said, "have taken me so far back
that I confess the later stages do not interest me." Towards the end of
his life, however, my mother persuaded him to see what could be found
out about Huxley Hall and the origin of the name. This proved to be from
the manor of Huxley or Hodesleia, whereof one Swanus de Hockenhull was
enfeoffed by the abbot and convent of St. Werburgh in the time of
Richard I. Of the grandsons of this Swanus, the eldest kept the manor
and name of Hockenhull (which is still extant in the Midlands); the
younger ones took their name from the other fief.
But the historian of Cheshire records the fact that owing to the
respectability of the name, it was unlawfully assumed by divers "losels
and lewd fellows of the baser sort," and my father, with a fine show of
earnestness, used to declare that he was certain the legitimate owners
of the name were far too sober and respectable to have produced such a
reprobate as himself, and one of these "losels" must be his progenitor.
Thomas Henry Huxley was born at Ealing on May 4, 1825, "about eight
o'clock in the morning." (So in the Autobiography, but 9.30 according to
the Family Bible.) "I am not aware," he tells us playfully in his
Autobiography, "that any portents preceded my arrival in this world,
but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a traditional account of the
manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of great practical
value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in consequence of the
unusual warmth of the weather. For the same reason, probably, a
neighbouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony, pitching on the
window-sill, was making its way into the room when the horrified nurse
shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only abstained from
her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled on my lips, and
I should have been endowed with that mellifluous eloquence which, in
this country, leads far more surely than worth, capacity, or honest
work, to the highest places in Church and State. But the opportunity was
lost, and I have been obliged to content myself through life with saying
what I mean in the plainest of plain language, than which, I suppose,
there is no habit more ruinous to a man's prospects of advancement."
As to his debt, physical and mental, to either parent, he writes as
follows:--]
Physically I am the son of my mother so completely--even down to
peculiar movements of the hands, which made their appearance in me as I
reached the age she had when I noticed them--that I can hardly find any
trace of my father in myself, except an inborn faculty for drawing,
which, unfortunately, in my case, has never been cultivated, a hot
temper, and that amount of tenacity of purpose which unfriendly
observers sometimes call obstinacy.
My mother was a slender brunette, of an emotional and energetic
temperament, and possessed of the most piercing black eyes I ever saw in
a woman's head. With no more education than other women of the middle
classes of her day, she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most
distinguishing characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If one
ventured to suggest that she had not taken much time to arrive at any
conclusion, she would say, "I cannot help it; things flash across me."
That peculiarity has been passed on to me in full strength; it has often
stood me in good stead; it has sometimes played me sad tricks, and it
has always been a danger. But, after all, if my time were to come over
again, there is nothing I would less willingly part with than my
inheritance of mother-wit.
[Restless, talkative, untiring to the day of her death, she was at
sixty-six "as active and energetic as a young woman." His early devotion
to her was remarkable. Describing her to his future wife he writes:--]
As a child my love for her was a passion. I have lain awake for hours
crying because I had a morbid fear of her death; her approbation was my
greatest reward, her displeasure my greatest punishment.
I have next to nothing to say about my childhood (he continues in the
Autobiography). In later years my mother, looking at me almost
reproachfully, would sometimes say, "Ah! you were such a pretty boy!"
whence I had no difficulty in concluding that I had not fulfilled my
early promise in the matter of looks. In fact, I have a distinct
recollection of certain curls of which I was vain, and of a conviction
that I closely resembled that handsome, courtly gentleman, Sir Herbert
Oakley, who was vicar of our parish, and who was as a god to us country
folk, because he was occasionally visited by the then Prince George of
Cambridge. I remember turning my pinafore wrong side forwards in order
to represent a surplice, and preaching to my mother's maids in the
kitchen as nearly as possible in Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday morning
when the rest of the family were at church. That is the earliest
indication of the strong clerical affinities which my friend Mr. Herbert
Spencer has always ascribed to me, though I fancy they have for the most
part remained in a latent state.
[There remains no record of his having been a very precocious child.
Indeed, it is usually the eldest child whose necessary companionship
with his elders wins him this reputation. The youngest remains a child
among children longer than any other of his brothers and sisters.
One talent, however, displayed itself early. The faculty of drawing he
inherited from his father. But on the queer principle that training is
either unnecessary to natural capacity or even ruins it, he never
received regular instruction in drawing; and his draughtsmanship,
vigorous as it was, and a genuine medium of artistic expression as well
as an admirable instrument in his own especial work, never reached the
technical perfection of which it was naturally capable.
The amount of instruction, indeed of any kind, which he received was
scanty in the extreme. For a couple of years, from the age of eight to
ten, he was given a taste of the unreformed public school life, where,
apart from the rough and ready mode of instruction in vogue and the
necessary obedience enforced to certain rules, no means were taken to
reach the boys themselves, to guide them and help them in their school
life. The new-comer was left to struggle for himself in a community
composed of human beings at their most heartlessly cruel age, untempered
by any external influence.
Here he had little enough of mental discipline, or that deliberate
training of character which is a leading object of modern education. On
the contrary, what he learnt was a knowledge of undisciplined human
nature.]
My regular school training [he tells us], was of the briefest, perhaps
fortunately; for though my way of life has made me acquainted with all
sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to the lowest, I
deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at school was the worst
I have ever known. We boys were average lads, with much the same
inherent capacity for good and evil as any others; but the people who
were set over us cared about as much for our intellectual and moral
welfare as if they were baby-farmers. We were left to the operation of
the struggle for existence among ourselves; bullying was the least of
the ill practices current among us. Almost the only cheerful
reminiscence in connection with the place which arises in my mind is
that of a battle I had with one of my classmates, who had bullied me
until I could stand it no longer. I was a very slight lad, but there was
a wild-cat element in me which, when roused, made up for lack of weight,
and I licked my adversary effectually. However, one of my first
experiences of the extremely rough-and-ready nature of justice, as
exhibited by the course of things in general, arose out of the fact that
I--the victor--had a black eye, while he--the vanquished--had none, so
that I got into disgrace and he did not. We made it up, and thereafter I
was unmolested. One of the greatest shocks I ever received in my life
was to be told a dozen years afterwards by the groom who brought me my
horse in a stable-yard in Sydney that he was my quondam antagonist. He
had a long story of family misfortune to account for his position; but
at that time it was necessary to deal very cautiously with mysterious
strangers in New South Wales, and on inquiry I found that the
unfortunate young man had not only been "sent out," but had undergone
more than one colonial conviction.
[His brief school career was happily cut short by the break up of the
Ealing establishment. On the death of Dr. Nicholas, his sons attempted
to carry on the school; but the numbers declined rapidly, and George
Huxley, about 1835, returned to his native town of Coventry, where he
obtained the modest post of manager of the Coventry savings bank, while
his daughters eked out the slender family resources by keeping school.
In the meantime the boy Tom, as he was usually called, got little or no
regular instruction. But he had an inquiring mind, and a singularly
early turn for metaphysical speculation. He read everything he could lay
hands on in his father's library. Not satisfied with the ordinary length
of the day, he used, when a boy of twelve, to light his candle before
dawn, pin a blanket round his shoulders, and sit up in bed to read
Hutton's "Geology." He discussed all manner of questions with his
parents and friends, for his quick and eager mind made it possible for
him to have friendships with people considerably older than himself.
Among these may especially be noted his medical brother-in-law, Dr.
Cooke of Coventry, who had married his sister Ellen in 1839, and through
whom he early became interested in human anatomy; and George Anderson
May, at that time in business at Hinckley (a small weaving centre some
dozen miles distant from Coventry), whom his friends who knew him
afterwards in the home which he made for himself on the farm at Elford,
near Tamworth, will remember for his genial spirit and native love of
letters. There was a real friendship between the two. The boy of fifteen
notes down with pleasure his visits to the man of six-and-twenty, with
whom he could talk freely of the books he read, and the ideas he
gathered about philosophy.
Afterwards, however, their ways lay far apart, and I believe they did
not meet again until the seventies, when Mr. May sent his children to be
educated in London, and his youngest son was at school with me; his
younger daughter studied art at the Slade school with my sisters, and
both found a warm welcome in the home circle at Marlborough Place.
One of his boyish speculations was as to what would become of things if
their qualities were taken away; and lighting upon Sir William
Hamilton's "Logic," he devoured it to such good effect that when, years
afterwards, he came to tackle the greater philosophers, especially the
English and the German, he found he had already a clear notion of where
the key of metaphysic lay.
This early interest in metaphysics was another form of the intense
curiosity to discover the motive principle of things, the why and how
they act, that appeared in the boy's love of engineering and of anatomy.
The unity of this motive and the accident which bade fair to ruin his
life at the outset, and actually levied a lifelong tax upon his bodily
vigour, are best told in his own words:--]
As I grew older, my great desire was to be a mechanical engineer, but
the fates were against this, and while very young I commenced the study
of medicine under a medical brother-in-law. But, though the Institute of
Mechanical Engineers would certainly not own me, I am not sure that I
have not all along been a sort of mechanical engineer in partibus
infidelium. I am now occasionally horrified to think how little I ever
knew or cared about medicine as the art of healing. The only part of my
professional course which really and deeply interested me was
physiology, which is the mechanical engineering of living machines; and,
notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper business, I am
afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me. I never
collected anything, and species work was always a burden to me; what I
cared for was the architectural and engineering part of the business,
the working out the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands and
thousands of diverse living constructions, and the modifications of
similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends. The extraordinary attraction
I felt towards the study of the intricacies of living structure nearly
proved fatal to me at the outset. I was a mere boy--I think between
thirteen and fourteen years of age--when I was taken by some older
student friends of mine to the first post-mortem examination I ever
attended. All my life I have been most unfortunately sensitive to the
disagreeables which attend anatomical pursuits, but on this occasion my
curiosity overpowered all other feelings, and I spent two or three hours
in gratifying it. I did not cut myself, and none of the ordinary
symptoms of dissection-poison supervened, but poisoned I was somehow,
and I remember sinking into a strange state of apathy. By way of a last
chance, I was sent to the care of some good, kind people, friends of my
father's, who lived in a farmhouse in the heart of Warwickshire. I
remember staggering from my bed to the window on the bright spring
morning after my arrival, and throwing open the casement. Life seemed to
come back on the wings of the breeze, and to this day the faint odour of
wood-smoke, like that which floated across the farmyard in the early
morning, is as good to me as the "sweet south upon a bed of violets." I
soon recovered, but for years I suffered from occasional paroxysms of
internal pain, and from that time my constant friend, hypochondriacal
dyspepsia, commenced his half-century of co-tenancy of my fleshly
tabernacle.
[Some little time after his return from the voyage of the "Rattlesnake,"
Huxley succeeded in tracing his good Warwickshire friends again. A
letter of May 11, 1852, from one of them, Miss K. Jaggard, tells how
they had lost sight of the Huxleys after their departure from Coventry;
how they were themselves dispersed by death, marriage, or retirement;
and then proceeds to draw a lively sketch of the long delicate-looking
lad, which clearly refers to this period or a little later.]
My brother and sister who were living at Grove Fields when you visited
there, have now retired from the cares of business, and are living very
comfortably at Leamington...I suppose you remember Mr. Joseph Russell,
who used to live at Avon Dassett. He is now married and gone to live at
Grove Fields, so that it is still occupied by a person of the same name
as when you knew it. But it is very much altered in appearance since the
time when such merry and joyous parties of aunts and cousins used to
assemble there. I assure you we have often talked of "Tom Huxley" (who
was sometimes one of the party) looking so thin and ill, and pretending
to make hay with one hand, while in the other he held a German book! Do
you remember it? And the picnic at Scar Bank? And how often too your
patience was put to the test in looking for your German books which had
been hidden by some of those playful companions who were rather less
inclined for learning than yourself?
[It is interesting to see from this letter and from a journal, to be
quoted hereafter, that he had thus early begun to teach himself German,
an undertaking more momentous in its consequences than the boy dreamed
of. The knowledge of German thus early acquired was soon of the utmost
service in making him acquainted with the advance of biological
investigation on the continent at a time when few indeed among English
men of science were able to follow it at first hand, and turn the light
of the newest theories upon their own researches.
It is therefore peculiarly interesting to note the cause which
determined the young Huxley to take up the study of so little read a
language. I have more than once heard him say that this was one half of
the debt he owed to Carlyle, the other half being an intense hatred of
shams of every sort and kind. The translations from the German, the
constant references to German literature and philosophy, fired him to
try the vast original from which these specimens were quarried, for the
sake partly of the literature, but still more of the philosophy. The
translation of "Wilhelm Meister," and some of the "Miscellaneous Essays"
together, with "The French Revolution," were certainly among works of
Carlyle with which he first made acquaintance, to be followed later by
"Sartor Resartus," which for many years afterwards was his Enchiridion,
as he puts it in an unpublished autobiographical fragment.
By great good fortune, a singularly interesting glimpse of my father's
life from the age of fifteen onwards has been preserved in the shape of
a fragmentary journal which he entitled, German fashion, "Thoughts and
Doings." Begun on September 29, 1840, it is continued for a couple of
years, and concludes with some vigorous annotations in 1845, when the
little booklet emerged from a three years' oblivion at the bottom of an
old desk. Early as this journal is, in it the boy displays three habits
afterwards characteristic of the man: the habit of noting down any
striking thought or saying he came across in the course of his reading;
of speculating on the causes of things and discussing the right and
wrong of existing institutions; and of making scientific experiments,
using them to correct his theories.
The first entry, the heading, as it were, and keynote of all the rest,
is a quotation from Novalis;--"Philosophy can bake no bread; but it can
prove for us God, freedom, and immortality. Which, now, is more
practical, Philosophy or Economy?" The reference here given is to a
German edition of Novalis, so that it seems highly probable that the boy
had learnt enough of the language to translate a bit for himself,
though, as appears from entries in 1841, he had still to master the
grammar completely.
In science, he was much interested in electricity; he makes a galvanic
battery] "in view of experiment to get crystallized carbon. Got it
deposited, but not crystallized." [Other experiments and theorising upon
them are recorded in the following year. Another entry showing the
courage of youth, deserves mention:--]
October 5 (1840).--Began speculating on the cause of colours at sunset.
Has any explanation of them ever been attempted? [which is supplemented
by an extract] from old book.
[We may also remark the early note of Radicalism and resistance to
anything savouring of injustice or oppression, together with the naive
honesty of the admission that his opinions may change with years.]
October 25 (at Hinckley).--Read Dr. S. Smith on the Divine
Government.--Agree with him partly.--I should say that a general belief
in his doctrines would have a very injurious effect on morals.
November 22.--...Had a long talk with my mother and father about the
right to make Dissenters pay church rates--and whether there ought to be
any Establishment. I maintain that there ought not in both cases--I
wonder what will be my opinion ten years hence? I think now that it is
against all laws of justice to force men to support a church with whose
opinions they cannot conscientiously agree. The argument that the rate
is so small is very fallacious. It is as much a sacrifice of principle
to do a little wrong as to do a great one.
November 22 (Hinckley).--Had a long argument with Mr. May on the nature
of the soul and the difference between it and matter. I maintained that
it could not be proved that matter is ESSENTIALLY--as to its
base--different from soul. Mr. M. wittily said, soul was the
perspiration of matter.
We cannot find the absolute basis of matter: we only know it by its
properties; neither know we the soul in any other way. Cogito ergo sum
is the only thing that we CERTAINLY know.
Why may not soul and matter be of the same substance (i.e. basis whereon
to fix qualities, for we cannot suppose a quality to exist per se--it
must have a something to qualify), but with different qualities.
Let us suppose then an Eon--a something with no quality but that of
existence--this Eon endued with all the intelligence, mental qualities,
and that in the highest degree--is God. This combination of intelligence
with existence we may suppose to have existed from eternity. At the
creation we may suppose that a portion of the Eon was separated from the
intelligence, and it was ordained--it became a natural law--that it
should have the properties of gravitation, etc.--that is, that it should
give to man the ideas of those properties. The Eon in this state is
matter in the abstract. Matter, then, is Eon in the simplest form in
which it possesses qualities appreciable by the senses. Out of this
matter, by the superimposition of fresh qualities, was made all things
that are.
1841.
January 7.--Came to Rotherhithe. [See Chapter 1.2.]
June 20.--What have I done in the way of acquiring knowledge since
January?
Projects begun:--
1. German (to be learnt).
2. Italian (to be learnt).
3. To read Muller's "Physiology."
4. To prepare for the Matriculation Examination at London University
which requires knowledge of:--
a. Algebra--Geometry (did not begin to read for this till April.
b. Natural Philosophy (did not begin to read for this till April.
c. Chemistry.
d. Greek--Latin.
e. English History down to end of seventeenth century.
f. Ancient History. English Grammar.
5. To make copious notes of all things I read.
Projects completed:--
1. Partly.
2. Not at all.
3 and 5, stuck to these pretty closely.
4.e. Read as far as Henry III in Hume.
a. Evolution and involution.
b. Refraction of light--Polarisation partly.
c. Laws of combination--must read them over again.
d. Nothing.
f. Nothing.
I must get on faster than this. I MUST adopt a fixed plan of studies,
for unless this is done I find time slips away without knowing it--and
let me remember this--that it is better to read a little and thoroughly,
than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be great in
quantity.
(This is about the only resolution I have ever stuck to--1845.)
(Well do I remember how in that little narrow surgery I used to work
morning after morning and evening after evening at that insufferably dry
and profitless book, Hume's "History," how I worked against hope through
the series of thefts, robberies, and throat-cutting in those three first
volumes, and how at length I gave up the task in utter disgust and
despair.
Macintosh's "History," on the other hand, I remember reading with great
pleasure, and also Guizot's "Civilisation in Europe," the scientific
theoretical form of the latter especially pleased me, but the want of
sufficient knowledge to test his conclusions was a great drawback.
1845.)
[There follow notes of work done in successive weeks--June 20 to August
9, and September 27 to October 4. History, German, Mathematics, Physics,
Physiology; makes an electro-magnet; reads Guizot's "History of
Civilisation in Europe," on which he remarks] an excellent work--very
tough reading, though.
[At the beginning of October, under "Miscellaneous,"] Became acquainted
with constitution of French Chambre des deputes and their parties.
[It was his practice to note any sayings that struck him:--]
Truths: "I hate all people who want to found sects. It is not error but
sects--it is not error but sectarian error, nay, and even sectarian
truth, which causes the unhappiness of mankind."--Lessing.
"It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no
fault committed that I have not committed myself..."--Goethe.
"One solitary philosopher may be great, virtuous, and happy in the midst
of poverty, but not a whole nation..."--Isaac Iselin.
1842.
January 30, Sunday evening.
I have for some time been pondering over a classification of knowledge.
My scheme is to divide all knowledge in the first place into two grand
divisions.
1. Objective--that for which a man is indebted to the external world;
and
2. Subjective--that which he has acquired or may acquire by inward
contemplation.
Subjective.
/
Metaphysics.
/
Metaphysics proper, Mathematics, Logic, Theology, Morality.
Objective.
/
Morality, History, Physiology, Physics.
Metaphysics comes immediately, of course, under the first (2) head--that
is to say, the relations of the mind to itself; of this Mathematics and
Logic, together with Theology, are branches.
I am in doubt under which head to put morality, for I cannot determine
exactly in my own mind whether morality can exist independent of others,
whether the idea of morality could ever have arisen in the mind of an
isolated being or not. I am rather inclined to the opinion that it is
objective.
Under the head of objective knowledge comes first Physics, including the
whole body of the relations of inanimate unorganised bodies; secondly,
Physiology. Including the structure and functions of animal bodies,
including language and Psychology; thirdly comes History.
One object for which I have attempted to form an arrangement of
knowledge is that I may test the amount of my own acquirements. I shall
form an extensive list of subjects on this plan, and as I acquire any
one of them I shall strike it out of the list. May the list soon get
black! though at present I shall hardly be able, I am afraid, to spot
the paper.
(A prophecy! a prophecy, 1845!).
[April 1842 introduces a number of quotations from Carlyle's
Miscellaneous Writings, "Characteristics," some clear and crisp, others
sinking into Carlyle's own vein of speculative mysticism, e.g.]
"In the mind as in the body the sign of health is unconsciousness."
"Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into
articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious
discourse lies the region of meditation."
"Genius is ever a secret to itself."
"The healthy understanding, we should say, is neither the argumentative
nor the Logical, but the Intuitive, for the end of understanding is not
to prove and find reasons but to know and believe" (!)
"The ages of heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy. Virtue, when it
is philosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and beginning
to decline."
[At the same time more electrical experiments are recorded; and theories
are advanced with pros and cons to account for the facts observed.
The last entry was made three years later:--]
October 1845.--I have found singular pleasure--having accidentally raked
this Buchlein from a corner of my desk--in looking over these scraps of
notices of my past existence; an illustration of J. Paul's saying that a
man has but to write down his yesterday's doings, and forthwith they
appear surrounded with a poetic halo.
But after all, these are but the top skimmings of these five years'
living. I hardly care to look back into the seething depths of the
working and boiling mass that lay beneath all this froth, and indeed I
hardly know whether I could give myself any clear account of it.
Remembrances of physical and mental pain...absence of sympathy, and
thence a choking up of such few ideas as I did form clearly within my
own mind.
Grief too, yet at the misfortune of others, for I have had few properly
my own; so much the worse, for in that case I might have said or done
somewhat, but here was powerless.
Oh, Tom, trouble not thyself about sympathy; thou hast two stout legs
and young, wherefore need a staff?
Furthermore, it is twenty minutes past two, and time to go to bed.
Buchlein, it will be long before my secretiveness remains so quiet
again; make the most of what thou hast got.