THE YOUNG ECONOMIST
Championing Darwin—Darwin at Downe—Salisbury Gossip—Meeting
Mill—Fawcett for Lincoln and the Union—John Bright’s Dog—Chair
of Political Economy.
[Sidenote: Championing Darwin.]
In consequence of that Oxford meeting Fawcett entered another arena.
Bishop Wilberforce, representing the attitude of many not narrow-minded
men, took that occasion to attack Darwin’s recently published _Origin of
Species_. Fawcett, indignant at the theological onslaught on the new
theories, published an article in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ in which he
valiantly took up the gauntlet for Darwin.
Now, when evolution has become so much a part of our accepted and
automatic thought, when we realise that science can in no way disprove
religion, but if anything recommends it on a scientific basis, making
the wonder of creation more real, it seems quaint to remember and
difficult to appreciate that in Fawcett’s day the great evolutionist was
hated as an iconoclast whose teachings would undermine religion, that
Darwin was actually anathema to the orthodox and the pious minded.
Fawcett writes with his usual clearness, stating the true and logical
position of Darwin’s theory; distinguishing carefully between a fruitful
hypothesis and a scientific demonstration; exhibiting the general nature
of the argument and the geological difficulty with great clearness, and
taking some pains to prove that religion is in no danger from Darwinism.
In any case, he says, ‘life must have been originally introduced by an
act of creative will.’ He restated these arguments at the next year’s
meeting of the British Association in Manchester. Although this
controversy for his part went little further, it led to some
correspondence with Darwin, from whose letters it is of interest to
quote:
[Sidenote: A Letter from Darwin.]
MY DEAR MR. FAWCETT,—I wondered who had so kindly sent me the
newspapers, which I was very glad to see; and now I have to thank you
sincerely for allowing me to see your MS. It seems to me very good and
sound; though I am certainly not an impartial judge. You will have
done good service in calling the attention of scientific men to means
and laws of philosophising. As far as I could judge by the papers your
opponents were unworthy of you. How miserably A. talked of my
reputation, as if that had anything to do with it.... How profoundly
ignorant B. [who had said that Darwin should have published facts
alone] must be of the very soul of observation! About thirty years ago
there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not
theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man
might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe
the colours. How odd it is that any one should not see that all
observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any
service!
I have returned only lately from a two months’ visit to Torquay, which
did my health at the time good; but I am one of those miserable
creatures who are never comfortable for twenty-four hours; and it is
clear to me that I ought to be exterminated. I have been rather idle
of late, or, speaking more strictly, working at some miscellaneous
papers, which, however, have some direct bearing on the subject of
species; yet I feel guilty at having neglected my larger book. But, to
me, observing is much better sport than writing. I fear that I shall
have wearied you with this long note.
Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful that you have taken up the
cudgels in defence of the line of argument in the _Origin_; you will
have benefited the subject.
Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German naturalist came here the
other day, and he tells me that there are many in Germany on our side;
but that all seem fearful of speaking out, and waiting for some one to
speak, and then many will follow. The Naturalists seem as timid as
young ladies should be, about their scientific reputation. There is
much discussion on the subject on the Continent, even in quiet
Holland, and I had a pamphlet from Moscow the other day by a man who
sticks up famously for the imperfection of the ‘Geological Record’ but
complains that I have sadly _understated_ the variability of the old
fossilised animals! But I _must_ not run on. With sincere thanks and
respect, pray believe me, yours very sincerely,
CHARLES DARWIN.
[Sidenote: Going to Darwin at Downe.]
Fawcett was a great admirer of Darwin, and the famous scientist had a
whole-hearted admiration for him, and thought most highly of his work on
political economy. While Fawcett was staying with Lord Avebury they
started on the tree-shaded lane that leads uphill to Downe, where Darwin
lived, but Fawcett sped much too fast for his host, who had taken his
arm. The blind man said, ‘I don’t need you to lead me; if you just keep
close enough to me to prevent my going into the hedges, I am all right!’
‘But I don’t do it to guide you,’ replied Lord Avebury, ‘I do it to help
myself, you walk so quickly.’ Fawcett was hugely amused, and the blind
man continuing thus to lead the sighted, they arrived at Darwin’s, where
they had a very merry time.
[Sidenote: At Salisbury.]
It was a great relaxation and joy for Fawcett when he was able to spend
a few days with his beloved family at Salisbury. He often took his work
with him, and was forced at times to deny himself to visitors. One
morning when he was at work an old lady called who had been his sister’s
schoolmistress. When, at luncheon, he heard that she had been there, and
had asked for him, but that they had refused to interrupt him, he
exclaimed, ‘Oh, why didn’t you call me for a friend?’ Although he knew
the old lady but slightly, and she had no claims on him, he was not
happy until he had called on her that same afternoon and told her how
sorry he was not to have seen her.
[Sidenote: The Joy of Gossip.]
It is refreshing to find that he was devoted to gossip, and in the home
circle at Salisbury he would often ask Mrs. Fawcett pleadingly, ‘Mother,
can’t you go out to hook a little news for me?’ and the mother would
sally forth in search of the latest village excitement. She had a
talent, perhaps inherited by the son, of, to state it conservatively,
making the very best of any anecdote; and when she returned to the
picturesque stone cottage in the close, where she found her long son
toasting himself before the fire in pleasant anticipation of a good dish
of fresh gossip, great was their mutual satisfaction. Urged by him ‘to
tell it all without interruptions,’ she would relate what she had
absorbed with her neighbour’s tea. She knew well how to give the flowery
rendering that delighted her son. As the story increased in
picturesqueness and interest, Fawcett, who had been bending forward, his
lips slightly parted in anticipation of coming smiles, would rock back
and forth with sheer glee. As the narrator skilfully made each point he
would shout joyously, ‘Bravo, mother! Bravo! go it, mother!’ He would
never let any one else retail the village talk. She gave it so much more
point.
He could also ‘hook news’ for himself, and had a favourite tale culled
from a Salisbury gossip. An old dairyman who was a great friend of his
announced one day that they had ‘a new, beautiful clergyman at Harnham.’
‘What kind?’ asked Fawcett. ‘Oh, fine—he goes so terrible high and so
terrible low!’
Though he retained his childlike curiosity, it is notable that he was
absolutely free from ill-nature, and one of his intimates states that he
never heard Fawcett say an ill-natured thing or intentionally spread a
possibly mischievous rumour. Though he had a splendid contempt for
certain weaknesses, he was always discreet, and tried his best to
promote kindly feeling. His love of talk was so infective that it
stimulated a flow in those who without him would have been reticent or
silent.
[Sidenote: Meeting Mill.]
In Cambridge he used to be teased about his total lack of any
embarrassment or shyness, but he would answer these sallies with, ‘If
you could ever see me meeting Mill, you would see me awkward enough!’
The meeting took place, but not in the presence of these Cambridge
cronies; and what happened was never known, as Fawcett kept this sacred
mystery to himself.
In the letter, already mentioned, written to Mill in 1859, he says that
he is ‘personally a stranger to you,’ and then alludes to ‘the very kind
sympathy you have expressed to me,’ and continues:
[Sidenote: Correspon-dence with Mill.]
For the last three years your books have been the chief education of
my mind; I consequently have entertained towards you such a sense of
gratitude as I can only hope at all adequately to repay by doing what
lies in my power to propagate the valuable truths contained in every
page of your writing.
He certainly was a deeply attached pupil.
He writes later:
Pray accept my most sincere thanks for your letter; I cannot tell you
how much I value your words of kind encouragement. Often when I
reflect on my affliction, I feel that it is rash on my part to attempt
anything like a career of public usefulness; and again and again, I am
sure, my heart would fail me if it was not stimulated by your thoughts
and teachings. I can therefore assure you that your kind words will
remove many an obstacle to my course.
This allusion to his blindness and to the depressing effect that it had
in making him doubt at times the practicability of his having a ‘career
of public usefulness’ is as unusual for him as it is touching.
Even his iron will could not exclude the quiet moments when his disaster
weighed on him with the force of its full burden, and he could not at
all times banish a wistful expression which his friends grew to
recognise when his face was not animated by talk or the stimulus of
debate. It is even reproduced in some of the photographs, which show on
his features the calm acceptance of a great tragedy.
Mill had not long lost the wife who had so radiantly coloured an
otherwise grey existence, and doubtless the cordial admiration and the
open-hearted friendship of the younger economist was very pleasant to
him.
The pupil and master became great friends. Fawcett appreciated the
gentle charm of the singular delicacy of feeling which he found under
Mill’s austere and aloof nature. At the unveiling in 1878 of Mill’s
statue, Fawcett said that Mill possessed qualities supposed to be the
peculiar privileges of women, a gentleness and tenderness such as no
woman could exceed. He revered his teacher so profoundly that it was
sometimes thought that he was less generous in listening to the side of
their common opponents.
In later years Professor Sidgwick, who ventured to find some flaws in
the crystal, met with scant sympathy from Fawcett. Walking with a friend
in Cambridge, Fawcett’s attention was called to the nearness of
Professor Sidgwick, apparently deep in conversation. ‘Oh yes,’ said he,
‘there goes Sidgwick, carping on Mill.’
[Sidenote: American Civil War.]
While Fawcett was busying himself with the theory of economics in the
quiet courts of Cambridge, its practice had given rise to a great
conflagration in the Western Continent. The American Civil War raised
many problems outside the country where it raged. England was
considering where her sympathies lay. The Palmerstonian instinct to
support a small state revolting against the possibly arbitrary
insistence of a greater power gave one impulse in favour of the South;
the grudging desire to see a large country split up gave another in the
same direction. These were the feelings of the aristocracy and the
press. But the Radicals and the common people had quite other thoughts.
To them the great country in the West was the home and hope of freedom,
and that [Sidenote: Lancashire Work People and Freedom.] it should
strive to wipe itself free of the stain of slavery won the full sympathy
of the freedom-loving people in the mother country. The working people
of Lancashire stood by and starved that they might help America to be
free.
In 1863 Leslie Stephen crossed the Atlantic. His letters to his mother
were at his request all forwarded to Fawcett, who helped his friend by
getting him letters of introduction.
Stephen writes, ‘The letter which Fawcett got me from Bright to Seward
proved very useful. It brought Seward down completely. Bright’s name is
(as Fawcett may tell him) a complete tower of strength in these parts.
They all talked of him with extraordinary admiration.’ And again, ‘I
also hear that old fox, Fawcett, with his customary low cunning, speaks
complimentarily of my letters and suggests my writing a book on
America.’
[Sidenote: Fawcett for Lincoln and the Union.]
Fawcett from the first was a strong Federalist, and both in public and
in private spoke for the North. At Cambridge he was one of a small
minority, and his rooms were the scene of many a battle for Lincoln and
the Union.
[Illustration:
HENRY FAWCETT AT CAMBRIDGE, 1863
From a contemporary painting in Trinity Hall
The other figures from left to right are Fawcett’s guide, Professor
Geldart and Leslie Stephen]
We have already commented on the curious resemblance, both physical and
mental, between the American and the Englishman. If we turn to the
Trinity Hall picture of Fawcett, Leslie Stephen, and others, the blind
man’s lofty top hat made in England suggests the similar hideous
head-gear which was worn by the American President at his inauguration,
and which was humbly held by his conquered adversary when the oath of
office was taken by the victor. Fawcett is like Lincoln in his great
wiry, lank length of six feet three inches or against the American six
feet four inches; in their athletic force and power, as youths, they
both threw their adversaries in wrestling bouts; their rusticity,
simplicity, and felicity in ready speech; their unfailing love of fun
and affection for small boys, animals, and all weak things in need of
help. In their slight characteristics and in their great traits they had
much in common; their sympathy, honesty, phenomenal patience and
courage. They started on their careers with similar equipments—their
great hearts and tremendous energies. They both, through vast suffering,
found the road to a deep happiness, and with all their love and power
they served their countries.
[Sidenote: Hooking John Bright’s property.]
Fawcett’s friendship for Bright has been referred to. It may not be out
of place to repeat a favourite story Fawcett used to tell against
himself of a fishing exploit in Bright’s company. They had had no luck,
and Bright was walking ahead along the river bank when Fawcett called
out exultantly, ‘Oh, Bright, I’ve got a big one!’ He pulled hard. Bright
turned round and exclaimed, ‘Yes, indeed, you have caught your hook in
the long hair of my dog,’ and went to the rescue of the mystified
collie, who was trying to extricate himself from Fawcett’s vigorous
fishing-line.
[Sidenote: Friendship with Macmillan.]
Largely at the instigation of his friend and future publisher,
Macmillan, Fawcett began to write his first book on political economy in
1861. Alexander Macmillan was a great friend of Fawcett and of his
circle. He often came to Fawcett’s rooms to ask him and to persuade him
to contribute some articles to the early numbers of _Macmillan’s
Magazine_.
It is possible that these two were drawn to each other by their great
differences—Macmillan to Fawcett’s strong, dogged common sense, and
Fawcett to that esoteric vein in his friend’s mentality. The following
incident brings out strongly this contrast. Macmillan was popular with
the graduates, who often spent interesting evenings at his house. One
day he in turn was their guest in the Common Room. He held the floor in
an extremely metaphysical conversation. Fawcett, who cared little for
such talk and always said that philosophy ran off him like water off a
duck’s back, showed scant interest in the proceedings. Macmillan became
more and more introspective and transcendental, and finally exclaimed,
‘I often wonder, Fawcett, what I am here for,’ to which Fawcett
cheerfully replied, ‘O Macmillan, we all know what you are here for—to
bring out another edition of Hamblin Smith’s _Arithmetic_.’
[Sidenote: _Manual of Political Economy._]
[Sidenote: Candidate for the Chair of Political Economy.]
Fawcett’s _Manual of Political Economy_ appeared early in 1863, when he
was in his thirtieth year. He regarded his book merely as an
introduction to Mill’s larger work, which he said ‘will be remembered as
one of the most enduring productions of the nineteenth century.’ The
manual was very well received, and opened the way for Fawcett to succeed
the then Professor of Political Economy, Professor Pryne, who was in
failing health. On the death of this gentleman the choice for a
successor lay among four candidates. The great ability of one of these,
then Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, now Lord Courtney, was already recognised.
As, however, residents were preferred to strangers, the real contest was
reduced to the two local candidates, Fawcett and Mayor. Fawcett’s book
was his chief asset in the struggle, and it, together with his
discussion at the London Political Economy Club, of which he was a
member, constituted the chief claims urged by his many influential
friends throughout the country. They wrote the usual laudatory letters,
but with perhaps more than the usual heartiness. Nevertheless, his
blindness seemed a probable barrier to his ambition. Even one of his
dearest friends refused to uphold his claims, feeling that a blind man
could not properly fill the post, and there was much sincere doubt
whether a man who could not see could keep order in his lecture-room. In
addition to this, Fawcett’s frank Radicalism counted against him; he had
already, as we shall see in a later chapter, twice been a candidate for
Parliament in the Liberal interest, the last time in Cambridge itself.
Such was the reputation for extreme opinions Fawcett and Stephen had
given by their connection with Trinity Hall, that a certain country
squire of ancient lineage and Conservative principles hesitated whether
he dared send his son to the college where his ancestors had gained
their learning. He decided to visit Cambridge, and there interviewed
Stephen and Fawcett. He told them with unfeigned horror of the serious
charges of Radicalism against the college that made him afraid to
entrust his son to its keeping. The grave fellows compared notes
solemnly before answering the father, then Fawcett reassured him, saying
that the rumours which he had heard had been much exaggerated, and
though at one time ’some of us had been rather infected with extreme
opinions, now we have greatly moderated our views, and shall be content
simply with the Disestablishment of the Church and the abolition of the
Throne.’ The immediate flight of the horrified squire can be imagined.
[Sidenote: Elected.]
Undismayed, however, Fawcett and his friends went to their
electioneering with an astuteness and enthusiasm that vanquished all
opposition, and on 28th November 1863 Fawcett was elected to the
professorial chair. A jubilant letter was despatched by him to his
mother the day after the election on 28th November 1863:
MY DEAR MOTHER,—I hope you duly received the telegram. The victory
yesterday was a wonderful triumph. I don’t think an election has
produced so much excitement in Cambridge for years. At last excitement
was greatly increased by its being made quite a church and political
question. All the Masters opposed me with two exceptions, but I was
strongly supported by a great majority of the most distinguished
resident Fellows. My victory was a great surprise to the University. I
thought on the whole that I should win, but I expected a much smaller
majority. Clarke however was very confident. He managed the election
splendidly for me, and curiously predicted that I should poll exactly
ninety votes, and made a bet with Stephen that I should beat Mayor by
ten to twelve. We are going to publish a list of the votes, which I
shall send to you. My great strength after all was in Trinity. This
says much for the independence of the College, as the Master was one
of my strongest opponents....
All my friends in town regard it as a great political triumph. The
Forsters [who had supported him in the election at Cambridge] were in
a wonderful state of delight, and I have been overwhelmed with
congratulations. I must now conclude, as I have many more letters to
write. Give my kindest love to Maria, and believe me to be, dear
Mother, ever yours affectionately,
HENRY FAWCETT.
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THE PROFESSOR
OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
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'A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.'
SHAKESPEARE.
'He that hath light within his own dim breast
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day.'
MILTON.
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