1885.
[On April 8, he landed at Folkestone, and stayed there a day or two
before going to London. Writing to Sir J. Donnelly, he remarks with
great satisfaction at getting home:--]
We got here this afternoon after a rather shady passage from Boulogne,
with a strong north wind in our teeth all the way, and rain galore.
For all that, it is the pleasantest journey I have made for a long
time--so pleasant to see one's own dear native mud again. There is no
foreign mud to come near it.
[And on the same day he sums up to Sir M. Foster the amount of good he
has gained from his expedition, and the amount of good any patient is
likely to get from travel:--]
As for myself I have nothing very satisfactory to say. By the oddest
chance we met Andrew Clark in the boat, and he says I am a very bad
colour--which I take it is the outward and visible sign of the inward
and carnal state. I may sum that up by saying that there is nothing
the matter but weakness and indisposition to do anything, together
with a perfect genius for making mountains out of molehills.
After two or three fine days at Venice, we have had nothing but wet or
cold--or hot and cold at the same time, as in that prodigious
imposture the Riviera. Of course it was the same story everywhere,
"perfectly unexampled season."
Moral.--If you are perfectly well and strong, brave Italy--but in
search of health stop at home.
It has been raining cats and dogs, and Folkestone is what some people
would call dreary. I could go and roll in the mud with satisfaction
that it is English mud.
It will be jolly to see you again. Wife unites in love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[To return home was not only a great pleasure; it gave him a fillip
for the time, and he writes to Sir M. Foster, April 12:--]
It is very jolly to be home, and I feel better already. Clark has just
been here overhauling me, and feels very confident that he shall screw
me up.
I have renounced dining out and smoking (!!!) by way of preliminaries.
God only knows whether I shall be permitted more than the smell of a
mutton chop for dinner. But I have great faith in Andrew, who set me
straight before when other "physicians' aid was vain."
[But his energy was fitful; lassitude and depression again invaded
him. He was warned by Sir Andrew Clark to lay aside all the burden of
his work. Accordingly, early in May, just after his sixtieth birthday,
he sent in his formal resignation of the Professorship of Biology, and
the Inspectorship of Salmon Fisheries; while a few days later he laid
his resignation of the Presidency before the Council of the Royal
Society. By the latter he was begged to defer his final decision, but
his health gave no promise of sufficient amendment before the decisive
Council meeting in October.
He writes on May 27:--]
I am convinced that what with my perennial weariness and my deafness I
ought to go, whatever my kind friends may say.
[A curious effect of his illness was that for the first time in his
life he began to shrink involuntarily from assuming responsibilities
and from appearing on public occasions; thus he writes on June 16:--]
I am sorry to say that the perkiness of last week was only a spurt
[I.e. at the unveiling of the Darwin statue at South Kensington.], and
I have been in a disgusting state of blue devils lately. Can't mark
out what it is, for I really have nothing the matter, except a strong
tendency to put the most evil construction upon everything.
I am fairly dreading to-morrow [i.e. receiving the D.C.L. degree at
Oxford] but why I don't know--probably an attack of modesty come on
late in life and consequently severe.
Very likely it will do me good and make me "fit" for Thursday [(i.e.
Council and ordinary meetings of Royal Society).
And a month later:--]
I have been idling in the country for two or three days--but like the
woman with the issue, "I am not better but rather worse"--blue devils
and funk--funk and blue devils. Liver, I expect. [(An ailment of which
he says to Professor Marsh,] "I rather wish I had some respectable
disease--it would be livelier.")
And again:--]
Everybody tells me I look so much better, that I am really ashamed to
go growling about, and confess that I am continually in a blue funk
and hate the thought of any work--especially of scientific or anything
requiring prolonged attention.
[At the end of July he writes to Sir W. Flower:--]
4 Marlborough Place, July 27, 1885.
My dear Flower,
I am particularly glad to hear that things went right on Saturday, as
my conscience rather pricked me for my desertion of the meeting.
[British Museum Trustees, July 25.] But it was the only chance we had
of seeing our young married couple before the vacation--and you will
rapidly arrive at a comprehension of the cogency of THAT argument now.
I will think well of your kind words about the Presidency. If I could
only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society
would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that
involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only
wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to hold in Devonshire!
P.R.S. in a continual blue funk is not likely to be either dignified
or useful; and unless I am in a better frame of mind in October I am
afraid I shall have to go.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A few weeks at Filey in August did him some good at first; and he
writes cheerfully of his lodgings in] "a place with the worst-fitting
doors and windows, and the hardest chairs, sofas, and beds known to my
experience."
[He continues:--]
I am decidedly picking up. The air here is wonderful, and as we can
set good cookery against hard lying (I don't mean in the Munchausen
line) the consequent appetite becomes a mild source of gratification.
Also, I have not met with more than two people who knew me, and that
in my present state is a negative gratification of the highest order.
[Later on he tried Bournemouth; being no better, he thought of an
entirely new remedy.]
The only thing I am inclined to do is to write a book on Miracles. I
think it might do good and unload my biliary system.
[In this state of indecision, so unnatural to him, he writes to Sir M.
Foster:--]
I am anything but clear as to the course I had best take myself. While
undoubtedly much better in general health, I am in a curious state of
discouragement, and I should like nothing better than to remain buried
here (Bournemouth) or anywhere else, out of the way of trouble and
responsibility. It distresses me to think that I shall have to say
something definite about the Presidency at the meeting of the Council
in October.
[Finally on October 20, he writes:--]
I think the lowest point of my curve of ups and downs is gradually
rising--but I have by no means reached the point when I can cheerfully
face anything. I got over the Board of Visitors (two hours and a half)
better than I expected, but my deafness was a horrid nuisance.
I believe the strings of the old fiddle will tighten up a good deal,
if I abstain from attempting to play upon the instrument at
present--but that a few jigs now will probably ruin that chance.
But I will say my final word at our meeting next week. I would rather
step down from the chair than dribble out of it. Even the devil is in
the habit of departing with a "melodious twang," and I like the
precedent.
[So at the Anniversary meeting on November 30, he definitely announced
in his last Presidential address his resignation of that] "honourable
office" [which he could no longer retain] "with due regard to the
interests of the Society, and perhaps, I may add, of
self-preservation."
I am happy to say [he continued] that I have good reason to believe
that, with prolonged rest--by which I do not mean idleness, but
release from distraction and complete freedom from those lethal
agencies which are commonly known as the pleasures of society--I may
yet regain so much strength as is compatible with advancing years. But
in order to do so, I must, for a long time yet, be content to lead a
more or less anchorite life. Now it is not fitting that your President
should be a hermit, and it becomes me, who have received so much
kindness and consideration from the Society, to be particularly
careful that no sense of personal gratification should delude me into
holding the office of its representative one moment after reason and
conscience have pointed out my incapacity to discharge the serious
duties which devolve upon the President, with some approach to
efficiency.
I beg leave, therefore, with much gratitude for the crowning honour of
my life which you have conferred upon me, to be permitted to vacate
the chair of the Society as soon as the business of this meeting is at
an end.
[The settlement of the terms of the pension upon which, after
thirty-one years of service under Government, he retired from his
Professorship at South Kensington and the Inspectorship of Fisheries,
took a considerable time. The chiefs of his own department, that of
Education, wished him to retire upon full pay, 1500 pounds. The
Treasury were more economical. It was the middle of June before the
pension they proposed of 1200 pounds was promised; the end of July
before he knew what conditions were attached to it.
On June 20, he writes to Mr. Mundella, Vice-President of the
Council:--]
My dear Mundella,
Accept my warmest thanks for your good wishes, and for all the trouble
you have taken on my behalf. I am quite ashamed to have been the
occasion of so much negotiation.
Until I see the Treasury letter, I am unable to judge what the 1200
pounds may really mean [I.e. Whether he was to draw his salary of 200
pounds as Dean or not.], but whatever the result, I shall never forget
the kindness with which my chiefs have fought my battle.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On July 16, he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
The blessed Treasury can't make up their minds whether I am to be
asked to stay on as Dean or not, and till they do, I can't shake off
any of my fetters.
[Early in the year he had written to Sir John Donnelly of the
necessity of resigning:--]
Nevertheless [he added], it will be a sad day for me when I find
myself no longer entitled to take part in the work of the schools in
which you and I have so long been interested.
[But that "sad day" was not to come yet. His connection with the Royal
College of Science was not entirely severed. He was asked to continue,
as Honorary Dean, a general supervision of the work he had done so
much to organise, and he kept the title of Professor of Biology, his
successors in the practical work of the chair being designated
Assistant Professors.]
"I retain," [he writes,] "general superintendence as part of the great
unpaid."
It is a comfort [he writes to his son] to have got the thing settled.
My great desire at present is to be idle, and I am now idle with a
good conscience.
[Later in the year, however, a change of Ministry having taken place,
he was offered a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year by Lord
Iddesleigh. He replied accepting it:--]
4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.
My dear Lord Iddesleigh,
Your letters of the 20th November reached me only last night, and I
hasten to thank you for both of them. I am particularly obliged for
your kind reception of what I ventured to say about the deserts of my
old friend Sir Joseph Hooker.
With respect to your lordship's offer to submit my name to Her Majesty
for a Civil List Pension, I can but accept a proposal which is in
itself an honour, and which is rendered extremely gratifying to me by
the great kindness of the expressions in which you have been pleased
to embody it.
I am happy to say that I am getting steadily better at last, and under
the regime of "peace with honour" that now seems to have fallen to my
lot, I may fairly hope yet to do a good stroke of work or two.
I remain, my dear Lord Iddesleigh, faithfully yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, November 24, 1885.
My dear Donnelly,
I believe you have been at work again!
Lord Iddesleigh has written to me to ask if I will be recommended for
a Civil List Pension of 300 pounds a year, a very pretty letter, not
at all like the Treasury masterpiece you admired so much.
Didn't see why I should not accept, and have accepted accordingly.
When the announcement comes out the Liberals will say the Tory
Government have paid me for attacking the G.O.M.! to a dead certainty.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[Five days later he replies to the congratulations of Mr. Eckersley
(whose son had married Huxley's third daughter):--]
...Lord Iddesleigh's letter offering to submit my name for an honorary
pension was a complete surprise.
My chiefs in the late Government wished to retire me on full pay, but
the Treasury did not see their way to it, and cut off 300 pounds a
year. Naturally I am not sorry to have the loss made good, but the way
the thing was done is perhaps the pleasantest part of it.
[There was a certain grim appropriateness in his "official death"
following hard upon his sixtieth birthday, for sixty was the age at
which he had long declared that men of science ought to be strangled,
lest age should harden them against the reception of new truths, and
make them into clogs upon progress, the worse, in proportion to the
influence they had deservedly won. This is the allusion in a birthday
letter from Sir M. Foster:--
Reverend Sir,
So the "day of strangulation" has arrived at last, and with it the
humble petition of your friends that you may be induced to defer the
"happy despatch" for, say at least ten years, when the subject may
again come up for consideration. For your petitioners are respectfully
inclined to think that if your sixtyship may be induced so far to
become an apostle as to give up the fishery business, and be led to
leave the Black Board at South Kensington to others, the t'other side
sixty years, may after all be the best years of your life. In any case
they would desire to bring under your notice the fact that THEY FEEL
THEY WANT YOU AS MUCH AS EVER THEY DID.
Ever thine,
M.F.
Reference has been made to the fact that the honorary degree of D.C.L.
was conferred this May upon Huxley by the University of Oxford. The
Universities of the sister kingdoms had been the first thus to
recognise his work; and after Aberdeen and Dublin, Cambridge, where
natural science had earlier established a firm foothold, showed the
way to Oxford. Indeed, it was not until his regular scientific career
was at an end, that the University of Oxford opened its portals to
him. So, as he wrote to Professor Bartholomew Price on May 20, in
answer to the invitation,] "It will be a sort of apotheosis coincident
with my official death, which is imminent. In fact, I am dead already,
only the Treasury Charon has not yet settled the conditions upon which
I am to be ferried over to the other side."
[Before leaving the subject of his connection with the Royal Society,
it may be worth while to give a last example of the straightforward
way in which he dealt with a delicate point whether to vote or not to
vote for his friend Sir Andrew Clark, who had been proposed for
election to the Society. It occurred just after his return from
abroad; he explains his action to Sir Joseph Hooker, who had urged
caution on hearing a partial account of the proceedings.]
South Kensington, April 25, 1885.
My dear Hooker,
I don't see very well how I could have been more cautious than I have
been. I knew nothing of Clark's candidature until I saw his name in
the list; and if he or his proposer had consulted me, I should have
advised delay, because I knew very well there would be a great push
made for -- this year.
Being there, however, it seemed to me only just to say that which is
certainly true, namely, that Clark has just the same claim as half a
dozen doctors who have been admitted without question, e.g. Gull,
Jenner, Risdon Bennett, on the sole ground of standing in the
profession. And I think that so long as that claim is admitted, it
will be unjust not to admit Clark.
So I said what you heard; but I was so careful not to press unduly
upon the Council, that I warned them of the possible prejudice arising
from my own personal obligations to Clark's skill, and I went so far
as not to put his name in the FIRST list myself, a step which I now
regret.
If this is not caution enough, I should like to know what is? As Clive
said when he came back from India, "By God, sir, I am astonished at my
own moderation!"
If it is not right to make a man a fellow because he holds a
first-class place as a practitioner of medicine as the Royal Society
has done since I have known it, let us abolish the practice. But then
let us also in justice refuse to recognise the half-and-half claims,
those of the people who are third-rate as practitioners, and hang on
to the skirts of science without doing anything in it.
Several of your and my younger scientific friends are bent on bringing
in their chum --, and Clark's candidature is very inconvenient to
them. Hence I suspect some of the "outspoken aversion" and criticism
of Clark's claims you have heard.
I am quite willing to sacrifice my friend for a principle, but not for
somebody else's friend, and I mean to vote for Clark; though I am not
going to try to force my notion down any one else's throat.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On the same subject he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]
Obedience be hanged. It would not lie in my mouth, as the lawyers say,
to object to anybody's getting his own way if he can.
If Clark had not been a personal friend of mine I should not have
hesitated a moment about deciding in his favour. Under the
circumstances it was quite clear what I should do if I were forced to
decide, and I thought it would have been kindly and courteous to the
President if he had been let off the necessity of making a decision
which was obviously disagreeable to him.
If, on the other hand, it was wished to fix the responsibility of what
happened on him, I am glad that he had the opportunity of accepting
it. I never was more clear as to what was the right thing to do.
[So also at other times; he writes in September to Sir M. Foster, the
Secretary, with reference to evening gatherings at which smoking
should be permitted.]
Bournemouth, September 17, 1885.
I am not at all sure that I can give my blessing to the "Tabagie."
When I heard of it I had great doubts as to its being a wise move. It
is not the question of "smoke" so much, as the principle of having
meetings in the Society's rooms, which are not practically (whatever
they may be theoretically), open to all the fellows, and which will
certainly be regarded as the quasi-private parties of one of the
officers. You will have all sorts of jealousies roused, and talk of a
clique, etc.
When I was Secretary the one thing I was most careful to avoid was the
appearance of desiring to exert any special influence. But there was a
jealousy of the x Club, and only the other day, to my great amusement,
I was talking to an influential member of the Royal Society Club about
the possibility of fusing it with the Phil. Club, and he said,
forgetting I was a member of the latter: "Oh! we don't want any of
those wire-pullers!" Poor dear innocent dull-as-ditchwater Phil. Club!
[Mention has already been made of the unveiling of the Darwin statue
at South Kensington on June 9, when, as President of the Royal
Society, Huxley delivered an address in the name of the Memorial
Committee, on handing over the statue of Darwin to H.R.H. The Prince
of Wales, as representative of the Trustees of the British Museum. The
concluding words of the speech deserve quotation:--]
We do not make this request [i.e. to accept the statue] for the mere
sake of perpetuating a memory; for so long as men occupy themselves
with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of
oblivion than does that of Copernicus, or that of Harvey.
Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its
cynosural position in this entrance hall of our National Museum of
Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin's views have received your
official sanction; for science does not recognise such sanctions, and
commits suicide when it adopts a creed.
No, we beg you to cherish this memorial as a symbol by which, as
generation after generation of students enter yonder door, they shall
be reminded of the ideal according to which they must shape their
lives, if they would turn to the best account of the opportunities
offered by the great institution under your charge.
[Nor was this his only word about Darwin. Somewhat later, Professor
Mivart sent him the proofs of an article on Darwin, asking for his
criticism, and received the following reply, which describes better
than almost any other document, the nature of the tie which united
Darwin and his friends, and incidentally touches the question of
Galileo's recantation:--]
November 12, 1885.
My dear Mr. Mivart,
I return your proof with many thanks for your courtesy in sending it.
I fully appreciate the good feeling shown in what you have written,
but as you ask my opinion, I had better say frankly that my experience
of Darwin is widely different from yours as expressed in the passages
marked with pencil. I have often remarked that I never knew any one of
his intellectual rank who showed himself so tolerant to opponents,
great and small, as Darwin did. Sensitive he was in the sense of being
too ready to be depressed by adverse comment, but I never knew any one
less easily hurt by fair criticism, or who less needed to be soothed
by those who opposed him with good reason.
I am sure I tried his patience often enough, without ever eliciting
more than a "Well there's a good deal in what you say; but--" and then
followed something which nine times out of ten showed he had gone
deeper into the business than I had.
I cannot agree with you, again, that the acceptance of Darwin's views
was in any way influenced by the strong affection entertained for him
by many of his friends. What that affection really did was to lead
those of his friends who had seen good reason for his views to take
much more trouble in his defence and support, and to strike out much
harder at his adversary than they would otherwise have done. This is
pardonable if not justifiable--that which you suggest would to my mind
be neither.
I am so ignorant of what has been going on during the last
twelvemonth, that I know nothing of your controversy with Romanes. If
he is going to show the evolution of intellect from sense, he is the
man for whom I have been waiting, as Kant says.
In your paper about scientific freedom, which I read some time ago
with much interest, you alluded to a book or article by Father Roberts
on the Galileo business. Will you kindly send me a postcard to say
where and when it was published?
I looked into the matter when I was in Italy, and I arrived at the
conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals had rather the
best of it. It would complete the paradox if Father Roberts should
help me to see the error of my ways.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[August and September, as said above, were spent in England, though
with little good effect. Filey was not a success for either himself or
his wife. Bournemouth, where they joined their eldest daughter and her
family, offered a] "temperature much more to the taste of both of us,"
[and at least undid the mischief done by the wet and cold of the
north.
The mean line of health was gradually rising; it was a great relief to
be free at length from administrative distractions, while the retiring
pensions removed the necessity of daily toil. By nature he was like
the friend whom he described as] "the man to become hipped to death
without incessant activity of some sort or other. I am sure that the
habit of incessant work into which we all drift is as bad in its way
as dram-drinking. In time you cannot be comfortable without the
stimulus." [But the variety of interests which filled his mind
prevented him from feeling the void of inaction after a busy life. And
just as he was at the turning-point in health, he received a fillip
which started him again into vigorous activity--the mental tonic
bracing up his body and clearing away the depression and languor which
had so long beset him.
The lively fillip came in the shape of an article in the November
"Nineteenth Century," by Mr. Gladstone, in which he attacked the
position taken up by Dr. Reville in his "Prolegomena to the History of
Religions," and in particular, attempted to show that the order of
creation given in Genesis 1, is supported by the evidence of science.
This article, Huxley used humorously to say, so stirred his bile as to
set his liver right at once; and though he denied the soft impeachment
that the ensuing fight was what had set him up, the marvellous
curative effects of a Gladstonian dose, a remedy unknown to the
pharmacopoeia, became a household word among family and friends.
His own reply, "The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of
Nature," appeared in the December number of the "Nineteenth Century"
("Collected Essays" 4 page 139). In January 1886 Mr. Gladstone
responded with his "Proem to Genesis," which was met in February by
"Mr. Gladstone and Genesis" ("Collected Essays" 4 page 164). Not only
did he show that science offers no support to the "fourfold" or the
"fivefold" or any other order obtained from Genesis by Mr. Gladstone,
but in a note appended to his second article he gives what he takes to
be the proper sense of the "Mosaic" narrative of the Creation (4 page
195), not allowing the succession of phenomena to represent an
evolutionary notion, as suggested, of a progress from lower to higher
in the scale of being, a notion assuredly not in the mind of the
writer, but deducing this order from such ideas as, putting aside our
present knowledge of nature, we may reasonably believe him to have
held.
A vast subsidiary controversy sprang up in the "Times" on Biblical
exegetics; where these touched him at all, as, for instance, when it
was put to him whether the difference between the "Rehmes" of Genesis
and "Sheh-retz" of Leviticus, both translated "creeping things," did
not invalidate his argument as to the identity of such "creeping
things," he had examined the point already, and surprised his
interrogator, who appeared to have raised a very pretty dilemma, by
promptly referring him to a well-known Hebrew commentator.
Several letters refer to this passage of arms. On December 4, he
writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer:--]
Do read my polishing off of the G.O.M. I am proud of it as a work of
art, and as evidence that the volcano is not yet exhausted.
To Lord Farrer.
4 Marlborough Place, December 6, 1885.
My dear Farrer,
From a scientific point of view Gladstone's article was undoubtedly
not worth powder and shot. But, on personal grounds, the perusal of it
sent me blaspheming about the house with the first healthy expression
of wrath known for a couple of years--to my wife's great alarm--and I
should have "busted up" if I had not given vent to my indignation; and
secondly, all orthodoxy was gloating over the slap in the face which
the G.O.M. had administered to science in the person of Reville.
The ignorance of the so-called educated classes in this country is
stupendous, and in the hands of people like Gladstone it is a
political force. Since I became an official of the Royal Society, good
taste seemed to me to dictate silence about matters on which there is
"great division among us." But now I have recovered my freedom, and I
am greatly minded to begin stirring the fire afresh.
Within the last month I have picked up wonderfully. If dear old Darwin
were alive he would say it is because I have had a fight, but in truth
the fight is consequence and not cause. I am infinitely relieved by
getting rid of the eternal strain of the past thirty years, and hope
to get some good work done yet before I die, so make ready for the
part of the judicious bottle-holder which I have always found you.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 13, 1886.
My dear Farrer,
My contribution to the next round was finished and sent to Knowles a
week ago. I confess it to have been a work of supererogation; but the
extreme shiftiness of my antagonist provoked me, and I was tempted to
pin him and dissect him as an anatomico-psychological exercise. May it
be accounted unto me for righteousness, though I laughed so much over
the operation that I deserve no credit.
I think your notion is a very good one, and I am not sure that I shall
not try to carry it out some day. In the meanwhile, however, I am bent
upon an enterprise which I think still more important.
After I have done with the reconcilers, I will see whether theology
cannot be told her place rather more plainly than she has yet been
dealt with.
However, this between ourselves, I am seriously anxious to use what
little stuff remains to me well, and I am not sure that I can do
better service anywhere than in this line, though I don't mean to have
any more controversy if I can help it.
(Don't laugh and repeat Darwin's wickedness.)
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[However, this] "contribution to the next round" [seemed to the editor
rather too pungent in tone. Accordingly Huxley revised it, the letters
which follow describing the process:--]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 15, 1886.
My dear Knowles,
I will be with you at 1.30. I spent three mortal hours this morning
taming my wild cat. He is now castrated; his teeth are filed, his
claws are cut, he is taught to swear like a "mieu"; and to spit like a
cough; and when he is turned out of the bag you won't know him from a
tame rabbit.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 20, 1886.
My dear Knowles,
Here is the debonnaire animal finally titivated, and I quite agree,
much improved, though I mourn the loss of some of the spice. But it is
an awful smash as it stands--worse than the first, I think.
I shall send you the manuscript of the "Evolution of Theology" to-day
or to-morrow. It will not do to divide it, as I want the reader to
have an apercu of the whole process from Samuel of Israel to Sammy of
Oxford.
I am afraid it will make thirty or thirty-five pages, but it is really
very interesting, though I say it as shouldn't.
Please have it set up in slip, though, as it is written after the
manner of a judge's charge, the corrections will not be so extensive,
nor the strength of language so well calculated to make a judicious
editor's hair stand on end, as was the case with the enclosed (in its
unregenerate state).
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
[Some time later, on September 14, 1890, writing to Mr. Hyde Clarke,
the philologist, who was ten years his senior, he remarks on his
object in undertaking this controversy:--]
I am glad to see that you are as active-minded as ever. I have no
doubt there is a great deal in what you say about the origin of the
myths in Genesis. But my sole point is to get the people who persist
in regarding them as statements of fact to understand that they are
fools.
The process is laborious, and not yet very fruitful of the desired
conviction.
To Sir Joseph Prestwich.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 16, 1886.
My dear Prestwich,
Accept my best thanks for the volume of your Geology, which has just
reached me.
I envy the vigour which has led you to tackle such a task, and I have
no doubt that when I turn to your book for information I shall find
reason for more envy in the thoroughness with which the task is done.
I see Mr. Gladstone has been trying to wrest your scripture to his own
purposes, but it is no good. Neither the fourfold nor the fivefold nor
the sixfold order will wash.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
To Professor Poulton [Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford.].
4 Marlborough Place, February 19, 1886.
Dear Mr. Poulton,
I return herewith the number of the "Expositor" with many thanks.
Canon Driver's article contains as clear and candid a statement as I
could wish of the position of the Pentateuchal cosmogony from his
point of view. If he more thoroughly understood the actual nature of
paleontological succession--I mean the species by species replacement
of old forms by new,--and if he more fully appreciated the great gulf
fixed between the ideas of "creation" and of "evolution," I think he
would see (1) that the Pentateuch and science are more hopelessly at
variance than even he imagines, and (2) that the Pentateuchal
cosmogony does not come so near the facts of the case as some other
ancient cosmogonies, notably those of the old Greek philosophers.
Practically, Canon Driver, as a theologian and Hebrew scholar, gives
up the physical truth of the Pentateuchal cosmogony altogether. All
the more wonderful to me, therefore, is the way in which he holds on
to it as embodying theological truth. So far as this question is
concerned, on all points which can be tested, the Pentateuchal writer
states that which is not true. What, therefore, is his authority on
the matter--creation by a Deity--which cannot be tested? What sort of
"inspiration" is that which leads to the promulgation of a fable as
divine truth, which forces those who believe in that inspiration to
hold on, like grim death, to the literal truth of the fable, which
demoralises them in seeking for all sorts of sophistical shifts to
bolster up the fable, and which finally is discredited and repudiated
when the fable is finally proved to be a fable? If Satan had wished to
devise the best means of discrediting "Revelation" he could not have
done better.
Have you not forgotten to mention the leg of Archaeopteryx as a
characteristically bird-like structure? It is so, and it is to be
recollected that at present we know nothing of the greater part of the
skeletons of the older Mesozoic mammals--only teeth and jaws. What the
shoulder-girdle of Stereognathus might be like is uncertain.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letters have a curious interest as showing what, in the
eyes of a supporter of educational progress, might and might not be
done at Oxford to help on scientific education:--]
To the Master of Balliol.
4 Marlborough Place, December 21, 1885.
My dear Master [This is from the first draft of the letter. Huxley's
letters to Jowett were destroyed by Jowett's orders, together with the
rest of his correspondence.],
I have been talking to some of my friends about stimulating the Royal
Society to address the Universities on the subject of giving greater
weight to scientific acquirements, and I find that there is a better
prospect than I had hoped for of getting President and Council to
move. But I am not quite sure about the course which it will be wisest
for us to adopt, and I beg a little counsel on that matter.
I presume that we had better state our wishes in the form of a letter
to the Vice-Chancellor, and that we may prudently ask for the
substitution of modern languages (especially German) and elementary
science for some of the subjects at present required in the literary
part of the examinations of the scientific and medical faculties. If
we could gain this much it would be a great step, not only in itself,
but in its reaction on the schools.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, December 26, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Please read the enclosed letter from Jowett (confidentially). I had
suggested the possibility of diminishing the Greek and Latin for the
science and medical people, but that, you see, he won't have. But he
is prepared to load the classical people with science by way of making
things fair.
It may be worth our while to go in for this, and trust to time for the
other. What say you?
Merry Christmas to you. The G.O.M. is going to reply, so I am likely
to have a happy New Year! I expect some fun, and I mean to make it an
occasion for some good earnest.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[So ends 1885, and with it closes another definite period of Huxley's
life. Free from official burdens and official restraints, he was at
liberty to speak out on any subject; his strength for work was less
indeed, but his time was his own; there was hope that he might still
recover his health for a few more years. And though the ranks of his
friends were beginning to thin, though he writes (May 20, to Professor
Bartholomew Price):--]
The "gaps" are terrible accompaniments of advancing life. It is only
with age that one realises the full truth of Goethe's quatrain:--
Eine Bruche ist ein jeder Tag, etc.
[and again:--]
The x Club is going to smithereens, as if a charge of dynamite had
been exploded in the midst of it. Busk is slowly fading away. Tyndall
is, I fear, in a bad way, and I am very anxious about Hooker:--
[Still the club hung together for many years, and outside it were
other devoted friends, who would have echoed Dr. Foster's good wishes
on the last day of the year:--
A Happy New Year! and many of them, and may you more and more
demonstrate the folly of strangling men at sixty.