1889.
[The events to be chronicled in this year are, as might be expected,
either domestic or literary. The letters are full of allusions to his
long controversy in defence of Agnosticism, mainly with Dr. Wace, who
had declared the use of the name to be a "mere evasion" on the part of
those who ought to be dubbed infidels (Apropos of this controversy, a
letter may be cited which appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1884,
in answer to certain inquiries from the editor as to the right
definition of Agnosticism:--]
Some twenty years ago, or thereabouts, I invented the word "Agnostic"
to denote people who, like myself, confess themselves to be hopelessly
ignorant concerning a variety of matters, about which metaphysicians
and theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, dogmatise with the utmost
confidence, and it has been a source of some amusement to me to watch
the gradual acceptance of the term and its correlate, "Agnosticism" (I
think the "Spectator" first adopted and popularised both), until now
Agnostics are assuming the position of a recognised sect, and
Agnosticism is honoured by especial obloquy on the part of the
orthodox. Thus it will be seen that I have a sort of patent right in
"Agnostic" (it is my trade mark), and I am entitled to say that I can
state authentically what was originally meant by Agnosticism. What
other people may understand by it, by this time, I do not know. If a
General Council of the Church Agnostic were held, very likely I should
be condemned as a heretic. But I speak only for myself in answering
these questions.
1. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern.
It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that
which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.
2. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of
popular theology, but also the greater part of popular anti-theology.
On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than
that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason
and science, and orthodoxy does not.
3. I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to
the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of
existing religions. On trial of any so-called miracle the verdict of
science is "Not proven." But true Agnosticism will not forget that
existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more
stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that
there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the
intelligible universe, which "are not dreamt of in our philosophy." The
theological "gnosis" would have us believe that the world is a
conjurer's house; the anti-theological "gnosis" talks as if it were a
"dirt-pie," made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism
simply says that we know nothing of what may be behind phenomena.); [to
the building of the new house at Eastbourne, and to the marriage in
quick succession of his two youngest daughters, whereby, indeed, the
giving up of the house in London and definite departure from London was
made possible.
All the early part of the year, till he found it necessary to go to
Switzerland again, he stayed unwillingly in Eastbourne, from time to
time running up to town, or having son or daughter to stay with him for
a week, his wife being too busy to leave town, with the double
preparations for the weddings on hand, so that he writes to her:] "I
feel worse than the 'cowardly agnostic' I am said to be--for leaving
you to face your botherations alone." [One can picture him still firm
of tread, with grizzled head a little stooped from his square
shoulders, pacing the sea wall with long strides, or renewing somewhat
of his strength as it again began to fail, in the keener air of the
downs, warmly defended against chill by a big cap--for he had been
suffering from his ears--and a long rough coat. He writes (February
22):] "I have bought a cap with flaps to protect my ears. I look more
'doggy' than ever." [And on March 3:--]
We have had a lovely day, quite an Italian sky and sea, with a good
deal of Florentine east wind. I walked up to the Signal House, and was
greatly amused by a young sheep-dog whose master could hardly get him
away from circling round me and staring at me with a short dissatisfied
bark every now and then. It is the undressed wool of my coat bothers
all the dogs. They can't understand why a creature which smells so like
a sheep should walk on its hind legs. I wish I could have relieved that
dog's mind, but I did not see my way to an explanation.
From this time on, the effects of several years' comparative rest
became more perceptible. His slowly returning vigour was no longer
sapped by the unceasing strain of multifarious occupations. And if his
recurrent ill-health sometimes seems too strongly insisted on, it must
be remembered that he had always worked at the extreme limit of his
powers--the limit, as he used regretfully to say, imposed on his brain
by his other organs--and that after his first breakdown he was never
very far from a second. When this finally came in 1884, his forces were
so far spent that he never expected to recover as he did.
In the marriage this year of his youngest daughter, Huxley was doomed
to experience the momentary little twinge which will sometimes come to
the supporter of an unpopular principle when he first puts it into
practice among his own belongings.
Athenaeum Club, January 14, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I have just left the x "Archives" here for you. I left them on my table
by mischance when I came here on the x day.
I have a piece of family news for you. My youngest daughter Ethel is
going to marry John Collier.
I have always been a great advocate for the triumph of common sense and
justice in the "Deceased Wife's Sister" business--and only now
discover, that I had a sneaking hope that all of my own daughters would
escape that experiment!
They are quite suited to one another and I would not wish a better
match for her. And whatever annoyances and social pin-pricks may come
in Ethel's way, I know nobody less likely to care about them.
We shall have to go to Norway, I believe, to get the business done.
In the meantime, my wife (who has been laid up with bronchitic cold
ever since we came home) and I have had as much London as we can stand,
and are off to-morrow to Eastbourne again, but to more sheltered
quarters.
I hope Lady Hooker and you are thriving. Don't conceal the news from
her, as my wife is always accusing me of doing.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
To Mr. W.F. Collier.
4 Marlborough Place, January 24, 1889.
Many thanks for your kind letter. I have as strong an affection for
Jack as if he were my own son, and I have felt very keenly the ruin we
involuntarily brought upon him--by our poor darling's terrible illness
and death. So that if I had not already done my best to aid and abet
other people in disregarding the disabilities imposed by the present
monstrous state of the law, I should have felt bound to go as far as I
could towards mending his life. Ethel is just suited to him...Of course
I could have wished that she should be spared the petty annoyances
which she must occasionally expect. But I know of no one less likely to
care for them.
Your Shakespere parable is charming--but I am afraid it must be put
among the endless things that are read IN to the "divine Williams" as
the Frenchman called him. [The second part of the letter replies to the
question whether Shakespeare had any notion of the existence of the
sexes in plants and the part played in their fertilisation by insects,
which, of course, would be prevented from visiting them by rainy
weather, when he wrote in the "Midsummer Night's Dream":--
The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye,
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower
Lamenting some enforced chastity.]
There was no knowledge of the sexes of plants in Shakespere's time,
barring some vague suggestion about figs and dates. Even in the 18th
century, after Linnaeus, the observations of Sprengel, who was a man of
genius, and first properly explained the action of insects, were set
aside and forgotten.
I take it that Shakespere is really alluding to the "enforced chastity"
of Dian (the moon). The poets ignore that little Endymion business when
they like!
I have recovered in such an extraordinary fashion that I can plume
myself on being an "interesting case," though I am not going to compete
with you in that line. And if you look at the February "Nineteenth" I
hope you will think that my brains are none the worse. But perhaps that
conceited speech is evidence that they are.
We came to town to make the acquaintance of Nettie's fiance, and I am
happy to say the family takes to him. When it does not take to anybody,
it is the worse for that anybody.
So, before long, my house will be empty, and as my wife and I cannot
live in London, I think we shall pitch our tent in Eastbourne. Good
Jack offers to give us a pied-a-terre when we come to town. To-day we
are off to Eastbourne again. Carry off Harry, who is done up from too
zealous Hospital work. However, it is nothing serious.
The following is in reply to a request that he would write a letter, as
he describes it elsewhere, "about the wife's sister business--for the
edification of the peers."
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 12, 1889.
My dear Donnelly,
I feel "downright mean," as the Yankees say, that I have not done for
the sake of right and justice what I am moved to do now that I have a
personal interest in the matter of the directest kind; and I rather
expect that will be thrown in my teeth if my name is at the bottom of
anything I write.
On the other hand, I loathe anonymity. However, we can take time to
consider that point.
Anyhow I will set to work on the concoction of a letter, if you will
supply me with the materials which will enable me to be thoroughly
posted up in the facts.
I have just received your second letter. Pity you could not stay over
yesterday--it was very fine.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The letter in question is as follows:--]
April 30, 1889.
Dear Lord Hartington,
I am assured by those who know more about the political world than I
do, that if Lord Salisbury would hold his hand and let his party do as
they like about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill which is to come on
next week, it would pass. Considering the irritation against the
bishops and a certain portion of the lay peers among a number of people
who have the means of making themselves heard and felt, which is kept
up and aggravated, as time goes on, by the action of the Upper House in
repeatedly snubbing the Lower, about this question, I should have
thought it (from a Conservative point of view) good policy to heal the
sore.
The talk of Class versus Mass is generally mere clap-trap; but, in this
case, there is really no doubt that a fraction of the Classes stands in
the way of the fulfilment of a very reasonable demand on the part of
the Masses.
A clear-headed man like Lord Salisbury would surely see this if it were
properly pressed on his attention.
I do not presume to say whether it is practicable or convenient for the
Leader of the Liberal Unionist party to take any steps in this
direction; and I should hardly have ventured to ask you to take this
suggestion into consideration if the interest I have always taken in
the D.W.S. Bill had not recently been quickened by the marriage of one
of my daughters as a Deceased Wife's Sister.
I am, etc.
[Meantime the effect of Eastbourne, which Sir John Donnelly had induced
him to try, was indeed wonderful. He found in it the place he had so
long been looking for. References to his health read very differently
from those of previous years. He walked up Beachy Head regularly
without suffering from any heart symptoms. And though Beachy Head was
not the same thing as the Alps, it made a very efficient substitute for
a while, and it was not till April that the need of change began to
make itself felt. And so he made up his mind to listen no more to the
eager friends who wished him to pitch his tent near them at either end
of Surrey, but to settle down at Eastbourne, and, by preference, to
build a house of the size and on the spot that suited himself, rather
than to take any existing house lower down in the town. He must have
been a trifle irritated by unsolicited advice when he wrote the
following:--]
It is very odd that people won't give one credit for common sense. We
have tried one winter here, and if we tried another we should be just
as much dependent upon the experience of longer residents as ever we
were. However, as I told X. I was going to settle matters to-morrow,
there won't be any opportunity for discussing that topic when he comes.
If we had taken W.'s house, somebody would have immediately told us
that we had chosen the dampest site in winter and the stuffiest in
summer, and where, moreover, the sewage has to be pumped up into the
main drain.
[He finally decided upon a site on the high ground near Beachy Head, a
little way back from the sea front, at the corner of the Staveley and
Buxton Roads, with a guarantee from the Duke of Devonshire's agent that
no house should be built at the contiguous end of the adjoining plot of
land in the Buxton Road, a plot which he himself afterwards bought. The
principal rooms were planned for the back of the house, looking
south-west over open gardens to the long line of downs which culminate
in Beachy Head, but with due provision against southerly gales and
excess of sunshine.
On May 29 the builder's contract was accepted, and for the rest of the
year the progress of the house, which was designed by his son-in-law,
F.W. Waller, afforded a constant interest.
Meantime, with the improvement in his general health, the old appetite
for work returned with increased and unwonted zest. For the first time
in his life he declares that he enjoyed the process of writing. As he
wrote somewhat later to his newly married daughter from Eastbourne,
where he had gone again very weary the day after her wedding: "Luckily
the bishops and clergy won't let me alone, so I have been able to keep
myself pretty well amused in replying." The work which came to him so
easily and pleasurably was the defence of his attitude of agnosticism
against the onslaught made upon it at the previous Church Congress by
Dr. Wace, the Principal of King's College, London, and followed up by
articles in the "Nineteenth Century" from the pen of Mr. Frederic
Harrison and Mr. Laing, the effect of which upon him he describes to
Mr. Knowles on December 30, 1888:--]
I have been stirred up to the boiling pitch by Wace, Laing, and
Harrison in re Agnosticism, and I really can't keep the lid down any
longer. Are you minded to admit a goring article into the February
"Nineteenth"?
[As for his health, he adds:--]
I have amended wonderfully in the course of the last six weeks, and my
doctor tells me I am going to be completely patched up--seams caulked
and made seaworthy, so the old hulk may make another cruise.
We shall see. At any rate I have been able and willing to write lately,
and that is more than I can say for myself for the first three-quarters
of the year.
...I was so pleased to see you were in trouble about your house. Good
for you to have a taste of it for yourself.
[To this controversy he contributed four articles; three directly in
defence of Agnosticism, the fourth on the value of the underlying
question of testimony to the miraculous.
The first article, "Agnosticism," appeared in the February number of
the "Nineteenth Century". No sooner was this finished than he began a
fresh piece of work, "which," he writes, "is all about miracles, and
will be rather amusing." This, on the "Value of Testimony to the
Miraculous," appeared in the following number of the "Nineteenth
Century". It did not form part of the controversy on hand, though it
bore indirectly upon the first principles of agnosticism. The question
at issue, he urges, is not the possibility of miracles, but the
evidence to their occurrence, and if from preconceptions or ignorance
the evidence be worthless the historical reality of the facts attested
vanishes. The cardinal point, then, "is completely, as the author of
Robert Elsmere says, the value of testimony."
[The March number also contained replies from Dr. Wace and Bishop Magee
on the main question, and an article by Mrs. Humphry Ward on a kindred
subject to his own, "The New Reformation." Of these he writes on
February 27:--]
The Bishop and Wace are hammering away in the "Nineteenth". Mrs. Ward's
article very good, and practically an answer to Wace. Won't I stir them
up by and by.
[And a few days later:--]
Mrs. Ward's service consists in her very clear and clever exposition of
critical results and methods.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 29, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I have just been delighted with Mrs. Ward's article. She has swept away
the greater part of Wace's sophistries as a dexterous and
strong-wristed housemaid sweeps away cobwebs with her broom, and saved
a lot of time.
What in the world does the Bishop mean by saying that I have called
Christianity "sorry stuff" (page 370)? To my knowledge I never so much
as thought anything of the kind, let alone saying it.
I shall challenge him very sharply about this, and if, as I believe, he
has no justification for his statement, my opinion of him will be very
considerably lowered.
Wace has given me a lovely opening by his profession of belief in the
devils going into the swine. I rather hoped I should get this out of
him.
I find people are watching the game with great interest, and if it
should be possible for me to give a little shove to the "New
Reformation," I shall think the fag end of my life well spent.
After all, the reproach made to the English people that "they care for
nothing but religion and politics" is rather to their credit. In the
long run these are the two things that ought to interest a man more
than any others.
I have been much bothered with ear-ache lately, but if all goes well I
will send you a screed by the middle of March.
Snowing hard! They have had more snow within the last month than they
have known for ten years here.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[He set to work immediately, and within ten days despatched his second
contribution, "Agnosticism, a Rejoinder," which appeared in the April
number of the "Nineteenth Century".
On March 3 he writes:--]
I am possessed by a writing demon, and have pretty well finished in the
rough another article for Knowles, whose mouth is wide open for it.
[And on the 9th:--]
I sent off another article to Knowles last night--a regular facer for
the clericals. You can't think how I enjoy writing now for the first
time in my life.
[He writes at greater length to Mr. Knowles]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 10, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
There's a Divinity that shapes the ends (of envelopes!) rough-hew them
how we will. This time I went and bought the strongest to be had, and
sealed him up with wax in the shop. I put no note inside, meaning to
write to you afterwards, and then I forgot to do so.
I can't understand Peterborough nohow. However, so far as the weakness
of the flesh would permit me to abstain from smiting him and his
brother Amalekite, I have tried to turn the tide of battle to matters
of more importance.
The pith of my article is the proposition that Christ was not a
Christian. I have not ventured to state my thesis exactly in that
form--fearing the Editor--but, in a mild and proper way, I flatter
myself I have demonstrated it. Really, when I come to think of the
claims made by orthodox Christianity on the one hand, and of the total
absence of foundation for them on the other, I find it hard to abstain
from using a phrase which shocked me very much when Strauss first
applied it to the Resurrection, "Welthistorischer Humbug!"
I don't think I have ever seen the portrait you speak of. I remember
the artist--a clever fellow, whose name, of course, I forget--but I do
not think I saw his finished work. Some of these days I will ask to see
it.
I was pretty well finished after the wedding, and bolted here the next
day. I am sorry to say I could not get my wife to come with me. If she
does not knock up I shall be pleasantly surprised. The young couple are
flourishing in Paris. I like what I have seen of him very much.
What is the "Cloister scheme"? [It referred to a plan for using the
cloisters of Westminster Abbey to receive the monuments of
distinguished men, so as to avoid the necessity of enlarging the Abbey
itself.] Recollect how far away I am from the world, the flesh and the
d--.
Are you and Mrs. Knowles going to imitate the example of Eginhard and
Emma? What good pictures you will have in your monastery church!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[And again, a few days later:--]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne; March 15, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am sending my proof back to Spottiswoode's. I did not think the
manuscript would make so much, and I am afraid it has lengthened in the
process of correction.
You have a reader in your printer's office who provides me with jokes.
Last time he corrected, where my manuscript spoke of the pigs as
unwilling "porters" of the devils, into "porkers." And this time, when
I, writing about the Lord's Prayer, say "current formula," he has it
"canting formula." If only Peterborough had got hold of that! And I am
capable of overlooking anything in a proof.
You see we have got to big questions now, and if these are once fairly
before the general mind all the King's horses and all the King's men
won't put the orthodox Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[After the article came out he wrote again to Mr. Knowles:--]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., April 14, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am going to try and stop here, desolate as the house is now all the
chicks have flown, for the next fortnight. Your talk of the inclemency
of Torquay is delightfully consoling. London has been vile.
I am glad you are going to let Wace have another "go." My object, as
you know, in the whole business has been to rouse people to think...
Considering that I got named in the House of Commons last night as an
example of a temperate and well-behaved blasphemer, I think I am
attaining my object. [In the debate upon the Religious Prosecutions
Abolition Bill, Mr. Addison said "the last article by Professor Huxley
in the "Nineteenth Century" showed that opinion was free when it was
honestly expressed."--"Times" April 14.]
Of course I go for a last word, and I am inclined to think that
whatever Wace may say, it may be best to get out of the region of
controversy as far as possible and hammer in two big nails--(1) that
the Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more
about the spiritual world than anybody else, and (2) that Newman's
doctrine of "Development" is true to an extent of which the Cardinal
did not dream.
I have been reading some of his works lately, and I understand now why
Kingsley accused him of growing dishonesty.
After an hour or two of him I began to lose sight of the distinction
between truth and falsehood.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
If you are at home any day next week I will look in for a chat.
[The controversy was completed by a third article, "Agnosticism and
Christianity," in the June number of the "Nineteenth Century". There
was a humorous aspect of this article which tickled his fancy
immensely, for he drove home his previous arguments by means of an
authority whom his adversaries could not neglect, though he was the
last man they could have expected to see brought up against them in
this connection--Cardinal Newman. There is no better evidence for
ancient than for modern miracles, he says in effect; let us therefore
accept the teachings of the Church which maintains a continuous
tradition on the subject. But there is a very different conclusion to
be drawn from the same premises; all may be regarded as equally
doubtful, and so he writes on May 30 to Sir J. Hooker:--]
By the way, I want you to enjoy my wind-up with Wace in this month's
"Nineteenth" in the reading as much as I have in the writing. It's as
full of malice [I.e. in the French sense of the word.] as an egg is
full of meat, and my satisfaction in making Newman my accomplice has
been unutterable. That man is the slipperiest sophist I have ever met
with. Kingsley was entirely right about him.
Now for peace and quietness till after the next Church Congress!
[Three other letters to Mr. Knowles refer to this article.]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 4, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I am at the end of my London tether, and we go to Eastbourne (3
Jevington Gardens again) on Monday.
I have been working hard to finish my paper, and shall send it to you
before I go.
I am astonished at its meekness. Being reviled, I revile not; not an
exception, I believe, can be taken to the wording of one of the
venomous paragraphs in which the paper abounds. And I perceive the
truth of a profound reflection I have often made, that reviling is
often morally superior to not reviling.
I give up Peterborough. His "Explanation" is neither straightforward,
nor courteous, nor prudent. Of which last fact, it may be, he will be
convinced when he reads my acknowledgment of his favours, which is
soft, not with the softness of the answer which turneth away wrath, but
with that of the pillow which smothered Desdemona.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
I shall try to stand an hour or two of the Academy dinner, and hope it
won't knock me up.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 6, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
If I had not gone to the Academy dinner I might have kept my promise
about sending you my paper to-day. I indulged in no gastronomic
indiscretions, and came away after H.R.H.'s speech, but I was dead beat
all yesterday, nevertheless.
We are off to Eastbourne, and I will send the manuscript from there;
there is very little to do.
Such a waste! I shall have to omit a paragraph that was really a
masterpiece.
For who should I come upon in one of the rooms but the Bishop! As we
shook hands, he asked whether that was before the fight or after; and I
answered, "A little of both." Then we spoke our minds pretty plainly;
and then we agreed to bury the hatchet. [As he says ("Collected Essays"
5 210), this chance meeting ended "a temporary misunderstanding with a
man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great
liking and no less respect."]
So yesterday I tore up THE paragraph. It was so appropriate I could not
even save it up for somebody else!
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.
My dear Knowles,
I sent back my proof last evening. I shall be in town Friday afternoon
to Monday morning next, having a lot of things to do. So you may as
well let me see a revise of the whole. Did you not say to me, "sitting
by a sea-coal fire" (I say nothing about a "parcel gilt goblet"), that
this screed was to be the "last word"? I don't mind how long it goes on
so long as I have the last word. But you must expect nothing from me
for the next three or four months. We shall be off abroad, not later
than the 8th June, and among the everlasting hills, a fico for your
controversies! Wace's paper shall be waste paper for me. Oh! This is a
"goak" which Peterborough would not understand.
I think you are right about the wine and water business--I had my
doubts--but it was too tempting. All the teetotalers would have been on
my side.
There is no more curious example of the influence of education than the
respect with which this poor bit of conjuring is regarded. Your genuine
pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig. I trust you have
properly enjoyed the extracts from Newman. That a man of his intellect
should be brought down to the utterance of such drivel--by Papistry, is
one of the strongest of arguments against that damnable perverter of
mankind, I know of.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Shortly afterwards, he received a long and rambling letter in
connection with this subject. Referring to the passage in the first
article, "the apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly' should be
the rule of life of a true agnostic," the writer began by begging him
"to 'suffer gladly' one fool more," and after several pages wound up
with a variation of the same phrase. It being impossible to give any
valid answer to his hypothetical inquiries, Huxley could not resist the
temptation to take the opening thus offered him, and replied:--]
Sir,
I beg leave to acknowledge your letter. I have complied with the
request preferred in its opening paragraph.
Faithfully yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter also arises out of this controversy:--
Its occasion (writes Mr. Taylor) was one which I had written on seeing
an article in which he referred to the Persian sect of the Babis. I had
read with much interest the account of it in Count Gobineau's book, and
was much struck with the points of likeness to the foundation of
Christianity, and the contrast between the subsequent history of the
two; I asked myself how, given the points of similarity, to account for
the contrast; is it due to the Divine within the one, or the human
surroundings? This question I put to Professor Huxley, with many
apologies for intruding on his leisure, and a special request that he
would not suffer himself to be further troubled by any reply.]
To Mr. Robert Taylor.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 8, 1889.
Sir,
In looking through a mass of papers, before I leave England for some
months among the mountains in search of health, I have come upon your
letter of 7th March. As a rule I find that out of the innumerable
letters addressed to me, the only ones I wish to answer are those the
writers of which are considerate enough to ask that they may receive no
reply, and yours is no exception.
The question you put is very much to the purpose: a proper and full
answer would take up many pages; but it will suffice to furnish the
heads to be filled up by your own knowledge.
1. The Church founded by Jesus has NOT made its way; has NOT permeated
the world--but DID become extinct in the country of its birth--as
Nazarenism and Ebionism.
2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the
4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than
Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and
Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and
demonology as could be got in under new or old names.
3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more
truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their
cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"--and who were fully
prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated
Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but
friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together
for all purposes--the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in
Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and
lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together
like Scotchmen.
If these things are so--and I appeal to your knowledge of history that
they are so--what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth
or falsehood of the story of Jesus?
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter was written in reply to one from Mr. Clodd on the
first of the articles in this controversy. This article, it must be
remembered, not only replied to Dr. Wace's attack, but at the same time
bantered Mr. Frederic Harrison's pretensions on behalf of Positivism at
the expense alike of Christianity and Agnosticism.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 19, 1889.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
I am very much obliged to you for your cheery and appreciative letter.
If I do not empty all Harrison's vials of wrath I shall be astonished!
But of all the sickening humbugs in the world, the sham pietism of the
Positivists is to me the most offensive.
I have long been wanting to say my say about these questions, but my
hands were too full. This time last year I was so ill that I thought to
myself, with Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But my wiry constitution
has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I have every reason to
believe that with renunciation of the devil and all his works (i.e.
public speaking, dining and being dined, etc.) my faculties may be
unimpaired for a good spell yet. And whether my lease is long or short,
I mean to devote them to the work I began in the paper on the Evolution
of Theology.
You will see in the next "Nineteenth" a paper on the Evidence of
Miracles, which I think will be to your mind.
Hutton is beginning to drivel! There really is no other word for it.
[This refers to an article in the "Spectator" on "Professor Huxley and
Agnosticism," February 9, 1889, which suggests, with regard to demoniac
possession, that the old doctrine of one spirit driving out another is
as good as any new explanation, and fortifies this conclusion by a
reference to the phenomena of hypnotism.]
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To the same:--]
4 Marlborough Place, April 15, 1889.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
The adventurous Mr. C. wrote to me some time ago. I expressed my regret
that I could do nothing for the evolution of tent-pegs. What wonderful
people there are in the world!
Many thanks for calling my attention to "Antiqua Mater." I will look it
up. I have such a rooted objection to returning books, that I never
borrow one or allow anybody to lend me one if I can help it.
I hear that Wace is to have another innings, and I am very glad of it,
as it will give me the opportunity of putting the case once more as a
connected argument.
It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of
Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his
followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with
those who take up a new idea.
I have had for some time the notion of dealing with the "Three great
myths"--1. Creation; 2. Fall; 3. Deluge; but I suspect I am getting to
the end of my tether physically, and shall have to start for the
Engadine in another month's time.
Many thanks for your congratulations about my daughter's marriage. No
two people could be better suited for one another, and there is a
charming little grand-daughter of the first marriage to be cared for.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[One more piece of writing dates from this time. He writes to his wife
on March 2:--]
A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a
sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for
something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad
taste of some of the notices, I have done that. I shall show it you
before it goes back to Engel in proof.
This sketch of his life is the brief autobiography which is printed at
the beginning of volume 1 of the "Collected Essays". He was often
pressed, both by friends and by strangers, to give them some more
autobiography; but moved either by dislike of any approach to egotism,
or by the knowledge that if biography is liable to give a false
impression, autobiography may leave one still more false, he constantly
refused to do so, especially so long as he had capacity for useful
work. I found, however, among his papers, an entirely different sketch
of his early life, half-a-dozen sheets describing the time he spent in
the East end, with an almost Carlylean sense of the horrible
disproportions of life. I cannot tell whether this was a first draft
for the present autobiography, or the beginnings of a larger
undertaking.
Several letters of miscellaneous interest were written before the move
to the Engadine took place. They touch on such points as the excessive
growth of scientific clubs, the use of alcohol for brain workers,
advice to one who was not likely to "suffer fools gladly" about
applying for the assistant secretaryship of the British Association,
and the question of the effects of the destruction of immature fish,
besides personal matters.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, March 22, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I suppose the question of amalgamation with the Royal is to be
discussed at the Phil. Club. The sooner something of the kind takes
place the better. There is really no raison d'etre left for the Phil.
Club, and considering the hard work of scientific men in these days,
clubs are like hypotheses, not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, March 26, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
The only science to which X. has contributed, so far as I know, is the
science of self-advertisement; and of that he is a master.
When you and I were youngsters, we thought it the great thing to
exorcise the aristocratic flunkeyism which reigned in the Royal
Society--the danger now is that of the entry of seven devils worse than
the first, in the shape of rich engineers, chemical traders, and
"experts" (who have sold their souls for a good price), and who find it
helps them to appear to the public as if they were men of science.
If the Phil Club had kept pure, it might have acted as a check upon the
intrusion of the mere trading element. But there seems to be no reason
now against Jack and Tom and Harry getting in, and the thing has become
an imposture.
So I go with you for extinction, before we begin to drag in the mud.
I wish I could take some more active part in what is going on. I am
anxious about the Society altogether. But though I am wonderfully well
so long as I live like a hermit, and get out into the air of the Downs,
either London, or bother, and still more both combined, intimate
respectfully but firmly, that my margin is of the narrowest.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following is to his daughter in Paris. Of course it was the
Tuileries, not the Louvre, which was destroyed in 1871.]
I think you are quite right about French women. They are like French
dishes, uncommonly well cooked and sent up, but what the dickens they
are made of is a mystery. Not but what all womenkind are mysteries, but
there are mysteries of godliness and mysteries of iniquity.
Have you been to see the sculptures in the Louvre?--dear me, I forgot
the Louvre's fate. I wonder where the sculpture is? I used to think it
the best thing in the way of art in Paris. There was a youthful Bacchus
who was the main support of my thesis as to the greater beauty of the
male figure!
Probably I had better conclude.
To Mr. E.T. Collings (of Bolton).
4 Marlborough Place, April 9, 1889.
Dear Sir,
I understand that you ask me what I think about "alcohol as a stimulant
to the brain in mental work"?
Speaking for myself (and perhaps I may add for persons of my
temperament), I can say, without hesitation, that I would just as soon
take a dose of arsenic as I would of alcohol, under such circumstances.
Indeed on the whole, I should think the arsenic safer, less likely to
lead to physical and moral degradation. It would be better to die
outright than to be alcoholised before death.
If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had
better turn to hand work--it is an indication on Nature's part that she
did not mean him to be a head worker.
The circumstances of my life have led me to experience all sorts of
conditions in regard to alcohol, from total abstinence to nearly the
other end of the scale, and my clear conviction is the less the better,
though I by no means feel called upon to forgo the comforting and
cheering effect of a little.
But for no conceivable consideration would I use it to whip up a tired
or sluggish brain. Indeed, for me there is no working time so good as
between breakfast and lunch, when there is not a trace of alcohol in my
composition.
4 Marlborough Place, May 6, 1889.
My dear Hooker,
I meant to have turned up at the x on Thursday, but I was unwell and,
moreover, worried and bothered about Collier's illness at Venice, and
awaiting an answer to a telegram I sent there. He has contrived to get
scarlatina, but I hope he will get safe through it, as he seems to be
going on well. We were getting ready to go out until we were reassured
on that point.
I thought I would go to the Academy dinner on Saturday, and that if I
did not eat and drink and came away early, I might venture.
It was pleasant enough to have a glimpse of the world, the flesh (on
the walls, nude!), and the devil (there were several Bishops), but oh,
dear! how done I was yesterday.
However, we are off to Eastbourne to-day, and I hope to wash three
weeks' London out of me before long. I think we shall go to Maloja
again early in June.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Capital portrait in the New Gallery, where I looked in for a quarter of
an hour on Saturday--only you never were quite so fat in the cheeks,
and I don't believe you have got such a splendid fur-coat!
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 22, 1889.
...As to the Assistant Secretaryship of the British Association, I have
turned it over a great deal in my mind since your letter reached me,
and I really cannot convince myself that you would suit it or it would
suit you. I have not heard who are candidates or anything about it, and
I am not going to take any part in the election. But looking at the
thing solely from the point of view of your interests, I should
strongly advise you against taking it, even if it were offered.
My pet aphorism "suffer fools gladly" should be the guide of the
Assistant Secretary, who, during the fortnight of his activity, has
more little vanities and rivalries to smooth over and conciliate than
other people meet with in a lifetime. Now you do NOT "suffer fools
gladly" on the contrary, you "gladly make fools suffer." I do not say
you are wrong--No tu quoque [Cf. above. But for due cause he could
suffer them "with a difference"; of a certain caller he writes: "What
an effusive bore he is! But I believe he was very kind to poor
Clifford, and restrained my unregenerate impatience of that kind of
creature."]--but that is where the danger of the explosion lies--not in
regard to the larger business of the Association.
The risk is great and the 300 pounds a year is not worth it. Foster
knows all about the place; ask him if I am not right.
Many thanks for the suggestion about Spirula. But the matter is in a
state in which no one can be of any use but myself. At present I am at
the end of my tether and I mean to be off to the Engadine a fortnight
hence--most likely not to return before October.
Not even the sweet voice of -- will lure me from my retirement. The
Academy dinner knocked me up for three days, though I drank no wine,
ate very little, and vanished after the Prince of Wales' speech. The
truth is I have very little margin of strength to go upon even now,
though I am marvellously better than I was.
I am very glad that you see the importance of doing battle with the
clericals. I am astounded at the narrowness of view of many of our
colleagues on this point. They shut their eyes to the obstacles which
clericalism raises in every direction against scientific ways of
thinking, which are even more important than scientific discoveries.
I desire that the next generation may be less fettered by the gross and
stupid superstitions of orthodoxy than mine has been. And I shall be
well satisfied if I can succeed to however small an extent in bringing
about that result.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, May 25, 1889.
My dear Lankester,
I cannot attend the Council meeting on the 29th. I have a meeting of
the Trustees of the British Museum to-day, and to be examined by a
Committee on Monday, and as the sudden heat half kills me I shall be
fit for nothing but to slink off to Eastbourne again.
However, I do hope the Council will be very careful what they say or do
about the immature fish question. The thing has been discussed over and
over again ad nauseam, and I doubt if there is anything to be added to
the evidence in the blue-books.
The idee fixe of the British public, fishermen, M.P.'s and ignorant
persons generally is that all small fish, if you do not catch them,
grow up into big fish. They cannot be got to understand that the
wholesale destruction of the immature is the necessary part of the
general order of things, from codfish to men.
You seem to have some very interesting things to talk about at the
Royal Institution.
Do you see any chance of educating the white corpuscles of the human
race to destroy the theological bacteria which are bred in parsons?
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, May 19, 1889.
My dear Donnelly,
The Vice-President's letter has brought home to me one thing very
clearly, and that is, that I had no business to sign the Report. Of
course he has a right to hold me responsible for a document to which my
name is attached, and I should look more like a fool than I ever wish
to do, if I had to tell him that I had taken the thing entirely on
trust. I have always objected to the sleeping partnership in the
Examination; and unless it can be made quite clear that I am nothing
but a "consulting doctor," I really must get out of it entirely.
Of course I cannot say whether the Report is justified by the facts or
not, when I do not know anything about them. But from my experience of
what the state of things used to be, I should say that it is, in all
probability, fair.
The faults mentioned are exactly those which always have made their
appearance, and I expect always will do so, and I do not see why the
attention of the teachers should not as constantly be directed to them.
You talk of Eton. Well, the reports of the Examiners to the governing
body, year after year, had the same unpleasing monotony, and I do not
believe that there is any educational body, from the Universities
downwards, which would come out much better, if the Examiners' reports
were published and if they did their duty.
I am unable to see my way (and I suppose you are) to any better method
of State encouragement of science teaching than payment by results. The
great and manifest evil of that system, however, is the steady pressure
which it exerts in the development of every description of sham
teaching. And the only check upon this kind of swindling the public
seems to me to lie in the hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster
so, ages ago, when he talked to me about the gradual increase of the
expenditure, and I have been confirmed in my opinion by all subsequent
experience. What the people who read the reports may say, I should not
care one twopenny d-- if I had to administer the thing.
Nine out of ten of them are incompetent to form any opinion on an
educational subject; and as a mere matter of policy, I should, in
dealing with them, be only too glad to be able to make it clear that
some of the defects and shortcomings inherent in this (as in all
systems) had been disguised, and that even the most fractious of
Examiners had said their say without let or hindrance.
It is the nature of the system which seems to me to demand as a
corrective incessant and severe watchfulness on the part of the
Examiners, and I see no harm if they a little overdo the thing in this
direction, for every sham they let through is an encouragement to other
shams and pot-teaching in general.
And if the "great heart" of the people and its thick head can't be got
to appreciate honesty, why the sooner we shut up the better. Ireland
may be for the Irish, but science teaching is not for the sake of
science teachers.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.