The piercing clearness of mind described by Prof. Sidgwick, which
could not express itself otherwise than trenchantly and drove straight
at the heart of the subject, gave Huxley the popular reputation of
being above all things a controversialist. Naturally enough, the
public knew little and cared less for the unspectacular researches
among the Invertebrates, which had won such high scientific fame.
They were only stirred when the results of study in geology, in
fossil forms and simian anatomy, clashed with long-established
popular conceptions. There was also a gladiatorial delight in watching
controversy not simply abstract, but fanned by personal conviction,
which marked the champions above all as good fighters.
It must be noted, however, that, vigorous as he was in carrying war
into the enemy's country, on two occasions only did Huxley set forth
without being first personally attacked. One was his review of
the _Vestiges of Creation,_ when he was irritated by the writer's
"prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind."
If it had any influence on me at all [he writes], it set me
against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of
conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I
wrote on the _Vestiges_ while under that influence (1854).
The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the
account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply
to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Réville and his applications of
scientific methods to the problem.
Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical
subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To
demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of
the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and
educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose
slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions
involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a
breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to
superior knowledge of the spiritual world.
It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these
controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound
and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry,
and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to
admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is
prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest
beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch
as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy
are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the
anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on
opinions worthy of all respect.
For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to
push his researches into the history and origin of the world and its
life, he invariably ran up against a sign-board with the notice, "No
Thoroughfare--By Order--Moses." Geology and Biology were shut in by a
ring-fence; the universe beyond was a Forbidden Land, guarded by the
Lamas of ecclesiastical authority.
The first great clash with this authority, which focussed attention
upon the scientific struggle for freedom of thought, was that which
followed the publication of the _Origin of Species_ at the end of
1859, and culminated in the debate with the Bishop of Oxford at the
Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860. A fierce but more
limited struggle for freedom of criticism within the pale of the
Church was to follow the publication of _Essays and Reviews_ (1860)
and Bishop Colenso's examination of the Pentateuch in 1862 and
onwards.
The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on
thought at large. Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the
book to the public. The reviewer of the _Times_, knowing nothing about
the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the
opening paragraphs himself. But it was his retort to the Bishop of
Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the
challenge of authority was to be taken up. The story is well known;
how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to
"smash Darwin." Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also
reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical
degree. He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently
had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at
Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day,
but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop's _Quarterly_ article
that was published a few days later.
After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the
chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in
order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and
"spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and
unfairness," wrote Hooker.
He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such
dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned
periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President
for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific
purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart.... In a
light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there
was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what
rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist
with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through
his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent
from a monkey.
Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific
discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the
opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an
audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow
closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and
that ridicule is a two-edged weapon. As he spoke these words
Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and
whispered: "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands."
The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did
not rise until the meeting called for him. Then he "slowly and
deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet
and very grave." He began with a general statement in defence of
Darwin's theory. "I am here only in the interests of science, and
I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august
client." Darwin's theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural
History, as the undulatory theory was of the phenomena of light. No
one objected to the latter because an undulation of light had never
been arrested and measured. Darwin offered an explanation of facts,
and his book was full of new facts, all bearing on his theory. Without
asserting that every part of that theory had been confirmed, he
maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species
which had yet been offered. As to the psychological distinction
between men and animals, and the question of the Creation: "You say
that development drives out the Creator; but you assert that God made
you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece
of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case." Nobody
could say at what moment of the history of his development man became
consciously intelligent. The whole question was not so much one of a
transmutation or transition of species as of the production of forms
which became permanent. The Ancon sheep was not produced gradually;
it originated in the birth of the original parent of the whole stock,
which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection.
But if the question were to be treated, not as a matter for the calm
investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if he were
asked whether he would choose to be descended from the poor animal of
low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as we pass,
or from a man endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who
should use these gifts to discredit and crush humble seekers after
truth, he must hesitate what answer to make.
The actual words were not taken down at the time; they were finely
eloquent, and gained effect from the clear, deliberate utterance; but
the nearest approach to them was recorded in a letter of J.R. Green,
the future historian, written immediately after the meeting:--
I asserted--and I repeat--that a man has no reason to be
ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were
an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it
would rather be a _man_--a man of restless and versatile
intellect--who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in
his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions
with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them
by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his
hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions
and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
[Footnote 1: Referring to this letter afterwards, my father felt
certain that he had never used the word "equivocal." In this he was
borne out by Prof. Victor Carus and Prof. Farrar, who were present.]
The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been
coldly received--no more than a cheer of encouragement from his
immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he
finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the
other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's
weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out.
As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated
public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main
scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side.
The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was,
he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his
own.