1881.
[The last ten years had found Huxley gradually involved more and more
in official duties. Now, with the beginning of 1881, he became yet
more deeply engrossed in practical and administrative work, more
completely cut off from his favourite investigations, by his
appointment to an Inspectorship of Fisheries, in succession to the
late Frank Buckland. It is almost pathetic to note how he snatched at
any spare moments for biological research. No sooner was a long
afternoon's work at the Home Office done, than, as Professor Howes
relates, he would often take a hansom to the laboratory at South
Kensington, and spend a last half-hour at his dissections before going
home.
The Inspectorship, which was worth 700 pounds a year, he held in
addition to his post at South Kensington, the official description of
which now underwent another change. In the first place, his official
connection with the Survey appears to have ceased this year, the last
report made by him being in 1881. His name, however, still appeared in
connection with the post of Naturalist until his retirement in 1885,
and it was understood that his services continued to be available if
required. Next, in October of this year, the Royal School of Mines was
incorporated with the newly established Normal School--or as it was
called in 1890, Royal College of Science, and the title of Lecturer on
General Natural History was suppressed, and Huxley became Professor of
Biology and Dean of the College at a salary of 800 pounds, for it was
arranged on his appointment to the Inspectorship, that he should not
receive the salary attached to the post of Dean. Thus the Treasury
saved 200 pounds a year.
As Professor of Biology, he was under the Lord President of the
Council; as Inspector of Fisheries, under the Board of Trade; hence
some time passed in arranging the claims of the two departments before
the appointment was officially made known, as may be gathered from the
following letters:--]
To Sir John Donnelly.
4 Marlborough Place, December 27, 1880.
My dear Donnelly,
I tried hard to have a bad cold last night, and though I blocked him
with quinine, I think I may as well give myself the benefit of the
Bank Holiday and keep the house to-day.
There is a chance of your getting early salmon yet. I wrote to decline
the post on Friday, but on Saturday evening the Home Secretary sent a
note asking to see me yesterday. As he had re-opened the question, of
course I felt justified in stating all the pros and cons of the case
as personal to myself and my rather complicated official position...He
entered into the affair with a warmth and readiness which very
agreeably surprised me, and he proposes making such arrangements as
will not oblige me to have anything to do with the weirs or the actual
inspection. Under these circumstances the post would be lovely--if I
can hold it along with the other things. And of his own motion the
Home Secretary is going to write to Lord Spencer about it to see if he
cannot carry the whole thing through.
If this could be managed, I could get great things done in the matter
of fish culture and fish diseases at South Kensington, if poor dear
X.'s rattle trappery could be turned to proper account, without in any
way interfering with the work of the School.
At any rate, my book stands not to lose, and may win--the innocence of
the dove is not always divorced from the wisdom of the sarpent.
[Sketch of the "Sarpent."]
To Lord Farrer.
4 Marlborough Place, January 18, 1881.
My dear Farrer,
I have waited a day or two before thanking you for your very kind
letter, in the hope that I might be able to speak as one knowing where
he is.
But as I am still, in an official sense, nowhere, I will not delay any
longer.
I had never thought of the post, but the Home Secretary offered it to
me in a very kind and considerate manner, and after some hesitation I
accepted it. But some adjustment had to be made between my master, the
Lord President, and the Treasury; and although everybody seems
disposed to be very good to me, the business is not yet finally
settled. Whence the newspapers get their information I don't know--but
it is always wrong in these matters.
As you know, I have had a good apprenticeship to the work [He had
already served on two Fishery Committees, 1862 and 1864-5.]--and I
hope to be of some use; of the few innocent pleasures left to men past
middle life--the jamming common-sense down the throats of fools is
perhaps the keenest.
May we do some joint business in that way!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
To his eldest son.
February 14, 1881.
I have entered upon my new duties as Fishery Inspector, but you are
not to expect salmon to be much cheaper just yet.
My colleague and I have rooms at the Home Office, and I find there is
more occupation than I expected, but no serious labour.
Every now and then I shall have to spend a few days in the country,
holding inquiries, and as salmon rivers are all in picturesque parts
of the country, I shall not object to that part of the business.
[The duties of the new office were partly scientific, partly
administrative. On the one hand, the natural history and diseases of
fish had to be investigated; on the other, regulations had to be
carried out, weirs and salmon passes approved, disputes settled,
reports written. I find, for instance, that apart from the work in
London, visits of inspection in all parts of the country took up
twenty-eight days between March and September this year.
Sir Spencer Walpole, who was his colleague for some years, has kindly
given me an account of their work together.
Early in 1881, Sir William Harcourt appointed Professor Huxley one of
Her Majesty's Inspectors of Fisheries. The office had become vacant
through the untimely death, in the preceding December, of the late Mr.
Frank Buckland. Under an Act, passed twenty years before, the charge
of the English Salmon Fisheries had been placed under the Home Office,
and the Secretary of State had been authorised to appoint two
Inspectors to aid him in administering the law. The functions of the
Home Office and of the Inspectors were originally simple, but they had
been enlarged by an Act passed in 1873, which conferred on local
conservators elaborate powers of making bye-laws for the development
and preservation of the Fisheries. These bye-laws required the
approval of the Secretary of State, who was necessarily dependent on
the advice of his Inspectors in either allowing or disallowing them.
In addition to the nominal duties of the Inspectors, they became--by
virtue of their position--the advisers of the Government on all
questions connected with the Sea Fisheries of Great Britain. These
fisheries are nominally under the Board of Trade, but, as this Board
at that time had no machinery at its disposal for the purpose, it
naturally relied on the advice of the Home Office Inspectors in all
questions of difficulty, on which their experience enabled them to
speak with authority.
For duties such as these, which have been thus briefly described,
Professor Huxley had obvious qualifications. On all subjects relating
to the Natural History of Fish he spoke with decisive authority. But,
in addition to his scientific attainments, from 1863 to 1865 he had
been a member of the Commission which had conducted an elaborate
investigation into the condition of the Fisheries of the United
Kingdom, and had taken a large share in the preparation of a Report,
which--notwithstanding recent changes in law and policy--remains the
ablest and most exhaustive doctrine which has ever been laid before
Parliament on the subject.
This protracted investigation had convinced Professor Huxley that the
supply of fish in the deep sea was practically inexhaustible; and
that, however much it might be necessary to enforce the police of the
seas by protecting particular classes of sea fishermen from injury
done to their instruments by the operations of other classes, the
primary duty of the legislature was to develop sea fishing, and not to
place restrictions on sea fishermen for any fears of an exhaustion of
fish.
His scientific training, moreover, made him ridicule the modern notion
that it was possible to stock the sea by artificial methods. He wrote
to me, when the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 was in contemplation,]
"You may have seen that we have a new Fish Culture Society. C-- talked
gravely about our stocking the North Sea with cod! After that I
suppose we shall take up herrings: and I mean to propose whales,
which, as all the world knows, are terribly over fished!" [And after
the exhibition was over he wrote to me again, with reference to a
report which the Commission had asked me to draw up: ["I have just
finished reading your report, which has given me a world of
satisfaction...I am particularly glad that you have put in a word of
warning to the fish culturists." [When I was asked to write the report
on this Commission, I said that I would do so if Sir E. Birkbeck, its
chairman, and Professor Huxley, both met me to discuss the points to
be noticed. The meeting duly took place: and I opened it by asking
what was the chief lesson to be drawn from the exhibition?] "Well,"
[said Professor Huxley,] "the chief lesson to be drawn from the
exhibition is that London is in want of some open air amusement on
summer evenings."
[He was not, however, equally certain that particular areas of Sea
Shore might not be exhausted by our fishing. He extended in 1883 an
order which Mr. Buckland and I had made in 1879 for restricting the
taking of crabs and lobsters on the coast of Norfolk, and he wrote to
me on that occasion:] "I was at Cromer and Sheringham last week,
holding an inquiry for the Board of Trade about the working of your
order of 1879. According to all accounts, the crabs have multiplied
threefold in 1881 and 1882. Whether this is post hoc or propter hoc is
more than I should like to say. But at any rate, this is a very good
prima facie case for continuing the order, and I shall report
accordingly. Anyhow, the conditions are very favourable for a
long-continued experiment in the effects of regulation, and, ten years
hence, there will be some means of judging of the value of these
restrictions."
[If, however, Professor Huxley was strongly opposed to unnecessary
interference with the labours of sea fishermen, he was well aware of
the necessity of protecting migratory fish like salmon, against
over-fishing: and his reports for 1882 and 1883--in which he gave
elaborate accounts of the results of legislation on the Tyne and on
the Severn--show that he keenly appreciated the necessity of
regulating the Salmon Fisheries.
It so happened that at the time of his appointment, many of our
important rivers were visited by "Saprolegnia ferax," the fungoid
growth which became popularly known as Salmon Disease. Professor
Huxley gave much time to the study of the conditions under which the
fungus flourished: he devoted much space in his earlier reports to the
subject: and he read a paper upon it at a remarkable meeting of the
Royal Society in the summer of 1881. He took a keen interest in these
investigations, and he wrote to me from North Wales, at the end of
1881,] "The salmon brought to me here have not been so badly diseased
as I could have wished, and the fungus dies so rapidly out of the
water that only one specimen furnished me with materials in lively
condition. These I have cultivated: and to my great satisfaction have
got some flies infected. With nine precious muscoid corpses, more or
less ornamented with a lovely fur trimming of Saprolegnia, I shall
return to London to-morrow, and shall be ready in a short time, I
hope, to furnish Salmon Disease wholesale, retail, or for
exportation."
[In carrying out the duties of our office, Professor Huxley and I were
necessarily thrown into very close communication. There were few days
in which we did not pass some time in each other's company: there were
many weeks in which we travelled together through the river basins of
this country. I think that I am justified in saying that official
intercourse ripened into warm personal friendship, and that, for the
many months in which we served together, we lived on terms of intimacy
which are rare among colleagues or even among friends.
It is needless to say that, as a companion, Professor Huxley was the
most delightful of men. Those who have met him in society, or enjoyed
the hospitality of his house, must have been conscious of the singular
charm of a conversation, which was founded on knowledge, enlarged by
memory, and brightened by humour. But, admirable as he was in society,
no one could have realised the full charm of his company who had not
conversed with him alone. He had the rare art of placing men, whose
knowledge and intellect were inferior to his own, at their ease. He
knew how to draw out all that was best in the companion who suited
him; and he had equal pleasure in giving and receiving. Our
conversation ranged over every subject. We discussed together the
grave problems of man and his destiny; we disputed on the minor
complications of modern politics; we criticised one another's literary
judgments; and we laughed over the stories which we told one another,
and of which Professor Huxley had an inexhaustible fund.
In conversation Professor Huxley displayed the quality which
distinguished him both as a writer and a public speaker. He invariably
used the right words in the right sense. Those who are jointly
responsible--as he and I were often jointly responsible--for some
written document, have exceptional opportunities of observing this
quality. Professor Huxley could always put his finger on a wrong word,
and he always instinctively chose the right one. It was this
qualification--a much rarer one than people imagine--which made
Professor Huxley's essays clear to the meanest understanding, and
which made him, in my judgment, the greatest master of prose of his
time. The same quality was equally observable in his spoken speech. I
happened to be present at the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society,
at which Professor Huxley made his last speech. And, as he gave an
admirable account of the share which he had taken in defending Mr.
Darwin against his critics, I overheard the present Prime Minister
(Lord Salisbury.) say, "What a beautiful speaker he is."
In 1882, the duties of another appointment forced me to resign the
Inspectorship, which I had held for so long: and thenceforward my
residence in the Isle of Man gave me fewer opportunities of seeing
Professor Huxley: our friendship, however, remained unbroken; and
occasional visits to London gave me many opportunities of renewing it.
He retained his own appointment as Inspector for more than three years
after my resignation. He served, during the closing months of his
officialship, on a Royal Commission on trawling, over which the late
Lord Dalhousie presided. But his health broke down before the
commissioners issued their report, and he was ordered abroad. It so
happened that in the spring of 1885 I was staying at Florence, when
Professor and Mrs. Huxley passed through it on their way home. He had
at that time seen none of his old friends, and was only slowly
regaining strength. After his severe illness Mrs. Huxley encouraged me
to take him out for many short walks, and I did my best to cheer him
in his depressed condition. He did not then think that he had ten
years of--on the whole--happy life before him. He told me that he was
about to retire from all his work, and he added, that he had never
enjoyed the Inspectorship after I had left it. I am happy in believing
that the remark was due to the depression from which he was suffering,
for he had written to me two years ago,] "The office would be quite
perfect, if they did not want an annual report. I can't go in for a
disquisition on river basins after the manner of Buckland, and you
have exhausted the other topics. I polished off the Salmon Disease
pretty fully last year, so what the deuce am I to write about?"
[I saw Professor Huxley for the last time on the Christmas day before
his death. I spent some hours with him, with no other companions than
Mrs. Huxley and my daughter. I had never seen him brighter or happier,
and his rich, playful and sympathetic talk vividly recalled the many
brilliant hours which I had passed in his company some twelve or
thirteen years before.
One word more. No one could have known Professor Huxley intimately
without recognising that he delighted in combat. He was never happier
than when he was engaged in argument or controversy, and he loved to
select antagonists worthy of his steel. The first public inquiry which
we held together was attended by a great nobleman, whom Professor
Huxley did not know by sight, but who rose at the commencement of our
proceedings to offer some suggestions. Professor Huxley directed him
to sit down, and not interrupt the business. I told my colleague in a
whisper whom he was interrupting. And I was amused, as we walked away
to luncheon together, by his quaint remark to me,] "We have begun very
well, we have sat upon a duke." [(Of this he wrote home on March 15,
1881:] "Somebody produced the 'Punch' yesterday and showed it to me,
to the great satisfaction of the Duke of --, who has attended our two
meetings. I nearly had a shindy with him at starting, but sweetness
and light (in my person) carried the day." [This "Punch" contained the
cartoon of Huxley in nautical costume riding on a salmon; contrary to
the custom of "Punch," it made an unfair hit in appending to his name
the letters L.s.d. (Pounds, shillings and pence.) Never was any one
who deserved the imputation less.)
If, however, a love of argument and controversy occasionally led him
into hot water, I do not think that his polemical tendencies ever cost
him a friend. His antagonists must have recognised the fairness of his
methods, and must have been susceptible to the charm of the man. The
high example which he set in controversy, moreover, was equally
visible in his ordinary life. Of all the men I have ever known, his
ideas and his standard were--on the whole--the highest. He recognised
that the fact of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living
the most upright of lives, and I am very much of the opinion of a
little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who, when she was
told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future rewards, and no fear
of future punishments, emphatically declared: "Then I think Professor
Huxley is the best man I have ever known."
Extracts from his letters home give some further idea of the kind of
work entailed. Thus in March and again in May he was in Wales, and
writes:--]
Cromffyratellionptrroch, May 24.
Mr. Barrington's very pretty place about five miles from Abergavenny,
wherein I write, may or may not have the name which I have written on
at the top of the page, as it is Welsh; however it is probably that or
something like it. I forgot to inquire.
We are having the loveliest weather, and yesterday went looking up
weirs with more or less absurd passes up a charming valley not far
hence. It is just seven o'clock, and we are going to breakfast and
start at eight to fit in with the tides of the Severn. It is not
exactly clear where we shall be to-night...Now I must go to breakfast,
for I got up at six. Figurez vous ca.
Hereford, May 29.
We are favoured by the weather again, though it is bitter cold under
the bright sunshine. We stopped at Worcester yesterday, and I went to
examine some weirs hard by. This involved three or four miles' country
walking, and was all to the good. If the Inspector business were all
of this sort it would be all that fancy painted it. We shall have a
long sitting to-day...[(He fears to be detained into the night by
"over-fluent witnesses.")
In April he spent several days at Norwich, in connection with the
National Fishery Exhibition held there.]
April 19.
We had a gala day yesterday...The exhibition of all manner of fish and
fishing apparatus was ready, for a wonder, and looked very well. The
Prince and Princess arrived, and we had the usual address and reply
and march through. Afterwards a mighty dejeuner in the St. Andrew's
Hall--a fine old place looking its best. I was just opposite the
Princess, and I could not help looking at her with wonderment. She
looked so fresh and girlish. She came and talked to me afterwards in a
very pleasant simple way.
Walpole and I went in with our host yesterday afternoon and started to
return on the understanding that he should pick us up a few miles out.
Of course we took the wrong road, and walked all the way, some eight
miles or so. However, it did us good, and after a champagne lunch we
thought we could not do better than repeat the operation yesterday.
I feel quite set up by finding that after standing about for hours I
can walk eight miles without any particular fatigue. Life in the old
dog yet! Walpole is a capital companion--knows a great many things,
and talks well about them, so we get over the ground pleasantly.
April 20.
There was a long day of it yesterday looking over things in the
Exhibition till late in the afternoon, and then a mighty dinner in St.
Andrew's Hall given by a Piscatorial Society of which my host is
President. It was a weary sitting of five hours with innumerable
speeches. Of course I had to say "a few words," and if I can get a
copy of the papers I will send them to you. I flatter myself they were
words of wisdom, though hardly likely to contribute to my popularity
among the fishermen.
[On the 21st he gave an address on the Herring. To describe the
characteristics of this fish in the Eastern Counties, he says, might
seem like carrying coals to Newcastle; nevertheless the fisherman's
knowledge is not the same as that of the man of science, and includes
none but the vaguest notions of the ways of life of the fish and the
singularities of its organisation which perplexed biologists. His own
study of the problems connected with the herring had begun nineteen
years before, when he served on the first of his two Fishery
Commissions; and one of his chief objects in this address was to
insist upon a fact, borne out partly by the inquiries of the
Commission, partly by later investigations in Europe and America,
which it was difficult to make people appreciate, namely, the
impossibility of man's fisheries affecting the numbers of the herring
to any appreciable extent, a year's catch not amounting to the
estimated number of a single shoal; while the flatfish and cod
fisheries remove many of the most destructive enemies of the herring.
Those who had not studied the question in this light would say that
"it stands to reason" that vast fisheries must tend to exterminate the
fish; apropos of which, he made his well-known remark, that in
questions of biology] "if any one tells me 'it stands to reason' that
such and such things must happen, I generally find reason to doubt the
safety of his standing."
[This year, also, he began the investigations which completed former
inquiries into the subject, and finally elucidated the nature of the
salmon disease. The last link in the chain of evidence which proved
its identity with a fungoid disease of flies, was not reached until
March 1883; and on July 3 following he delivered a full account of the
disease, its nature and origin, in an address at the Fisheries
Exhibition in London.
In 1881, then, at the end of December, he went to North Wales to study
on the fresh fish the nature of the epidemic of salmon disease which
had broken out in the Conway, in spite of being in such bad health
that he was persuaded to let his younger son come and look after him.
But this was only a passing premonition of the breakdown which was to
come upon him three years after.
One year's work as Inspector was very like another. In 1882, for
instance, on January 21, he is at Berwick, "voiceless but jolly"; in
the spring he had to attend a Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh, and
writes:--]
April 12.
We have opened our Exhibition, and I have been standing about looking
at the contents until my back is broken.
April 13.
The weather here is villainous--a regular Edinburgh "coorse day." I
have seen all I wanted to see of the Exhibition, eaten two heavy
dinners, one with Primrose and one with Young, and want to get home.
Walpole and I are dining domestically at home this evening, having
virtuously refused all invitations.
[In June he was in Hampshire; on July 25 he writes from Tynemouth:--]
I reached here about 5 o'clock, and found the bailiff or whatever they
call him of the Board of Conservators, awaiting me with a boat at my
disposal. So we went off to look at what they call "The
Playground"--two bays in which the salmon coming from the sea rest and
disport themselves until a fresh comes down the river and they find it
convenient to ascend. Harbottle bailiff in question is greatly
disturbed at the amount of poaching that goes on in the playground,
and unfolded his griefs to me at length. It was a lovely evening, very
calm, and I enjoyed my boat expedition. To-morrow there is to be
another to see the operations of a steam trawler, which in all
probability I shall not enjoy so much. I shall take a light breakfast.
[These were the pleasanter parts of the work. The less pleasant was
sitting all day in a crowded court, hearing a disputed case of fishing
rights, or examining witnesses who stuck firmly to views about fish
which had long been exploded by careful observation. But on the whole
he enjoyed it, although it took him away from research in other
departments. This summer, on the death of Professor Rolleston, he was
sounded on the question whether he would consent to accept the Linacre
Professorship of Physiology at Oxford. He wrote to the Warden of
Merton:--]
4 Marlborough Place, June 22, 1881.
My dear Brodrick,
Many thanks for your letter. I can give you my reply at once, as my
attention has already been called to the question you ask; and it is
that I do not see my way to leaving London for Oxford. My reasons for
arriving at this conclusion are various. I am getting old, and you
should have a man in full vigour. I doubt whether the psychical
atmosphere of Oxford would suit me, and still more, whether I should
suit it after a life spent in the absolute freedom of London. And
last, but by no means least, for a man with five children to launch
into the world, the change would involve a most serious loss of
income. No doubt there are great attractions on the other side; and,
if I had been ten years younger, I should have been sorely tempted to
go to Oxford, if the University would have had me. But things being as
they are, I do not see my way to any other conclusion than that which
I have reached.
[The same feeling finds expression in a letter to Professor
(afterwards Sir William) Flower, who was also approached on the same
subject, and similarly determined to remain in London.]
July 21, 1881.
My dear Flower,
I am by no means surprised, and except for the sake of the University,
not sorry that you have renounced the Linacre.
Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be
fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if
one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.
I assure you it is a great comfort to me to think that you will stay
in London and help in keeping things straight in this world of
crookedness.
I have thought a good deal about --, but it would never do. No one
could value his excellent qualities of all kinds, and real genius in
some directions, more than I do; but, in my judgment, nobody could be
less fitted to do the work which ought to be done in Oxford--I mean to
give biological science a status in the eyes of the Dons, and to force
them to acknowledge it as a part of general education. Moreover, his
knowledge, vast and minute as it is in some directions, is very
imperfect in others, and the attempt to qualify himself for the post
would take him away from the investigations, which are his delight and
for which he is specially fitted...
I was very much interested in your account of the poor dear Dean's
illness. I called on Thursday morning, meeting Jowett and Grove at the
door, and we went in and heard such an account of his state that I had
hopes he might pull through. We shall not see his like again.
The last time I had a long talk with him was about the proposal to
bury George Eliot in the Abbey, and a curious revelation of the
extraordinary catholicity and undaunted courage of the man it was. He
would have done it had it been pressed upon him by a strong
representation.
I see he is to be buried on Monday, and I suppose and hope I shall
have the opportunity of attending.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This letter refers to the death of his old friend Dean Stanley. The
Dean had long kept in touch with the leaders of scientific thought,
and it is deeply interesting to know that on her death-bed, five years
before, his wife said to him as one of her parting counsels, "Do not
lose sight of the men of science, and do not let them lose sight of
you." "And then," writes Stanley to Tyndall, "she named yourself and
Huxley."
Strangely enough, the death of the Dean involved another invitation to
Huxley to quit London for Oxford. By the appointment of Dean Bradley
to Westminster, the Mastership of University College was left vacant.
Huxley, who was so far connected with the college that he had examined
there for a science Fellowship, was asked if he would accept it, but
after careful consideration declined. He writes to his son, who had
heard rumours of the affair in Oxford:--]
4 Marlborough Place, November 4, 1881.
My dear Lens,
There is truth in the rumour; in so far as this that I was asked if I
would allow myself to be nominated for the Mastership of University,
that I took the question into serious consideration and finally
declined.
But I was asked to consider the communication made to me confidential,
and I observed the condition strictly. The leakage must have taken
place among my Oxford friends, and is their responsibility, but at the
same time I would rather you did not contribute to the rumour on the
subject. Of course I should have told you if I had not been bound to
reticence.
I was greatly tempted for a short time by the prospect of rest, but
when I came to look into the matter closely there were many
disadvantages. I do not think I am cut out for a Don nor your mother
for a Donness--we have had thirty years' freedom in London, and are
too old to put in harness.
Moreover, in a monetary sense I should have lost rather than gained.
My astonishment at the proposal was unfeigned, and I begin to think I
may yet be a Bishop.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[His other occupations this year were the Medical Acts Commission,
which sat until the following year, and the International Medical
Congress.
The Congress detained him in London this summer later than usual. It
lasted from the 3rd to the 9th of August, on which day he delivered a
concluding address on "The Connection of the Biological Sciences with
Medicine" ("Collected Essays" 3 page 347). He showed how medicine was
gradually raised from mere empiricism and based upon true pathological
principles, through the independent growth of physiological knowledge,
and its correlation to chemistry and physics.] "It is a peculiarity,"
[he remarks,] "of the physical sciences that they are independent in
proportion as they are imperfect." [Yet] "there could be no real
science of pathology until the science of physiology had reached a
degree of perfection unattained, and indeed unattainable, until quite
recent times." [Historically speaking, modern physiology, he pointed
out, began with Descartes' attempt to explain bodily phenomena on
purely physical principles; but the Cartesian notion of one
controlling central mechanism had to give way before the proof of
varied activities residing in various tissues, until the cell-theory
united something of either view. "The body is a machine of the nature
of an army, not that of a watch or of a hydraulic apparatus." On this
analogy, diseases are derangements either of the physiological units
of the body, or of their coordinating machinery: and the future of
medicine depends on exact knowledge of these derangements and of the
precise alteration of the conditions by the administration of drugs or
other treatment, which will redress those derangements without
disturbing the rest of the body.
A few extracts from letters to his wife describe his occupation at the
Congress, which involved too much "society" for his liking.]
August 4.
The Congress began with great eclat yesterday, and the latter part of
Paget's address was particularly fine. After, there was the lunch at
the Paget's with the two Royalties. After that, an address by Virchow.
After that, dinner at Sanderson's, with a confused splutter of German
to the neighbours on my right. After that a tremendous soiree at South
Kensington, from which I escaped as soon as I could, and got home at
midnight. There is a confounded Lord Mayor's dinner this evening ("The
usual turtle and speeches to the infinite bewilderment and delight of
the foreigners," August 6), and to-morrow a dinner at the
Physiological Society. But I have got off the Kew party, and mean to
go quietly down to the Spottiswoodes [i.e. at Sevenoaks] on Saturday
afternoon, and get out of the way of everything except the College of
Surgeons' Soiree, till Tuesday. Commend me for my prudence.
[On the 5th he was busy all day with Government Committees, only
returning to correct proofs of his address before the social functions
of the evening. Next morning he writes:--]
I have been toiling at my address this morning. It is all printed, but
I must turn it inside out, and make a speech of it if I am to make any
impression on the audience in St. James' Hall. Confound all such
bobberies.
August 9.
I got through my address to-day as well as I ever did anything. There
was a large audience, as it was the final meeting of the Congress, and
to my surprise I found myself in excellent voice and vigour. So there
is life in the old dog yet. But I am greatly relieved it is over, as I
have been getting rather shaky.
[When the Medical Congress was over, he joined his family at Grasmere
for the rest of August. In September he attended the British
Association at York, where he read a paper on the "Rise and Progress
of Palaeontology," and ended the month with fishery business at
Aberystwith and Carmarthen.
The above paper is to be found in "Collected Essays," 4 page 24. In it
he concludes an historical survey of the views held about fossils by a
comparison of the opposite hypothesis upon which the vast store of
recently accumulated facts may be interpreted; and declaring for the
hypothesis of evolution, repeats the remarkable words of the "Coming
of Age of the Origin of Species," that] "the paleontological
discoveries of the last decade are so completely in accordance with
the requirements of this hypothesis that, if it had not existed, the
paleontologist would have had to invent it."
[In February died Thomas Carlyle. Mention has already been made of the
influence of his writings upon Huxley in strengthening and fixing once
for all, at the very outset of his career, that hatred of shams and
love of veracity, which were to be the chief principle of his whole
life. It was an obligation he never forgot, and for this, if for
nothing else, he was ready to join in a memorial to the man. In reply
to a request for his support in so doing, he wrote to Lord Stanley of
Alderley on March 9:--]
Anything I can do to help in raising a memorial to Carlyle shall be
most willingly done. Few men can have dissented more strongly from his
way of looking at things than I; but I should not yield to the most
devoted of his followers in gratitude for the bracing wholesome
influence of his writings when, as a very young man, I was essaying
without rudder or compass to strike out a course for myself.
[Mention has already been made of his ill-health at the end of the
year, which was perhaps a premonition of the breakdown of 1883. An
indication of the same kind may be found in the following letter to
Mrs. Tyndall, who had forwarded a document which Dr. Tyndall had meant
to send himself with an explanatory note.]
4 Marlborough Place, March 25, 1881.
My dear Mrs. Tyndall,
But where is his last note to me? That is the question on which I have
been anxiously hoping for light since I received yours and the
enclosure, which contains such a very sensible proposition that I
should like to know how it came into existence, abiogenetically or
otherwise.
As I am by way of forgetting everything myself just now, it is a
comfort to me to believe that Tyndall has forgotten he forgot to send
the letter of which he forgot the inclosure. The force of
disremembering could no further go.
In affectionate bewilderment, ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[His general view of his health, however, was much more optimistic, as
appears from a letter to Mrs. May (wife of the friend of his boyhood)
about her son, whose strength had been sapped by typhoid fever, and
who had gone out to the Cape to recruit.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 10, 1881.
My dear Mrs. May,
I promised your daughter the other day that I would send you the
Bishop of Natal's letter to me. Unfortunately I had mislaid it, and it
only turned up just now when I was making one of my periodical
clearances in the chaos of papers that accumulates on my table.
You will be pleased to see how fully the good Bishop appreciates
Stuart's excellent qualities, and as to the physical part of the
business, though it is sad enough that a young man should be impeded
in this way, I think you should be hopeful. Delicate young people
often turn out strong old people--I was a thread paper of a boy
myself, and now I am an extremely tough old personage...
With our united kind regards to Mr. May and yourself,
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Perhaps if he had been able each year to carry out the wish expressed
in the following letter, which covered an introduction to Dr. Tyndall
at his house on the Bel Alp, the breakdown of 1883 might have been
averted.]
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., July 5 [1881?].
My dear Skelton,
It is a great deal more than I would say for everybody, but I am sure
Tyndall will be very much obliged to me for making you known to him;
and if you, insignificant male creature, how very much more for the
opportunity of knowing Mrs. Skelton!
For which last pretty speech I hope the lady will make a prettier
curtsey. So go boldly across the Aletsch, and if they have a knocker
(which I doubt), knock and it shall be opened unto you.
I wish I were going to be there too; but Royal Commissions are a kind
of endemic in my constitution, and I have a very bad one just now.
[The Medical Acts Commission 1881-2.]
With kind remembrances to Mrs. Skelton,
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The ecclesiastical sound of his new title of Dean of the College of
Science afforded him a good deal of amusement. He writes from
Grasmere, where he had joined his family for the summer vacation:--]
August 18, 1881.
My dear Donnelly,
I am astonished that you don't known that a letter to a Dean ought to
be addressed "The Very Reverend." I don't generally stand much upon
etiquette, but when my sacred character is touched I draw the line.
We had athletics here yesterday, and as it was a lovely day, all
Cumberland and Westmoreland sent contingents to see the fun...
This would be a grand place if it were drier, but the rain it raineth
every day--yesterday being the only really fine day since our arrival.
However, we all thrive, so I suppose we are adapting ourselves to the
medium, and shall be scaly and finny before long.
Haven't you done with Babylon yet? It is high time you were out of it.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.