1890-1891.
[The new house at Eastbourne has been several times referred to. As
usually happens, the move was considerably delayed by the slowness of
the workmen; it did not actually take place till the beginning of
December.
He writes to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, who also had just moved into a
new house:--]
You have all my sympathies on the buy, buy question. I never knew
before that when you go into a new house money runs out at the heels of
your boots. On former occasions, I have been too busy to observe the
fact. But I am convinced now that it is a law of nature.
[The origin of the name given to the house appears from the following
letter:--]
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, October 15, 1890.
My dear Foster,
Best thanks for the third part of the "Physiology," which I found when
I ran up to town for a day or two last week. What a grind that book
must be.
How's a' wi' you? Let me have a line.
We ought to have been in our house a month ago, but fitters, paperers,
and polishers are like bugs or cockroaches, you may easily get 'em in,
but getting 'em out is the deuce. However, I hope to clear them out by
the end of this week, and get in by the end of next week.
One is obliged to have names for houses here. Mine will be "Hodeslea,"
which is as near as I can go to "Hodesleia," the poetical original
shape of my very ugly name.
There was a noble scion of the house of Huxley of Huxley who, having
burgled and done other wrong things (temp. Henry IV.), asked for
benefit of clergy. I expect they gave it him, not in the way he wanted,
but in the way they would like to "benefit" a later member of the
family.
[Rough sketch of one priest hauling the rope taut over the gallows,
while another holds a crucifix before the suspended criminal.]
Between this gentleman and my grandfather there is unfortunately a
complete blank, but I have none the less faith in him as my ancestor.
My wife, I am sorry to say, is in town--superintending packing up--no
stopping her. I have been very uneasy about her at times, and shall be
glad when we are quietly settled down. With kindest regards to Mrs.
Foster.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[His own principal task was in getting his library ready for the move.]
Most of my time [he writes on November 16] for the last fortnight has
been spent in arranging books and tearing up papers till my back aches
and my fingers are sore.
[However, he did not take all his books with him. There was a quantity
of biological works of all sorts which had accumulated in his library
and which he was not likely to use again; these he offered as a parting
gift to the Royal College of Science. On December 8, the Registrar
conveys to him the thanks of the Council for "the valuable library of
biological works," and further informs him that it was resolved:--
That the library shall be kept in the room formerly occupied by the
Dean, which shall be called "The Huxley Laboratory for Biological
Research," and be devoted to the prosecution of original researches in
Biological Science, with which the name of Professor Huxley is
inseparably associated.
Huxley replied as follows:--]
Dear Registrar,
I beg you convey my hearty thanks to the Council for the great kindness
of the minute and resolution which you have sent me. My mind has never
been greatly set on posthumous fame; but there is no way of keeping
memory green which I should like so well as that which they have
adopted towards me.
It has been my fate to receive a good deal more vilipending than (I
hope) I deserve. If my colleagues, with whom I have worked so long, put
too high a value upon my services, perhaps the result may be not far
off justice.
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
In addition to the directly controversial articles in the early part of
the year, two other articles on controversial subjects belong to 1891.
"Hasisadra's Adventure," published in the "Nineteenth Century" for
June, completed his long-contemplated examination of the Flood myth. In
this he first discussed the Babylonian form of the legend recorded upon
the clay tablets of Assurbanipal--a simpler and less exaggerated form
as befits an earlier version, and in its physical details keeping much
nearer to the bounds of probability.
The greater part of the article, however, is devoted to a wider
question--How far does geological and geographical evidence bear
witness to the consequences which must have ensued from a universal
flood, or even from one limited to the countries of Mesopotamia? And he
comes to the conclusion that these very countries have been singularly
free from any great changes of the kind for long geological periods.
The sarcastic references in this article to those singular reasoners
who take the possibility of an occurrence to be the same as scientific
testimony to the fact of its occurrence, lead up, more or less, to the
subject of an essay, "Possibilities and Impossibilities," which
appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1892, actually published in
October 1891, and to be found in "Collected Essays", 5 192.
This was a restatement of the fundamental principles of the agnostic
position, arising out of the controversies of the last two years upon
the demonology of the New Testament. The miraculous is not to be denied
as impossible; as Hume said, "Whatever is intelligible and can be
distinctly conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved
false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori,"
and these combinations of phenomena are perfectly conceivable.
Moreover, in the progress of knowledge, the miracles of to-day may be
the science of to-morrow. Improbable they are, certainly, by all
experience, and therefore they require specially strong evidence. But
this is precisely what they lack; the evidence for them, when examined,
turns out to be of doubtful value.]
I am anxious [he says] to bring about a clear understanding of the
difference between "impossibilities" and "improbabilities," because
mistakes on this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical
apologists of the type of the late Cardinal Newman.
When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of "miracles" is, in my
judgment, unassailable. We are NOT justified in the a priori assertion
that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to us, cannot
change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is
illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute.
Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of our
faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us in
anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the present
and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based upon careful
observations of past events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We should be
foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through life. But,
for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain on the
level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high probabilities.
For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence shaped on the
model of that of men, however superior it might be, which could be any
better off than our own in this respect; that is, which could possess
logically justifiable grounds for certainty about the constancy of the
order of things, and therefore be in a position to declare that such
and such events are impossible. Some of the old mythologies recognised
this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and Odin, there lay the
unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or other, would crumple up
them and the world they ruled to give place to a new order of things.
I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any
desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely
desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk
about "impossibilities," or "violation of natural laws," another.
Rational certainty rests upon two grounds; the one that the evidence in
favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other, that
such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the
statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until
something arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly
reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being
never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.
To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs
would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life, with due
thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be alive an
hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by nature, and we
have to make the best of them. And I think that the greatest mistake
those of us who are interested in the progress of free thought can make
is to overlook these limitations, and to deck ourselves with the
dogmatic feathers which are the traditional adornment of our opponents.
Let us be content with rational certainty, leaving irrational
certainties to those who like to muddle their minds with them.
[As for the difficulty of believing miracles in themselves, he gives in
this paper several examples of a favourite saying of his, that Science
offers us much greater marvels than the miracles of theology; only the
evidence for them is very different.
The following letter was written in acknowledgment of a paper by the
Reverend E. McClure, which endeavoured to place the belief in an
individual permanence upon the grounds that we know of no leakage
anywhere in nature; that matter is not a source, but a transmitter of
energy; and that the brain, so far from originating thought, is a mere
machine responsive to something external to itself, a revealer of
something which it does not produce, like a musical instrument. This
"something" is the universal of thought, which is identified with the
general logos of the fourth gospel. Moral perfection consists in
assimilation to this; sin is the falling short of perfect revealing of
the eternal logos.
Huxley's reply interested his correspondent not only for the brief
opinion on the philosophic question, but for the personal touch in the
explanation of the motives which had guided his life-work, and his
"kind feeling towards such of the clergy as endeavoured to seek
honestly for a natural basis to their faith."
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 17, 1891.
Dear Mr. McClure,
I am very much obliged for your letter, which belongs to a different
category from most of those which I receive from your side of the hedge
that, unfortunately, separates thinking men.
So far as I know myself, after making due deduction for the ambition of
youth and a fiery temper, which ought to (but unfortunately does not)
get cooler with age, my sole motive is to get at the truth in all
things.
I do not care one straw about fame, present or posthumous, and I loathe
notoriety, but I do care to have that desire manifest and recognised.
Your paper deals with a problem which has profoundly interested me for
years, but which I take to be insoluble. It would need a book for full
discussion. But I offer a remark only on two points.
The doctrine of the conservation of energy tells neither one way nor
the other. Energy is the cause of movement of body, i.e. things having
mass. States of consciousness have no mass, even if they can be
conceded to be movable. Therefore even if they are caused by molecular
movements, they would not in any way affect the store of energy.
Physical causation need not be the only kind of causation, and when
Cabanis said that thought was a function of the brain, in the same way
as bile secretion is a FUNCTION of the liver, he blundered
philosophically. Bile is a product of the transformation of material
energy. But in the mathematical sense of the word "function," thought
may be a function of the brain. That is to say, it may arise only when
certain physical particles take on a certain order.
By way of a coarse analogy, consider a parallel-sided piece of glass
through which light passes. It forms no picture. Shape it so as to be
bi-convex, and a picture appears in its focus.
Is not the formation of the picture a "function" of the piece of glass
thus shaped?
So, from your own point of view, suppose a mind-stuff--logos---a
noumenal cosmic light such as is shadowed in the fourth gospel. The
brain of a dog will convert it into one set of phenomenal pictures, and
the brain of a man into another. But in both cases the result is the
consequence of the way in which the respective brains perform their
"functions."
Yet one point.
The actions we call sinful are as much the consequence of the order of
nature as those we call virtuous. They are part and parcel of the
struggle for existence through which all living things have passed, and
they have become sins because man alone seeks a higher life in
voluntary association.
Therefore the instrument has never been marred; on the contrary, we are
trying to get music out of harps, sacbuts, and psalteries, which never
were in tune and seemingly never will be.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Few years passed without some utterance from Huxley on the subject of
education, especially scientific education. This year we have a letter
to Professor Ray Lankester touching the science teaching at Oxford.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 28, 1891.
Dear Lankester,
I met Foster at the Athenaeum when I was in town last week, and we had
some talk about your "very gentle" stirring of the Oxford pudding. I
asked him to let you know when occasion offered, that (as I had already
said to Burdon Sanderson) I drew a clear line apud biology between the
medical student and the science student.
With respect to the former, I consider it ought to be kept within
strict limits, and made simply a Vorschule to human anatomy and
physiology.
On the other hand, the man who is going out in natural science ought to
have a much larger dose, especially in the direction of morphology.
However, from what I understood from Foster, there seems a doubt about
the "going out" in "Natural Science", so I had better confine myself to
the medicos. Their burden is already so heavy that I do not want to see
it increased by a needless weight even of elementary biology.
Very many thanks for the "Zoological articles" just arrived.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Don't write to the "Times" about anything; look at the trouble that
comes upon a harmless man for two months, in consequence.
[The following letter, which I quote from the "Yorkshire Herald" of
April 11, 1891, was written in answer to some inquiries from Mr. J.
Harrison, who read a paper on Technical Education as applied to
Agriculture, before the Easingwold Agricultural Club.]
I am afraid that my opinion upon the subject of your inquiry is worth
very little--my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound.
However, there are some general principles which apply to all technical
training; the first of these, I think, is that practice is to be
learned only by practice. The farmer must be made by and through farm
work. I believe I might be able to give you a fair account of a bean
plant and of the manner and condition of its growth, but if I were to
try to raise a crop of beans, your club would probably laugh consumedly
at the result. Nevertheless, I believe that you practical people would
be all the better for the scientific knowledge which does not enable me
to grow beans. It would keep you from attempting hopeless experiments,
and would enable you to take advantage of the innumerable hints which
Dame Nature gives to people who live in direct contact with things. And
this leads me to the second general principle which I think applies to
all technical teaching for school-boys and school-girls, and that is,
that they should be led from the observation of the commonest facts to
general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of
elementary instruction preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure that I
should attempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology or geology, as such.
It is a method fraught with the danger of spending too much time and
attention on abstraction and theories, on words and notions instead of
things. The history of a bean, of a grain of wheat, of a turnip, of a
sheep, of a pig, or of a cow properly treated--with the introduction of
the elements of chemistry, physiology, and so on as they come in--would
give all the elementary science which is needed for the comprehension
of the processes of agriculture in a form easily assimilated by the
youthful mind, which loathes everything in the shape of long words and
abstract notions, and small blame to it. I am afraid I shall not have
helped you very much, but I believe that my suggestions, rough as they
are, are in the right direction.
[The remaining letters of the year are of miscellaneous interest. They
show him happily established in his retreat at Eastbourne in very fair
health, on his guard against any further repetition of his "jubilee
honour" in the shape of his old enemy pleurisy; unable to escape the
more insidious attacks of influenza, but well enough on the whole to be
in constant good spirits.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 13, 1891.
My dear Skelton,
Many thanks to you for reminding me that there are such things as
"Summer Isles" in the universe. The memory of them has been pretty well
blotted out here for the last seven weeks. You see some people can
retire to "Hermitages" as well as other people; and though even Argyll
cum Gladstone powers of self-deception could not persuade me that the
view from my window is as good as that from yours, yet I do see a fine
wavy chalk down with "cwms" and soft turfy ridges, over which an old
fellow can stride as far as his legs are good to carry him.
The fact is, that I discovered that staying in London any longer meant
for me a very short life, and by no means a merry one. So I got my
son-in-law to build me a cottage here, where my wife and I may go
down-hill quietly together, and "make our sowls" as the Irish say,
solaced by an occasional visit from children and grandchildren.
The deuce of it is, that however much the weary want to be at rest the
wicked won't cease from troubling. Hence the occasional skirmishes and
alarms which may lead my friends to misdoubt my absolute detachment
from sublunary affairs. Perhaps peace dwells only among the fork-tailed
Petrels!
I trust Mrs. Skelton and you are flourishing, and that trouble will
keep far from the hospitable doors of Braid through the New Year.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[No sooner had he settled down in his new country home, than a strange
piece of good fortune, such as happens more often in a story-book than
in real life, enabled him at one stroke to double his little estate, to
keep off the unwelcome approach of the speculative builder, and to give
himself scope for the newly-discovered delights of the garden. The sale
of the house in Marlborough Place covered the greater part of the cost
of Hodeslea; but almost on the very day on which the sale was
concluded, he became the possessor of another house at Worthing by the
death of Mr. Anthony Rich, the well-known antiquarian. An old man,
almost alone in the world, his admiration for the great work done
recently in natural science had long since led him to devise his
property to Darwin and Huxley, to the one his private fortune, to the
other his house and its contents, notably a very interesting library.
As a matter of feeling, Huxley was greatly disinclined to part with
this house, Chapel Croft, as soon as it had come into his hands. A year
earlier, he might have made it his home; but now he had settled down at
Eastbourne, and Chapel Croft, as it stood, was unlikely to find a
tenant. Accordingly he sold it early in July, and with the proceeds
bought the piece of land adjoining his house. Thus he writes to Sir J.
Hooker:--]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 17, 1891.
My dear Hooker,
My estate is somewhat of a white elephant. There is about a couple of
acres of ground well situated and half of it in the shape of a very
pretty lawn and shrubbery, but unluckily, in building the house, dear
old Rich thought of his own convenience and not mine (very wrong of
him!), and I cannot conceive anybody but an old bachelor or old maid
living in it. I do not believe anybody would take it as it stands. No
doubt the site is valuable, and it would be well worth while to anybody
with plenty of cash to spare to build on to the house and make it
useful. But I neither have the cash, nor do I want the bother. However,
Waller is going to look at the place for me and see what can be done.
It seems hardly decent to sell it at once; and moreover the value is
likely to increase. I suppose at present it is worth 2000 pounds, but
that is only a guess.
Apropos of naval portrait gallery, can you tell me if there is a
portrait of old John Richardson anywhere extant? I always look upon him
as the founder of my fortunes, and I want to hang him up (just over
your head) on my chimney breast. Voici! [sketch showing the position of
the pictures above the fireplace]:--
By your fruits ye shall judge them! My cold was influenza, I have been
in the most preposterously weak state ever since; and at last my wife
lost patience and called in the doctor, who is screwing me up with nux
vomica.
Sound wind and limb otherwise.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[And again on July 3:--]
I have just been offered 2800 pounds for Anthony Rich's place and have
accepted it. It is probably worth 3000 pounds, but if I were to have it
on my hands and sell by auction I should get no more out of the
transaction.
I am greatly inclined to put some of the money into a piece of land--a
Naboth's vineyard--in front of my house and turn horticulturist. I find
nailing up creepers a delightful occupation.
[In the same letter he describes two meetings with old friends:--]
Last Friday I ran down to Hindhead to see Tyndall. He was very much
better than I hoped to find him, after such a long and serious illness,
quite bright and "Tyndalloid" and not aged as I feared he would
be...The local doctor happened to be there during my visit and spoke
very confidently of his speedy recovery. The leg is all right again,
and he even talks of Switzerland, but I begged Mrs. Tyndall to persuade
him to keep quiet and within reach of home and skilled medical
attendance.
Saturday to Monday we were at Down, after six or seven years'
interruption of our wonted visits. It was very pleasant if rather sad.
Mrs. Darwin is wonderfully well--naturally aged--but quite bright and
cheerful as usual. Old Parslow turned up on Sunday, just eighty, but
still fairly hale. Fuimus fuimus!
[(Parslow was the old butler who had been in Mr. Darwin's service for
many years.)
To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1891.
You dear people must have entered into a conspiracy, as I had letters
from all yesterday. I have never been so set up before, and begin to
think that fathers (like port) must improve in quality with age. (No
irreverent jokes about their getting crusty, Miss.)
Julian and Joyce taken together may perhaps give a faint idea of my
perfections as a child. I have not only a distinct recollection of
being noticed on the score of my good looks, but my mother used to
remind me painfully of them in my later years, looking at me mournfully
and saying, "And you were such a pretty boy!"
[Much as he would have liked to visit the Maloja again this year, the
state of his wife's health forbade such a long journey. He writes just
after his attack of influenza to Sir M. Foster, who had been suffering
in the same way:--]
Hodeslea, May 12, 1891.
My dear Foster,
I was very glad to hear from you. Pray don't get attempting to do
anything before you are
set up again.
I am in a ridiculous state of weakness, and bless my stars that I have
nothing to do. I find it troublesome to do even that.
I wish ballooning had advanced so far as to take people to Maloja, for
I do not think my wife ought to undertake such a journey, and yet I
believe the high air would do us both more good than anything else....
The University of London scheme appears to be coming to grief, as I
never doubted it would.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[So instead of going abroad, he stayed in Eastbourne till the end of
August, receiving a short visit from his old friend Jowett, who, though
sadly enfeebled by age, still persisted in travelling by himself, and a
longer visit from his elder son and his family. But from September 11
to the 26th he and his wife made a trip through the west country,
starting from Salisbury, which had so delighted him the year before,
and proceeding by way of the Wye valley, which they had not visited
since their honeymoon, to Llangollen. The first stage on the return
journey was Chester, whence they made pious pilgrimage to the cradle of
his name, Old Huxley Hall, some nine miles from Chester. Incorporated
with a modern farm-house, and forming the present kitchen, are some
solid stone walls, part of the old manor-house, now no longer belonging
to any one of the name. From here they went to Coventry, where he had
lived as a boy, and found the house which his father had occupied still
standing.
A letter to an old pupil contains reflections upon the years of work to
which he had devoted so much of his energies.]
To Professor T. Jeffery Parker, Otago.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 11, 1891.
My dear Parker,
It is a long time since your letter reached me, but I was so unwise as
to put off answering it until the book arrived and I had read it. The
book did not reach me for a long time, and what with one thing and
another I have but just finished it. I assure you I am very proud of
having my name connected with such a thorough piece of work, no less
than touched by the kindness of the dedication.
Looking back from the aged point of view, the life which cost so much
wear and tear in the living seems to have effected very little, and it
is cheering to be reminded that one has been of some use.
Some years of continued ill-health, involving constant travelling about
in search of better conditions than London affords, and long periods of
prostration, have driven me quite out of touch with science. And indeed
except for a certain toughness of constitution I should have been
driven out of touch with terrestrial things altogether.
It is almost indecent in a man at my time of life who has had two
attacks of pleurisy, followed by a dilated heart, to be not only above
ground but fairly vigorous again. However, I am obliged to mind my P's
and Q's; avoid everything like hard work, and live in good air.
The last condition we have achieved by setting up a house close to the
downs here; and I begin to think with Candide that "cultivons notre
jardin" comprises the whole duty of man.
I was just out of the way of hearing anything about the University
College chair; and indeed, beyond attending the Council of the school
when necessary, and meetings of Trustees of the British Museum, I
rarely go to London.
I have had my innings, and it is now for the younger generation to have
theirs.
With best wishes, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[As for being no longer in touch with the world of science, he says the
same thing in a note to Sir M. Foster, forwarding an inquiry after a
scientific teacher (August 1).]
Please read the enclosed, and if you know of anybody suitable please
send his name to Mr. Thomas.
I have told him that I am out of the way of knowing, and that you are
physiologically omniscient, so don't belie the character!
[This year a number of Huxley's essays were translated into French.
"Nature" for July 23, 1891 (volume 44 page 272),--notes the publication
of "Les Sciences Naturelles et l'Education," with a short preface by
himself, dwelling upon the astonishing advance which had been made in
the recognition of science as an instrument of education, but warning
the younger generation that the battle is only half won, and bidding
them beware of relaxing their efforts before the place of science is
entirely assured. In the issue for December 31 ("Nature" 46 397), is a
notice of "La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature," a re-issue of a
translation of more than twenty years before, together with three
ethnological essays, newly translated by M. H. de Varigny, to whom the
following letters are addressed.]
To H. De Varigny.
May 17, 1891.
I am writing to my publishers to send you "Lay Sermons", "Critiques",
"Science and Culture", and "American Addresses", pray accept them in
expression of my thanks for the pains you are taking about the
translation. "Man's Place in Nature" has been out of print for years,
so I cannot supply it.
I am quite conscious that the condensed and idiomatic English into
which I always try to put my thoughts must present many difficulties to
a translator. But a friend of mine who is a much better French scholar
than I am, and who looked over two or three of the essays, told me he
thought you had been remarkably successful.
The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue,
and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays
half-a-dozen times before I can get them into the proper shape; and I
believe I become more fastidious as I grow older.
November 25, 1891.
I am very glad you have found your task pleasant, for I am afraid it
must have cost you a good deal of trouble to put my ideas into the
excellent French dress with which you have provided them. It fits so
well that I feel almost as if I might be a candidate for a seat among
the immortal forty!
As to the new volume, you shall have the refusal of it if you care to
have it. But I have my doubts about its acceptability to a French
public which I imagine knows little about Bibliolatry and the ways of
Protestant clericalism, and cares less.
These essays represent a controversy which has been going on for five
or six years about Genesis, the deluge, the miracle of the herd of
swine, and the miraculous generally, between Gladstone, the
ecclesiastical principal of King's College, various bishops, the writer
of "Lux Mundi", that spoilt Scotch minister the Duke of Argyll, and
myself.
My object has been to stir up my countrymen to think about these
things; and the only use of controversy is that it appeals to their
love of fighting, and secures their attention.
I shall be very glad to have your book on "Experimental Evolution". I
insisted on the necessity of obtaining experimental proof of the
possibility of obtaining virtually infertile breeds from a common stock
in 1860 (in one of the essays you have translated). Mr. Tegetmeier made
a number of experiments with pigeons some years ago, but could obtain
not the least approximation to infertility.
From the first, I told Darwin this was the weak point of his case from
the point of view of scientific logic. But, in this matter, we are just
where we were thirty years ago, and I am very glad you are going to
call attention to the subject.
Sending a copy of the translation soon after to Sir J. Hooker, he
writes:--]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 11, 1892.
My dear Hooker,
We have been in the middle of snow for the last four days. I shall not
venture to London, and if you deserve the family title of the
"judicious," I don't think you will either.
I send you by this post a volume of the French translation of a
collection of my essays about Darwinism and Evolution, 1860-76, for
which I have written a brief preface. I was really proud of myself when
I discovered on re-reading them that I had nothing to alter.
What times those days were! Fuimus.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[The same subject of experimental evolution reappears in a letter to
Professor Romanes of April 29. A project was on foot for founding an
institution in which experiments bearing upon the Darwinian theory
could be carried out. After congratulating Professor Romanes upon his
recent election to the Athenaeum Club, he proceeds:--]
In a review of Darwin's "Origin" published in the "Westminster" for
1860 ("Lay Sermons" pages 323-24), you will see that I insisted on the
logical incompleteness of the theory so long as it was not backed by
experimental proof that the cause assumed was competent to produce all
the effects required. (See also "Lectures to Working Men" 1863 pages
146 and 147.) In fact, Darwin used to reproach me sometimes for my
pertinacious insistence on the need of experimental verification.
But I hope you are going to choose some other title than "Institut
transformiste," which implies that the Institute is pledged to a
foregone conclusion, that it is a workshop devoted to the production of
a particular kind of article. Moreover, I should say that as a matter
of prudence, you had better keep clear of the word "experimental."
Would not "Biological Observatory" serve the turn? Of course it does
not exclude experiment any more than "Astronomical Observatory"
excludes spectrum analysis.
Please think over this. My objection to "Transformist" is very strong.
[In August his youngest daughter wrote to him to find out the nature of
various "objects of the seashore" which she had found on the beach in
South Wales. His answers make one wish that there had been more
questions.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 14, 1891.
Dearest Babs,
1. "Ornary" or not "ornary" B is merely A turned upside down and viewed
with the imperfect appreciation of the mere artistic eye!
2. Your little yellow things are, I expect, egg-cases of dog whelks.
You will find a lot of small eggs inside them, one or two of which grow
faster than the rest, and eat up their weaker brothers and sisters.
The dog whelk is common on the shores. If you look for something like
this [sketch of a terrier coming out of a whelk shell], you will be
sure to recognise it.
3. Starfish are NOT born in their proper shape and don't come from your
whitish yellow lumps. The thing that comes out of a starfish egg is
something like this [sketch], and swims about by its cilia. The
starfish proper is formed inside, and it is carried on its back
this-uns.
Finally starfish drops off carrying with it t'other one's stomach, so
that the subsequent proceedings interest t'other one no more.
4. The ropy sand tubes that make a sort of banks and reefs are houses
of worms, that they build up out of sand, shells, and slime. If you
knock a lot to pieces you will find worms inside.
5. Now, how do I know what the rooks eat? But there are a lot of
unconsidered trifles about and if you get a good telescope and watch,
you will have a glimpse as they hover between sand and rooks' beaks.
It has been blowing more or less of a gale here from the west for
weeks--usually cold, often foggy--so that it seems as if summer were
going to be late, probably about November.
But we thrive fairly well. L. and J. and their chicks are here and seem
to stand the inclemency of the weather pretty fairly. The children are
very entertaining.
M-- has been a little complaining, but is as active as usual.
My love to Joyce, and tell her I am glad to hear she has not forgotten
her astronomy.
In answer to your inquiry, Leonard says that Trevenen has twenty-five
teeth. I have a sort of notion this can be hardly accurate, but never
having been a mother can't presume to say.
Our best love to you all.
Ever your loving Pater.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 26, 1891.
Dearest Babs,
'Pears to me your friend is a squid or pen-and-ink fish, Loligo among
the learned. Probably Loligo media which I have taken in that region.
They have ten tentacles with suckers round their heads, two much longer
than the others. They are close to cuttlefish, but have a thin horny
shell inside them instead of the "cuttle-bone." If you can get one by
itself in a tub of water, it is pretty to see how they blush all over
and go pale again, owing to little colour-bags in the skin, which
expand and contract. Doubtless they took you for a heron, under the
circumstances [sketch of a wader].
With slight intervals it has been blowing a gale from the west here for
some months, the memory of man indeed goeth not back to the calm. I
have not been really warm more than two days this so-called summer. And
everybody prophesied we should be roasted alive here in summer.
We are all flourishing, and send our best love to Jack and you. Tell
Joyce the wallflowers have grown quite high in her garden.
Ever your loving Pater.
[Politics are not often touched upon in the letters of this period, but
an extract from a letter of October 25, 1891, is of interest as giving
his reason for supporting a Unionist Government, many of whose
tendencies he was far from sympathising with:--]
The extract from the "Guardian" is wonderful. The Gladstonian
tee-to-tum cannot have many more revolutions to make. The only thing
left for him now, is to turn Agnostic, declare Homer to be an old bloke
of a ballad-monger, and agitate for the prohibition of the study of
Greek in all universities...
It is just because I do not want to see our children involved in civil
war that I postpone all political considerations to keeping up a
Unionist Government.
I may be quite wrong; but right or wrong, it is no question of party.
"Rads delight not me nor Tories neither," as Hamlet does not say.
The following letter to Sir M. Foster shows how little Huxley was now
able to do in the way of public business without being knocked up:--]
Hodeslea, October 20, 1891.
My dear Foster,
If I had known the nature of the proceedings at the College of
Physicians yesterday, I should have braved the tedium of listening to a
lecture I could not hear in order to see you decorated. Clark had made
a point of my going to the dinner [I.e. at the College of Physicians.],
and, worse luck, I had to "say a few words" after it, with the result
that I am entirely washed out to-day, and only able to send you the
feeblest of congratulations.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The same thing appears in the following to Sir W.H. Flower, which is
also interesting for his opinion on the question of promotion by
seniority:--]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, October 23, 1891.
My dear Flower,
My "next worst thing" was promoting a weak man to a place of
responsibility in lieu of a strong one, on the mere ground of seniority.
Caeteris paribus, or with even approximate equality of qualifications,
no doubt seniority ought to count; but it is mere ruin to any service
to let it interfere with the promotion of men of marked superiority,
especially in the case of offices which involve much responsibility.
I suppose as trustee I may requisition a copy of Woodward's Catalogue.
I should like to look a little more carefully at it...We are none the
worse for our pleasant glimpse of the world (and his wife) at your
house; but I find that speechifying at public dinners is one of the
luxuries that I must utterly deny myself. It will take me three weeks'
quiet to get over my escapade.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.