1884.
[From this time forward the burden of ill-health grew slowly and
steadily. Dyspepsia and the hyperchondriacal depression which follows
in its train, again attacked Huxley as they had attacked him twelve
years before, though this time the physical misery was perhaps less.
His energy was sapped; when his official work was over, he could
hardly bring himself to renew the investigations in which he had
always delighted. To stoop over the microscope was a physical
discomfort; he began to devote himself more exclusively to the reading
of philosophy and critical theology. This was the time of which Sir M.
Foster writes that "there was something working in him which made his
hand, when turned to anatomical science, so heavy that he could not
lift it. Not even that which was so strong within him, the duty of
fulfilling a promise, could bring him to the work."
Up to the beginning of October, he went on with his official work, the
lectures at South Kensington, the business as President of the Royal
Society, and ex officio Trustee of the British Museum; the duties
connected with the Inspectorship of Fisheries, the City and Guilds
Technical Education Committee, and the University of London, and
delivered the opening address at the London Hospital Medical School,
on "The State and the Medical Profession" ["Collected Essays" 3 323),
his health meanwhile growing less and less satisfactory. He dropped
minor offices, such as the Presidency of the National Association of
Science Teachers, which, he considered, needed more careful
supervision than he was able to give, and meditated retiring from part
at least of his main duties, when he was ordered abroad at a moment's
notice for first one, then another, and yet a third period of two
months. But he did not definitely retire until this rest had proved
ineffectual to fit him again for active work.
The President of the Royal Society is, as mentioned above, an ex
officio Trustee of the British Museum, so that now, as again in 1888,
circumstances at length brought about the state of affairs which
Huxley had once indicated--half jestingly--to Robert Lowe, who
inquired of him what would be the best course to adopt with respect to
the Natural History collections of the British Museum:--] "Make me a
Trustee and Flower director." [At this moment, the question of an
official residence for the Director of the Natural History Museum was
under discussion with the Treasury, and he writes:--]
February 29, 1884.
My dear Flower,
I am particularly glad to hear your news. "Ville qui parle et femme
qui ecoute se rendent," says the wicked proverb--and it is true of
Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A pendent to this is a letter of congratulation to Sir Henry Roscoe
on his knighthood:--]
Science and Art Department, South Kensington, July 7, 1884.
My dear Roscoe,
I am very glad to see that the Government has had the grace to make
some acknowledgment of their obligation to you, and I wish you and "my
lady" long enjoyment of your honours. I don't know if you are gazetted
yet, so I don't indicate them outside.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.
I wrote some weeks ago to the Secretary of the National Association of
Science Teachers to say that I must give up the Presidency. I had come
to the conclusion that the Association wants sharp looking after, and
that I can't undertake that business.
P.S. 2.
Shall I tell you what your great affliction henceforward will be? It
will be to hear yourself called Sr'enery Roscoe by the flunkies who
announce you.
Her Ladyship will please take note of this crumpled rose leaf--I am
sure of its annoying her.
[The following letter, with its comparison of life to a whirlpool and
its acknowledgment of the widespread tendency in mankind to make
idols, was written in answer to some inquiries from Lady Welby:--]
April 8, 1884.
Your letter requires consideration, and I have had very little leisure
lately. Whether motion disintegrates or integrates is, I apprehend, a
question of conditions. A whirlpool in a stream may remain in the same
spot for any imaginable time. Yet it is the effect of the motion of
the particles of the water in that spot which continually integrate
themselves into the whirlpool and disintegrate themselves from it. The
whirlpool is permanent while the conditions last, though its
constituents incessantly change. Living bodies are just such
whirlpools. Matter sets into them in the shape of food,--sets out of
them in the shape of waste products. Their individuality lies in the
constant maintenance of a characteristic form, not in the preservation
of material identity. I do not know anything about "vitality" except
as a name for certain phenomena like "electricity" or "gravitation."
As you get deeper into scientific questions you will find that "Name
ist Schall und Rauch" even more emphatically than Faust says it is in
Theology. Most of us are idolators, and ascribe divine powers to the
abstractions "Force," "Gravity," "Vitality," which our own brains have
created. I do not know anything about "inert" things in nature. If we
reduce the world to matter and motion, the matter is not "inert,"
inasmuch as the same amount of motion affects different kinds of
matter in different ways. To go back to my own illustration. The
fabric of the watch is not inert, every particle of it is in violent
and rapid motion, and the winding-up simply perturbs the whole
infinitely complicated system in a particular fashion. Equilibrium
means death, because life is a succession of changes, while a changing
equilibrium is a contradiction in terms. I am not at all clear that a
living being is comparable to a machine running down. On this side of
the question the whirlpool affords a better parallel than the watch.
If you dam the stream above or below, the whirlpool dies; just as the
living being does if you cut off its food, or choke it with its own
waste products. And if you alter the sides or bottom of the stream you
may kill the whirlpool, just as you kill the animal by interfering
with its structure. Heat and oxidation as a source of heat appear to
supply energy to the living machine, the molecular structure of the
germ furnishing the "sides and bottom of the stream," that is,
determining the results which the energy supplied shall produce.
Mr. Ashby writes like a man who knows what he is talking about. His
exposition appears to me to be essentially sound and extremely well
put. I wish there were more sanitary officers of the same stamp. Mr.
Spencer is a very admirable writer, and I set great store by his
works. But we are very old friends, and he has endured me as a sort of
"devil's advocate" for thirty-odd years. He thinks that if I can pick
no holes in what he says he is safe. But I pick a great many holes,
and we agree to differ.
[Between April and September, Fishery business took him out of London
for no less than forty-three days, first to Cornwall, then in May to
Brixham, in June to Cumberland and Yorkshire, in July to Chester, and
in September to South Devon, Cornwall, and Wales. A few extracts from
his letters home may be given. Just before starting, he writes from
Marlborough Place to Rogate, where his wife and one of his daughters
were staying:--]
April 8.
The weather turned wonderfully muggy here this morning, and turned me
into wet paper. But I contrived to make a "neat and appropriate" in
presenting old Hird with his testimonial. Fayrer and I were students
under him forty years ago, and as we stood together it was a question
which was the greyest old chap.
April 14.
I have almost given up reading the Egyptian news, I am so disgusted
with the whole business. I saw several pieces of land to let for
building purposes about Falmouth, but did not buy. [This was to twit
his wife with her constant desire that he should buy a bit of land in
the country to settle upon in their old age.]
April 18.
You don't say when you go back, so I direct this to Rogate. I shall
expect to see you quite set up. We must begin to think seriously about
getting out of the hurly-burly a year or two hence, and having an
Indian summer together in peace and quietness.
April 15, Sunday, Falmouth.
I went out at ten o'clock this morning, and did not get back till near
seven. But I got a cup of tea and some bread and butter in a country
village, and by the help of that and many pipes supported nature.
There was a bitter east wind blowing, but the day was lovely
otherwise, and by judicious dodging in coves and creeks and sandy
bays, I escaped the wind and absorbed a prodigious quantity of
sunshine.
I took a volume of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" with me.
I had not read the famous 15th and 16th chapters for ages, and I lay
on the sands and enjoyed them properly. A lady came and spoke to me as
I returned, who knew L. at Oxford very well--can't recollect her
name--and her father and mother are here, and I have just been
spending an hour with them. Also a man who sat by me at dinner knew me
from Jack's portrait. So my incognito is not very good. I feel quite
set up by my day's wanderings.
May 11, Torquay.
We went over to Brixham yesterday to hold an inquiry, getting back
here to an eight o'clock or nearer nine dinner...Dalhousie has
discovered that the officer now in command of the "Britannia" is
somebody whom he does NOT know, so we gave up going to Dartmouth and
agreed to have a lazy day here. It is the most exquisite summer
weather you can imagine, and I have been basking in the sun all the
morning and dreamily looking over the view of the lovely bay which is
looking its best--but take it all round it does not come up to Lynton.
Dalhousie is more likeable than ever, and I am just going out for a
stroll with him.
June 24.
I left Keswick this morning for Cockermouth, took the chair at my
meeting punctually at twelve, sat six mortal hours listening to
evidence, nine-tenths of which was superfluous--and turning my lawyer
faculty to account in sifting the grains of fact out of the other
tenth.
June 25, Leeds.
...We had a long drive to a village called Harewood on the Wharfe.
There is a big Lord lives there--Earl of Harewood--and he and his
ancestors must have taken great care of their tenants, for the
labourers' houses are the best I ever saw...I cut out the enclosed
from the "Standard" the other day to amuse you, but have forgotten to
send it before [Apparently announcing that he was about to accept a
title. I have not been able to trace the paragraph.] I think we will
be "Markishes," the lower grades are getting common.
June 27.
...I had a long day's inspection of the Wharfe yesterday, attended a
meeting of the landed proprietors at Ottley to tell them what they
must do if they would get salmon up their river...
I shall leave here to-morrow morning, go on to Skipton, whence seven
or eight miles' drive will take me to Linton where there is an
obstruction in the river I want to see. In the afternoon I shall come
home from Skipton, but I don't know exactly by what train. As far as I
see, I ought to be home by about 10.30, and you may have something
light for supper, as the "course of true feeding is not likely to run
smooth"--to-morrow.
[In August he went again to the corner of Surrey which he had enjoyed
so much the year before. Here, in the intervals of suffering under the
hands of the dentist, he worked at preparing a new edition of the
"Elementary Physiology" with Sir M. Foster, alternating with fresh
studies in critical theology.
The following letters reflect his occupations at this time, together
with his desire, strongly combated by his friend, of resigning the
Presidency of the Royal Society immediately.]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 9, 1884.
My dear Foster,
I had to go up to town on Friday, and yesterday I went and had all my
remaining teeth out, and came down here again with a shrewd suspicion
that I was really drunk and incapable, however respectable I might
look outwardly. At present I can't eat at all, and I CAN'T SMOKE WITH
ANY COMFORT. For once I don't mind using italics.
Item.--I send the two cuts.
Heaven be praised! I had brought down no copy of Physiology with me,
so could not attend to your proof. Got it yesterday, so I am now at
your mercy.
But I have gone over the proofs now, and send you a deuce of a lot of
suggestions.
Just think over additions to smell and taste to bring these into
harmony.
The Saints salute you. I am principally occupied in studying the
gospels.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 26, 1884.
Dearly Beloved,
I have been going over the ear chapter this morning, and, as you will
see, have suggested some additions. Those about the lamina spiralis
are certainly necessary--illus. substitution of trihedral for
triangular. [(On September 8, he writes:--] "I have been laughing over
my 'trihedron.' It is a regular bull.") I want also very much to get
into heads of students that in sensation it is all modes of motion up
to and in sensorium, and that the generation of feeling is the
specific reaction of a particle of the sensorium when stimulated, just
as contraction, etc., is the specific reaction of a muscular fibre
when stimulated by its nerve. The psychologists make the fools of
themselves they do because they have never mastered this elementary
fact. But I am not sure whether I have put it well, and I wish you
would give your mind to it. As for me I have not had much mind to give
lately--a fortnight's spoon-meat reduced me to inanity, and I am only
just picking up again. However, I walked ten miles yesterday
afternoon, so there is not much the matter.
I will see what I can do about the histology business. ("Most of our
examinees" [he writes on September 5] "have not a notion of what
histology means at present. I think it will be good for other folks to
get it into their heads that it is not all sections and carmine.") I
wanted to re-write it, but I am not sure yet whether I shall be able.
Between ourselves, I have pretty well made up my mind to clear out of
everything next year, Royal Society included. I loathe the thought of
wasting any more of my life in endless distractions--and so long as I
live in London there is no escape for me. I have half a mind to live
abroad for six months in the year.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I enclose letter from Deutsch lunatic to go before Council and be
answered by Foreign Secretary.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, August 29, 1884.
Dearly Beloved,
I enclose the proofs, having mustered up volition enough to go over
them at once. I think the alterations will be great improvements. I
see you interpret yourself about the movements of the larynx.
As to the histology, I shall have a shot at it, but if I do not send
you manuscript in a week's time, go ahead. I am perplexed about the
illustrations, but I see nothing for it but to have new ones in all
the cases which you have marked. Have you anybody in Cambridge who can
draw the things from preparations?
You are like Trochu with your "plan," and I am anxious to learn it.
But have you reflected, 1st, that I am getting deafer and deafer, and
that I cannot hear what is said at the council table and in the
Society's rooms half the time people are speaking? and 2nd, that so
long as I am President, so long must I be at the beck and call of
everything that turns up in relation to the interests of science. So
long as I am in the chair, I cannot be a faineant or refuse to do
anything and everything incidental to the position.
My notion is to get away for six months, so as to break with the
"world, the flesh, and the devil" of London, for all which I have
conceived a perfect loathing. Six months is long enough for anybody to
be forgotten twice over by everybody but personal friends.
I am contemplating a winter in Italy, but I shall keep on my house for
Harry's sake and as a pied a terre in London, and in the summer come
and look at you at Burlington House, as the old soap-boiler used to
visit the factory. I shall feel like the man out of whom the legion of
devils departed when he looked at the gambades of the two thousand
pigs going at express speed for the waters of Tiberias.
By the way, did you ever read that preposterous and immoral story
carefully? It is one of the best attested of the miracles...
When I have retired from the chair (which I must not scandalise) I
shall write a lay sermon on the text. It will be impressive.
My wife sends her love, and says she has her eye on you. She is all
for retirement.
Ever yours,
I am very sorry to hear of poor Mangles' death, but I suppose there
was no other chance.
T.H.H.
[In September he hails with delight some intermission of the constant
depression under which he has been labouring, and writes:--]
So long as I sit still and write or read I am all right, otherwise not
good for much, which is odd, considering that I eat, drink, and sleep
like a top. I suppose that everybody starts with a certain capital of
life-stuff, and that expensive habits have reduced mine.
[And again:--]
I have been very shaky for the last few weeks, but I am picking up
again, and hope to come up smiling for the winter's punishment.
There was nothing to drink last night, so I had some tea! with my
dinner--smoked a pipe or two--slept better than usual, and woke
without blue devils for the first time for a week!!! Query, is that
the effect of tea or baccy? I shall try them again. We are fearfully
and wonderfully made, especially in the stomach--which is altogether
past finding out.
[Still, his humour would flash out in the midst of his troubles; he
writes in answer to a string of semi-official inquiries from Sir J.
Donnelly:--]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming.
Sir,
In reply to your letter of the 9th August (666), I have the honour to
state:--
1. That I am here.
2. That I have (a) had all my teeth out; (b) partially sprained my
right thumb; (c) am very hot; (d) can't smoke with comfort; whence I
may leave even official intelligence to construct an answer to your
second inquiry.
3. Your third question is already answered under 2a. Not writing might
be accounted for by 2b, but unfortunately the sprain is not bad
enough--and "laziness, sheer laziness" is the proper answer.
I am prepared to take a solemn affidavit that I told you and Macgregor
where I was coming many times, and moreover that I distinctly formed
the intention of leaving my address in writing--according to those
official instructions which I always fulfil.
If the intention was not carried out, its blood be upon its own
head--I wash my hands of it, as Pilate did.
4. As to the question whether I WANT my letters I can sincerely
declare that I don't--would in fact much rather not see them. But I
suppose for all that they had better be sent.
5. I hope Macgregor's question is not a hard one--spoon-meat does not
carry you beyond words of one syllable.
On Friday I signalised my last dinner for the next three weeks by
going to meet the G.O.M. I sat next him, and he was as lively as a
bird.
Very sorry to hear about your house. You will have to set up a van
with a brass knocker and anchor on our common.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[By the beginning of September he had made up his mind that he ought
before long to retire from active life. The first person to be told of
his resolution was the head of the Science and Art Department, with
whom he had worked so long at South Kensington.]
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, September 3, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
I was very glad to have news of you yesterday. I gather you are
thriving, notwithstanding the appalling title of your place of refuge.
I should have preferred "blow the cold" to "Cold blow"--but there is
no accounting for tastes.
I have been going and going to write to you for a week past to tell
you of a notion that has been maturing in my mind for some time, and
that I ought to let you know of before anybody else. I find myself
distinctly aged--tired out body and soul, and for the first time in my
life fairly afraid of the work that lies before me in the next nine
months. Physically, I have nothing much to complain of except
weariness--and for purely mental work, I think I am good for something
yet. I am morally and mentally sick of society and
societies--committees, councils--bother about details and general
worry and waste of time.
I feel as if more than another year of it would be the death of me.
Next May I shall be sixty, and have been thirty-one mortal years in my
present office in the School. Surely I may sing my nunc dimittis with
a good conscience. I am strongly inclined to announce to the Royal
Society in November that the chair will be vacant that day twelve
month--to resign my Government posts at mid-summer, and go away and
spend the winter in Italy--so that I may be out of reach of all the
turmoil of London.
The only thing I don't like is the notion of leaving you without such
support as I can give in the School. No one knows better than I do how
completely it is your work and how gallantly you have borne the
trouble and responsibility connected with it. But what am I to do? I
must give up all or nothing--and I shall certainly come to grief if I
do not have a long rest.
Pray tell me what you think about it all.
My wife has written to Mrs. Donnelly and told her the news.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Read Hobbes if you want to get hard sense in good English.
Highcroft House, Milford, Godalming, September 10, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
Many thanks for your kind letter. I feel rather like a deserter, and
am glad of any crumbs of comfort.
Cartwright has done wonders for me, and I can already eat most things
(I draw the line at tough crusts). I have not even my old enemy,
dyspepsia--but eat, drink, and sleep like a top.
And withal I am as tired as if I were hard at work, and shirk walking.
So far as I can make out there is not the slightest sign of organic
disease anywhere, but I will get Clark to overhaul me when I go back
to town. Sometimes I am inclined to suspect that it is all sham and
laziness--but then why the deuce should I want to sham and be lazy.
Somebody started a charming theory years ago--that as you get older
and lose volition, primitive evil tendencies, heretofore mastered,
come out and show themselves. A nice prospect for venerable old
gentlemen!
Perhaps my crust of industry is denuded, and the primitive rock of
sloth is cropping out.
But enough of this egotistical invalidism.
How wonderfully Gordon is holding his own. I should like to see him
lick the Mahdi into fits before Wolseley gets up. You despise the
Jews, but Gordon is more like one of the Maccabees of Bar-Kochba than
any sort of modern man.
My wife sends love to both of you, and says you are (in feminine
language) "a dear thing in friends."
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Home Office, September 18, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
We have struck our camp at Milford, and I am going down to Devonshire
and Cornwall to-morrow--partly on Fishery business, partly to see if I
can shake myself straighter by change of air. I am possessed by seven
devils--not only blue, but of the deepest indigo--and I shall try to
transplant them into a herd of Cornish swine.
The only thing that comforts me is Gordon's telegrams. Did ever a poor
devil of a Government have such a subordinate before? He is the most
refreshing personality of this generation.
I shall be back by 30th September--and I hope in better condition for
harness than now.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Replying to General Donnelly's arguments against his resigning all
his official posts, he writes:--]
Dartmouth, September 21, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
Your letters, having made a journey to Penzance (where I told my wife
I should go last Friday, but did not, and brought up here instead)
turned up this morning.
I am glad to have seen Lord Carlingford's letter, and I am very much
obliged to him for his kind expressions. Assuredly I will not decide
hastily.
Now for your letter--I am all for letters in these matters. Not that
we are either of us "impatient and irritable listeners"--oh dear, no!
"I have my faults," as the miser said, "but AVARICE is not one of
them"--and we have our faults too, but notoriously they lie in the
direction of long-suffering and apathy.
Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said for writing. MINE is
itself a discipline in patience for my correspondent.
Imprimis. I scorn all your chaff about Society. My great object for
years has been to keep out of it, not to go into it. Just you wait
till the Misses Donnelly grow up--I trust there may be five or ten of
them--and see what will happen to you. But apart from this, so long as
I live in London, so long will it be practically impossible for me to
keep out of dining and giving of dinners--and you know that just as
well as I do.
2nd. I mean to give up the Presidency, but don't see my way to doing
so next St. Andrew's Day. I wish I could--but I must deal fairly by
the Society.
3rd. The suggestion of the holiday at Christmas is the most sensible
thing you have said. I could get six weeks under the new arrangement
("Botany," January and half February) without interfering with my
lectures at all. But then there is the blessed Home Office to
consider. There might be civil war between the net men and the rod men
in six weeks, all over the country, without my mild influence.
4th. I must give up my Inspectorship. The mere thought of having to
occupy myself with the squabbles of these idiots of country squireens
and poachers makes me sick--and is, I believe, the chief cause of the
morbid state of my mucous membranes.
All this week shall I be occupied in hearing one Jackass contradict
another Jackass about questions which are of no importance.
I would almost as soon be in the House of Commons.
Now see how reasonable I am. I agree with you (a) that I must get out
of the hurly-burly of society; (b) that I must get out of the
Presidency; (c) that I must get out of the Inspectorship, or rather I
agree with myself on that matter, you having expressed no opinion.
That being so, it seems to me that I must, willy-nilly, give up South
Kensington. For--and here is the point you had in your mind when you
lamented your possible impatience about something I might say--I swear
by all the gods that are not mine, nothing shall induce me to apply to
the Treasury for anything but the pound of flesh to which I am
entitled.
Nothing ever disgusted me more than being the subject of a battle with
the Treasury over the Home Office appointment--which I should have
thrown up if I could have done so with decency to Harcourt.
It's just as well for me I couldn't, but it left a nasty taste.
I don't want to leave the School, and should be very glad to remain as
Dean, for many reasons. But what I don't see is how I am to do that
and make my escape from the thousand and one entanglements--which seem
to me to come upon me quite irrespectively of any office I hold--or
how I am to go on living in London as a (financially) decayed
philosopher.
I really see nothing for it but to take my pension and go and spend
the winter of 1885-86 in Italy. I hear one can be a regular swell
there on 1000 pounds a year.
Six months' absence is oblivion, and I shall take to a new line of
work, and one which will greatly meet your approval.
As to X-- I am not a-going to--not being given to hopeless
enterprises. That rough customer at Dublin is the only man who occurs
to me. I can't think of his name, but that is part of my general
unfitness.
...I suppose I shall chaff somebody on my death-bed. But I am out of
heart to think of the end of the lunches in the sacred corner.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the 21st he writes home about the steps he had begun to take with
respect to giving up part of his official work.]
I have had a long letter from Donnelly. He had told Lord Carlingford
of my plans, and encloses a letter from Lord Carlingford to him,
trusting I will not hastily decide, and with some pretty phrases about
"support and honour" I give to the School. Donnelly is very anxious I
should hold on to the School, if only as Dean, and wants me in any
case to take two months' holiday at Christmas. Of course he looks on
the Royal Society as the root of all evil. Foster per contra looks on
the School as the deuce, but would have me stick by the Royal Society
like grim death.
The only moral obligation that weighs with me is that which I feel
under, to deal fairly by Donnelly and the School. You must not argue
against this, as rightly or wrongly I am certain that if I deserted
the School hastily, or if I did not do all that I can to requite
Donnelly for the plucky way in which he has stood by it and me for the
last dozen years, I should never shake off the feeling that I had
behaved badly. And as I am much given to brooding over my misdeeds, I
don't want you to increase the number of my hell-hounds. You must help
me in this...and if I am Quixotic, play Sancho for the nonce.