1876.
[The year 1876 was again a busy one, almost as busy as any that went
before. As in 1875, his London work was cut in two by a course of
lectures in Edinburgh, and sittings of the Royal Commission on
Scottish Universities, and furthermore, by a trip to America in his
summer vacation.
In the winter and early spring he gave his usual lectures at South
Kensington; a course to working men "On the Evidence as to the Origin
of Existing Vertebrated Animals," from February to April ("Nature"
volumes 13 and 14); a lecture at the Royal Institution (January 28)
"On the Border Territory between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms"
("Collected Essays" 8 170); and another at Glasgow (February 15) "On
the Teleology and Morphology of the Hand."
In this lecture, which he never found time to get into final shape for
publication, but which was substantially repeated at the Working Men's
College in 1878, he touched upon one of the philosophic aspects of the
theory of evolution, namely, how far is it consistent with the
argument from design?
Granting provisionally the force of Paley's argument in individual
cases of adaptation, and illustrating it by the hand and its
representative in various of the Mammalia, he proceeds to show by the
facts of morphology that the argument, as commonly stated, fails; that
each mechanism, each animal, was not specially made to suit the
particular purpose we find it serving, but was developed from a single
common type. Yet in a limited and special sense he finds teleology to
be not inconsistent with morphology. The two sets of facts flow from a
common cause, evolution. Descent by modification accounts for
similarity of structure; the process of gradual adaptation to
conditions accounts for the existing adaptation to purpose. To be a
teleologist and yet accept evolution it is only necessary] "to suppose
that the original plan was sketched out--that the purpose was
foreshadowed in the molecular arrangements out of which the animals
have come."
[This was no new view of his. While, ever since his first review of
the "Origin" in 1859 ("Collected Essays" 2 6), he had declared the
commoner and coarser forms of teleology to find their most formidable
opponent in the theory of evolution, and in 1869, addressing the
Geological Society, had spoken of] "those final causes, which have
been named barren virgins, but which might be more fitly termed the
hetairae of philosophy, so constantly have they led men astray" [(ib.
8 80; cp. 2 21, 36), he had, in his "Criticism of the Origin" (1864 2
86), and the "Genealogy of Animals" (1869 2 109 sqq.), shown how]
"perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology
rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of teleology and
morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both which his views
offer...the wider teleology, which is actually based upon the
fundamental proposition of evolution."
[His notebook shows that he was busy with Reptilia from Elgin and from
India; and with his "Manual of Invertebrate Anatomy," which was
published the next year; while he refused to undertake a course of ten
lectures at the Royal Institution, saying that he had already too much
other work to do, and would have no time for original work.
About this time, also, in answer to a request from a believer in
miracles,] "that those who fail to perceive the cogency of the
evidence by which the occurrence of miracles is supported, should not
confine themselves to the discussion of general principles, but should
grapple with some particular case of an alleged miracle," [he read
before the Metaphysical Society a paper dealing with the evidence for
the miracle of the resurrection. (See volume 1.)
Some friends wished him to publish the paper as a contribution to
criticism; but his own doubts as to the opportuneness of so doing were
confirmed by a letter from Mr. John Morley, then editor of the
"Fortnightly Review," to which he replied (January 18):--]
To say truth, most of the considerations you put so forcibly had
passed through my mind--but one always suspects oneself of cowardice
when one's own interests may be affected.
[At the beginning of May he went to Edinburgh. He writes home on May
8:--]
I am in hopes of being left to myself this time, as nobody has called
but Sir Alexander Grant the Principal, Crum Brown, whom I met in the
street just now, and Lister, who has a patient in the house. I have
been getting through an enormous quantity of reading, some tough
monographs that I brought with me, the first volume of Forster's "Life
of Swift," "Goodsir's Life," and a couple of novels of George Sand,
with a trifle of Paul Heyse. You should read George Sand's "Cesarine
Dietrich" and "La Mare au Diable" that I have just finished. She is
bigger than George Eliot, more flexible, a more thorough artist. It is
a queer thing, by the way, that I have never read "Consuelo." I shall
get it here. When I come back from my lecture I like to rest for an
hour or two over a good story. It freshens me wonderfully.
[However, social Edinburgh did not leave him long to himself, but
though he might thus lose something of working time, this loss was
counterbalanced by the dispelling of some of the fits of depression
which still assailed him from time to time.
On May 25 he writes:--]
The General Assembly is sitting now, and I thought I would look in. It
was very crowded and I had to stand, so I was soon spied out and
invited to sit beside the Lord High Commissioner, who represents the
Crown in the Assembly, and there I heard an ecclesiastical row about
whether a certain church should be allowed to have a cover with IHS on
the Communion Table or not. After three hours' discussion the IHSers
were beaten. I was introduced to the Commissioner Lord Galloway, and
asked to dine to-night. So I felt bound to go to the special levee at
Holyrood with my colleagues this morning, and I shall have to go to my
Lady Galloway's reception in honour of the Queen's birthday to-morrow.
Luckily there will be no more of it. Vanity of Vanities! Saturday
afternoon I go out to Lord Young's place to spend Sunday. I have been
in rather a hypochondriacal state of mind, and I will see if this
course of medicine will drive the seven devils out.
[One of the chief friendships which sprang from this residence in
Edinburgh was that with Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Skelton, widely
known under his literary pseudonym of "Shirley." A Civil servant as
well as a man of letters, he united practical life with literature, a
combination that appealed particularly to Huxley, so that he was a
constant visitor at Dr. Skelton's picturesque house, the Hermitage of
Braid, near Edinburgh. A number of letters addressed to Skelton from
1875 to 1891 show that with him Huxley felt the stimulus of an
appreciative correspondent.]
4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, June 23, 1876.
My dear Skelton,
I do not understand how it is that your note has been so long in
reaching me; but I hasten to repel the libellous insinuation that I
have vowed a vow against dining at the Hermitage.
I wish I could support that repudiation by at once accepting your
invitation for Saturday or Sunday, but my Saturdays and Sundays are
mortgaged to one or other of your judges (good judges, obviously).
Shall you be at home on Monday or Tuesday? If so, I would put on a
kilt (to be as little dressed as possible), and find my way out and
back; happily improving my mind on the journey with the tracts you
mention.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, July 1, 1876.
My dear Skelton,
Very many thanks for the copy of the "Comedy of the Noctes," which
reached me two or three days ago. Turning over the pages I came upon
the Shepherd's "Terrible Journey of Timbuctoo," which I enjoyed as
much as when I first read it thirty odd years ago.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On June 23 he writes home:--]
Did you read Gilman's note asking me to give the inaugural discourse
at the Johns Hopkins University, and offering 100 pounds sterling on
the part of the trustees? I am minded to do it on our way back from
the south, but don't much like taking money for the performance. Tell
me what you think about this at once, as I must reply.
[This visit to America had been under discussion for some time. It is
mentioned as a possibility in a letter to Darwin two years before.
Early in 1876 Mr. Frederic Harrison was commissioned by an American
correspondent--who, by the way, had named his son Thomas Huxley--to
give my father the following message:--"The whole nation is
electrified by the announcement that Professor Huxley is to visit us
next fall. We will make infinitely more of him than we did of the
Prince of Wales and his retinue of lords and dukes." Certainly the
people of the States gave him an enthusiastic welcome; his writings
had made him known far and wide; as the manager of the Californian
department at the Philadelphia Exhibition told him, the very miners of
California read his books over their camp fires; and his visit was so
far like a royal progress, that unless he entered a city disguised
under the name of Jones or Smith, he was liable not merely to be
interviewed, but to be called upon to "address a few words" to the
citizens.
Leaving their family under the hospitable care of Sir W. and Lady
Armstrong at Cragside, my father and mother started on July 27 on
board the "Germanic," reaching New York on August 5. My father
sometimes would refer, half-jestingly, to the trip as his second
honeymoon, when, for the first time in twenty years, he and my mother
set forth by themselves, free from all family cares. And indeed, there
was the underlying resemblance that this too came at the end of a
period of struggle to attain, and marked the beginning of a more
settled period. His reception in America may be said to emphasise his
definite establishment in the first rank of English thinkers. It was a
signal testimony to the wide extent of his influence, hardly
suspected, indeed, by himself; an influence due above all to the fact
that he did not allow his studies to stand apart from the moving
problems of existence, but brought the new and regenerating ideas into
contact with life at every point, and that his championship of the new
doctrines had at the same time been a championship of freedom and
sincerity in thought and word against shams and self-deceptions of
every kind. It was not so much the preacher of new doctrines who was
welcomed, as the apostle of veracity--not so much the student of
science as the teacher of men.
Moreover, another sentiment coloured this holiday visit. He was to see
again the beloved sister of his boyhood. She had always prophesied his
success, and now after thirty years her prophesy was fulfilled by his
coming, and, indeed, exceeded by the manner of it.
Mr. Smalley, then London correspondent of the "New York Tribune," was
a fellow passenger of his on board the "Germanic," and tells an
interesting anecdote of him:--
Mr. Huxley stood on the deck of the "Germanic" as she steamed up the
harbour of New York, and he enjoyed to the full that marvellous
panorama. At all times he was on intimate terms with Nature and also
with the joint work of Nature and Man; Man's place in Nature being to
him interesting from more points of view than one. As we drew near the
city--this was in 1876, you will remember--he asked what were the tall
tower and tall building with a cupola, then the two most conspicuous
objects. I told him the Tribune and the Western Union Telegraph
buildings. "Ah," he said, "that is interesting; that is American. In
the old World the first things you see as you approach a great city
are steeples; here you see, first, centres of intelligence." Next to
those the tug-boats seemed to attract him as they tore fiercely up and
down and across the bay. He looked long at them and finally said,] "If
I were not a man I think I should like to be a tug." [They seemed to
him the condensation and complete expression of the energy and force
in which he delighted.
The personal welcome he received from the friends he visited was of
the warmest. On the arrival of the "Germanic" the travellers were met
by Mr. Appleton the publisher, and carried off to his country house at
Riverdale. While his wife was taken to Saratoga to see what an
American summer resort was like, he himself went on the 9th to New
Haven, to inspect the fossils at Yale College, collected from the
Tertiary deposits of the Far West by Professor Marsh, with great
labour and sometimes at the risk of his scalp. Professor Marsh told me
how he took him to the University, and proposed to begin by showing
him over the buildings. He refused.] "Show me what you have got inside
them; I can see plenty of bricks and mortar in my own country." [So
they went straight to the fossils, and as Professor Marsh writes
("American Journal of Science" volume 1 August 1895.):--
One of Huxley's lectures in New York was to be on the genealogy of the
horse, a subject which he had already written about, based entirely
upon European specimens. My own explorations had led me to conclusions
quite different from his, and my specimens seemed to me to prove
conclusively that the horse originated in the New World and not in the
Old, and that its genealogy must be worked out here. With some
hesitation, I laid the whole matter frankly before Huxley, and he
spent nearly two days going over my specimens with me, and testing
each point I made.
At each inquiry, whether he had a specimen to illustrate such and such
a point or exemplify a transition from earlier and less specialised
forms to later and more specialised ones, Professor Marsh would simply
turn to his assistant and bid him fetch box number so and so, until
Huxley turned upon him and said,] "I believe you are a magician;
whatever I want, you just conjure it up."
[The upshot of this examination was that he recast a great part of
what he meant to say at New York. When he had seen the specimens, and
thoroughly weighed their import, continues Professor Marsh:--
He then informed me that all this was new to him, and that my facts
demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and for the
first time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing animal.
With the generosity of true greatness, he gave up his own opinions in
the face of new truth, and took my conclusions as the basis of his
famous New York lecture on the horse. He urged me to prepare without
delay a volume on the genealogy of the horse, based upon the specimens
I had shown him. This I promised, but other work and new duties have
thus far prevented.
A letter to his wife describes his visit to Yale:--]
My excellent host met me at the station, and seems as if he could not
make enough of me. I am installed in apartments which were occupied by
his uncle, the millionaire Peabody, and am as quiet as if I were in my
own house. We have had a preliminary canter over the fossils, and I
have seen some things which were worth all the journey across.
This is the most charmingly picturesque town, with the streets lined
by avenues of elm trees which meet overhead. I have never seen
anything like it, and you must come and look at it. There is fossil
work enough to occupy me till the end of the week, and I have arranged
to go to Springfield on Monday to examine the famous footprints of the
Connecticut Valley.
The Governor has called upon me, and I shall have to go and do
pretty-behaved chez lui to-morrow. An application has come for an
autograph, but I have not been interviewed!
[This immunity, however, did not last long. He appears to have been
caught by the interviewer the next day, for he writes on the 11th:--]
I have not seen the notice in the "World" you speak of. You will be
amused at the article written by the interviewer. He was evidently
surprised to meet with so little of the "high falutin" philosopher in
me, and says I am "affable" and of "the commercial or mercantile"
type. That is something I did not know, and I am rather proud of it.
We may be rich yet.
[As to his work at Yale Museum, he writes in the same letter:--]
We are hard at work still. Breakfast at 8.30--go over to the Museum
with Marsh at 9 or 10--work till 1.30--dine--go back to Museum to work
till 6. Then Marsh takes me for a drive to see the views about the
town, and back to tea about half-past eight. He is a wonderfully good
fellow, full of fun and stories about his Western adventures, and the
collection of fossils is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. I wish I
could spare three weeks instead of one to study it.
To-morrow evening were are to have a dinner by way of winding up, and
he has asked a lot of notables to meet me. I assure you I am being
"made of," as I thought nobody but the little wife was foolish enough
to do.
[On the 16th he left to join Professor Alexander Agassiz at Newport,
whence he wrote the following letters:--]
Newport, August 17, 1876.
My dear Marsh,
I really cannot say how much I enjoyed my visit to New Haven. My
recollections are sorting themselves out by degrees and I find how
rich my store is. The more I think of it the more clear it is that
your great work is the settlement of the pedigree of the horse.
My wife joins with me in kind regards. I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To Mr. Clarence King.]
Newport, August 19, 1876.
My dear Sir,
In accordance with your wish, I very willingly put into writing the
substance of the opinion as to the importance of Professor Marsh's
collection of fossils which I expressed to you yesterday. As you are
aware, I devoted four or five days to the examination of this
collection, and was enabled by Professor Marsh's kindness to obtain a
fair conception of the whole.
I am disposed to think that whether we regard the abundance of
material, the number of complete skeletons of the various species, or
the extent of geological time covered by the collection, which I had
the good fortune to see at New Haven, there is no collection of fossil
vertebrates in existence, which can be compared with it. I say this
without forgetting Montmartre, Siwalik, or Pikermi--and I think that I
am quite safe in adding that no collection which has been hitherto
formed approaches that made by Professor Marsh, in the completeness of
the chain of evidence by which certain existing mammals are connected
with their older tertiary ancestry.
It is of the highest importance to the progress of Biological Science
that the publication of this evidence, accompanied by illustrations of
such fulness as to enable paleontologists to form their own judgment
as to its value, should take place without delay.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Breaking their journey at Boston, they went from Newport to
Petersham, in the highlands of Worcester County, where they were the
guests of Mr. and Mrs. John Fiske, at their summer home. Among the
other visitors were the eminent musical composer Mr. Paine, the poet
Cranch, and daughters of Hawthorne and Longfellow, so that they found
themselves in the midst of a particularly cheerful and delightful
party. From Petersham they proceeded to Buffalo, the meeting-place
that year of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which my father had promised to attend. Here they stayed with Mr.
Marshall, a leading lawyer, who afterwards visited them in England.
Awake was spent at Niagara, partly in making holiday, partly in
shaping the lectures which had to be delivered at the end of the trip.
As to the impression made upon him by the Falls--an experience which,
it is generally presumed, every traveller is bound to record--I may
note that after the first disappointment at their appearance,
inevitable wherever the height of a waterfall is less than the
breadth, he found in them an inexhaustible charm and fascination. As
in duty bound, he, with my mother, completed his experiences by going
under the wall of waters to the "Cave of the Winds." But of all things
nothing pleased him more than to sit of an evening by the edge of the
river, and through the roar of the cataract to listen for the
under-sound of the beaten stones grinding together at its foot.
Leaving Niagara on September 2, they travelled to Cincinnati, a
20-hours' journey, where they rested a day; on the 4th another 10
hours took them to Nashville, where they were to meet his sister, Mrs.
Scott. Though 11 years his senior, she maintained her vigour and
brightness undimmed, as indeed she did to the end of her life,
surviving him by a few weeks. As she now stood on the platform at
Nashville, Mrs. Huxley, who had never seen her, picked her out from
among all the people by her piercing black eyes, so like those of her
mother as described in the Autobiographical sketch ("Collected Essays"
1).
Nashville, her son's home, had been chosen as the meeting-place by
Mrs. Scott, because it was not so far south nor so hot as Montgomery,
where she was then living. Nevertheless in Tennessee the heat of the
American summer was very trying, and the good people of the town
further drew upon the too limited opportunities of their guest's brief
visit by sending a formal deputation to beg that he would either
deliver an address, or be entertained at a public dinner, or "state
his views"--to an interviewer I suppose. He could not well refuse one
of the alternatives; and the greater part of one day was spent in
preparing a short address on the geology of Tennessee, which was
delivered on the evening of September 7. He spoke for twenty minutes,
but had scarcely any voice, which was not to be wondered at, as he was
so tired that he had kept his room the whole day, while his wife
received the endless string of callers.
The next day they returned to Cincinnati; and on the 9th went on to
Baltimore, where they stayed with Mr. Garrett, then President of the
Baltimore and Ohio railway.
The Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, for which he was to deliver
the opening address, had been instituted by its founder on a novel
basis. It was devoted to post-graduate study; the professors and
lecturers received incomes entirely independent of the pupils they
taught. Men came to study for the sake of learning, not for the sake
of passing some future examination. The endowment was devoted in the
first place to the furtherance of research; the erection of buildings
was put into the background.] "It has been my fate," [commented
Huxley,] "to see great educational funds fossilise into mere bricks
and mortar in the petrifying springs of architecture, with nothing
left to work them. A great warrior is said to have made a desert and
called it peace. Trustees have sometimes made a palace and called it a
university."
[Half the fortune of the founder had gone to this university; the
other half to the foundation of a great and splendidly equipped
hospital for Baltimore. This was the reason why the discussion of
medical training occupies fully half of the address upon the general
principles of education, in which, indeed, lies the heart of his
message to America, a message already delivered to the old country,
but specially appropriate for the new nation developing so rapidly in
size and physical resources.]
I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your
bigness or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur,
territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a
true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is, what are you
going to do with all these things?...
The one condition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth
and intellectual clearness of the individual citizen. Education cannot
give these, but it can cherish them and bring them to the front in
whatever station of society they are to be found, and the universities
ought to be and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the
nation.
[This address was delivered under circumstances of peculiar
difficulty. The day before, an expedition had been made to Washington,
from which Huxley returned very tired, only to be told that he was to
attend a formal dinner and reception the same evening.] "I don't know
how I shall stand it," [he remarked. Going to his room, he snatched an
hour or two of rest, but was then called upon to finish his address
before going out. It seems that it had to be ready for simultaneous
publication in the New York papers. Now the lecture was not written
out; it was to be given from notes only. So he had to deliver it in
extenso to the reporter, who took it down in shorthand, promising to
let him have a longhand copy in good time the next morning. It did not
come till the last moment. Glancing at it on his way to the lecture
theatre, he discovered to his horror that it was written upon
"flimsy," from which he would not be able to read it with any success.
He wisely gave up the attempt, and made up his mind to deliver the
lecture as best he could from memory. The lecture as delivered was
very nearly the same as that which he had dictated the night before,
but with some curious discrepancies between the two accounts, which,
he used to say, occurring as they did in versions both purporting to
have been taken down from his lips, might well lead the ingenious
critic of the future to pronounce them both spurious, and to declare
that the pretended original was never delivered under the
circumstances alleged. (Cp. the incident at Belfast.)
There was an audience of some 2000, and I am told that when he began
to speak of the time that would come when they too would experience
the dangers of over-population and poverty in their midst, and would
then understand what Europe had to contend with more fully than they
did, a pin could have been heard to drop. At the end of the lecture,
amid the enthusiastic applause of the crowd, he made his way to the
front of the box where his hosts and their party were, and received
their warm congratulations. But he missed one voice amongst them, and
turning to where his wife sat in silent triumph almost beyond speech,
he said,] "And have you no word for me?" [then, himself also deeply
moved, stooped down and kissed her.
This address was delivered on Tuesday, September 12. On the 14th he
went to Philadelphia, and on the 15th to New York, where he delivered
his three lectures on Evolution on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
September 18, 20, and 22.
These lectures are very good examples of the skill with which he could
present a complicated subject in a simple form, the subject seeming to
unroll itself by the force of its own naked logic, and carrying
conviction the further through the simplicity of its presentation.
Indeed, an unfriendly critic once paid him an unintended compliment,
when trying to make out that he was no great speaker; that all he did
was to set some interesting theory unadorned before his audience, when
such success as he attained was due to the compelling nature of the
subject itself.
Since his earlier lectures to the public on evolution, the
paleontological evidences had been accumulating; the case could be
stated without some of the reservations of former days; and he brings
forward two telling instances in considerable detail, the one showing
how the gulf between two such apparently distinct groups as Birds and
Reptiles is bridged over by ancient fossils intermediate in form; the
other illustrating from Professor Marsh's new collections the lineal
descent of the specialised Horse from the more general type of
quadruped.
The farthest back of these was a creature with four toes on the front
limb and three on the hind limb. Judging from the completeness of the
series or forms so far, he ventured to indulge in a prophecy.]
Thus, thanks to these important researches, it has become evident
that, so far as our present knowledge extends, the history of the
horse-type is exactly and precisely that which could have been
predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. And the
knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation
that when the still lower Eocene deposits, and those which belong to
the Cretaceous epoch, have yielded up their remains of ancestral
equine animals, we shall find, first, a form with four complete toes
and a rudiment of the innermost or first digit in front, with,
probably, a rudiment of the fifth digit in the hind foot; while, in
still older forms, the series of the digits will be more and more
complete, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which, if the
doctrine of evolution is well founded, the whole series must have
taken its origin.
[Seldom has prophecy been sooner fulfilled. Within two months,
Professor Marsh had discovered a new genus of equine mammals,
Eohippus, from the lowest Eocene deposits of the West, which
corresponds very nearly to the description given above.
He continues:--]
That is what I mean by demonstrative evidence of evolution. An
inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are
shown to be in entire accordance with it. If that is not scientific
proof, there are no merely inductive conclusions which can be said to
be proved. And the doctrine of evolution, at the present time, rests
upon exactly as secure a foundation as the Copernican theory of the
motions of the heavenly bodies did at the time of its promulgation.
Its logical basis is of precisely the same character--the coincidence
of the observed facts with theoretical requirements.
[He left New York on September 23.] "I had a very pleasant trip in
Yankee-land," [he writes to Professor Baynes,] "and did NOT give
utterance to a good deal that I am reported to have said there." [He
reached England in good time for the beginning of his autumn lectures,
and his ordinary busy life absorbed him again. He did not fail to give
his London audiences the results of the recent discoveries in American
paleontology, and on December 4, delivered a lecture at the London
Institution, "On Recent Additions to the Knowledge of the Pedigree of
the Horse." In connection with this he writes to Professor Marsh:--]
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., December 27, 1876.
My dear Marsh,
I hope you do not think it remiss of me that I have not written to you
since my return, but you will understand that I plunged into a coil of
work, and will forgive me. But I do not mean to let you slip away
without sending you all our good wishes for its successor--which I
hope will not vanish without seeing you among us.
I blew your trumpet the other day at the London Institution in a
lecture about the Horse question. I did not know then that you had got
another step back as I see you have by the note to my last lecture,
which Youmans has just sent me.
I must thank you very heartily for the pains you have taken over the
woodcuts of the lectures. It is a great improvement to have the
patterns of the grinders.
I promised to give a lecture at the Royal Institution on the 21st
January next, and I am thinking of discoursing on the Birds with
teeth. Have you anything new to tell on that subject? I have implicit
faith in the inexhaustibility of the contents of those boxes.
Our voyage home was not so successful as that out. The weather was
cold and I got a chill which laid me up for several days, in fact I
was not well for some weeks after my return. But I am vigorous again
now.
Pray remember me kindly to all New Haven friends. My wife joins with
me in kindest regards and good wishes for the new year. "Tell him we
expect to see him next year."
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On December 16 he delivered a lecture "On the Study of Biology," in
connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South
Kensington ("Collected Essays" 3 262), dealing with the origin of the
name Biology, its relation to Sociology--] "we have allowed that
province of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you to
recollect that this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be
surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist
apparently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; or
meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part of
his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken"]--how to learn
biology, the use of Museums, and above all, the utility of biology, as
helping to give right ideas in this world, which] "is after all,
absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most
hypothetical ideas."
[This lecture on Biology was first published among the "American
Addresses" in 1877.
It was about this time that an extremely Broad Church divine was
endeavouring to obtain the signatures of men of science to a document
he had drawn up protesting against certain orthodox doctrines. Huxley,
however, refused to sign the protest, and wrote the following letter
of explanation, a copy of which he sent to Mr. Darwin.]
November 18, 1876.
Dear Sir,
I have read the "Protest," with a copy of which you have favoured me,
and as you wish that I should do so, I will trouble you with a brief
statement of my reasons for my inability to sign it.
I object to clause 2 on the ground long since taken by Hume that the
order of the universe such as we observe it to be, furnishes us with
the only data upon which we can base any conclusion as to the
character of the originator thereof.
As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins
affect endless generations of their progeny. Men are tempted, men are
punished for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own;
and they are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their
consciousness lasts.
The theological doctrines to which you refer, therefore, are simply
extensions of generalisations as well based as any in physical
science. Very likely they are illegitimate extensions of these
generalisations, but that does not make them wrong in principle.
And I should consider it waste of time to "protest" against that which
is.
As regards clause 3 I find that as a matter of experience, erroneous
beliefs are punished, and right beliefs are rewarded--though very
often the erroneous belief is based upon a more conscientious study of
the facts than the right belief. I do not see why this should not be
as true of theological beliefs as any others. And as I said before, I
do not care to protest against that which is.
Many thanks for your congratulations. My tour was very pleasant and
taught me a good deal.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.--You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.
4 Marlborough Place, November 19, 1876.
My dear Darwin,
I confess I have less sympathy with the half-and-half sentimental
school which he represents than I have with thoroughgoing orthodoxy.
If we are to assume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful
universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more
entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words,
than that he is malevolent and unjust. Infinite benevolence need not
have invented pain and sorrow at all--infinite malevolence would very
easily have deprived us of the large measure of content and happiness
that falls to our lot. After all, Butler's "Analogy" is unassailable,
and there is nothing in theological dogmas more contradictory to our
moral sense, than is to be found in the facts of nature. From which,
however, the Bishop's conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn't
follow.
With best remembrances to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This incident suggests the story of a retort he once made upon what
he considered an unseasonable protest in church, a story which
exemplifies, by the way, his strong sense of the decencies of life,
appearing elsewhere in his constant respect for the ordinary
conventions of his dislike for mere Bohemianism as such.
Once in a country house he was sitting at dinner next to his hostess,
a lady who, as will sometimes happen, liked to play the part of Lady
Arbitress of the whole neighbourhood. She told him how much she
disapproved of the Athanasian Creed, and described how she had risen
and left the village church when the parson began to read it; and
thinking to gain my father's assent, she turned to him and said
graciously, "Now Mr. Huxley, don't you think I was quite right to mark
my disapproval?"]
"My dear Lady --" [he replied,] "I should as soon think of rising and
leaving your table because I disapproved of one of the entrees."