shortly before his marriage, the incidents connected with which were of
a somewhat romantic character. When the _Rattlesnake_ was in Sydney
Harbour the officers were invited to a ball, and young Huxley among the
number. There for the first time he met his future wife, whose parents
resided at Sydney. A few days after they were engaged, and the ship
sailed for the Torres Straits to complete the survey of the north coast
of Australia, all communication being cut off for months at a time, and
then returned direct to England. At the end of seven years, on Huxley’s
appointment to the School of Mines, he was in a position to claim his
bride, and welcome her to their first home in St. John’s Wood. He often
used to say that to engage the affections of a young girl under these
circumstances, knowing that he would have to leave her for an indefinite
time, and with only the remotest prospect of ever marrying, was an act
most strongly to be reprobated, and he often held it out as a warning to
his children never to do anything of the kind, and yet they all married
young and all happily. Huxley’s love at first sight and constancy during
those seven long years of separation were richly rewarded, for it is
impossible to imagine a pair more thoroughly suited. I cannot help
relating a little incident which clings to my memory, though it happened
full thirty years ago. A rather cynical and vulgar-minded acquaintance
of mine said to me one day: “I saw Huxley in a box at the Drury Lane
Theatre last night. Can you tell me who was the lady with him?” After a
few words of description I said: “Oh, that was Mrs. Huxley.”--“Indeed,”
he said; “I thought it could not be his wife, he was so very attentive
to her all the evening.” As intimate friends knew, they had at first
many household troubles and cares to contend with, a large family of
young children, much ill-health, and not very abundant means, but
through it all Huxley’s patience and sweetness were admirable. The
fierce and redoubtable antagonist in the battlefield of scientific or
theological controversy was all love and gentleness at home.
The fact that he had sailed under Captain Owen Stanley, who died when in
command of the _Rattlesnake_ in Australia, brought him into very
friendly communication with the Captain’s brother, Arthur Stanley, the
late dean of Westminster, _the_ Dean, as many of us always used to, and
still do, call him, just as the first Duke of Wellington was always
called _the_ Duke. Notwithstanding the great differences of their
interests and pursuits, they remained intimate until Stanley’s death,
and to be with them when they met was a rare occasion of hearing much
delightful talk and many displays of playful wit. If I had the faculty
of a Boswell, I should have much worth narrating of many charming little
dinner parties at one or the other of our houses, when Huxley and the
Dean were the principal talkers. I remember a characteristic _rencontre_
between them which took place on one of the ballot nights at the
Athenæum. A well-known popular preacher of the Scotch Presbyterian
Church, who had made himself famous by predictions of the speedy coming
of the end of the world, was up for election. I was standing by Huxley
when the Dean, coming straight from the ballot boxes, turned towards us.
“Well,” said Huxley, “have you been voting for C?”--“Yes, indeed, I
have,” replied the Dean. “Oh, I thought the priests were always opposed
to the prophets,” said Huxley. “Ah?” replied the Dean, with that
well-known twinkle in his eye, and the sweetest of smiles. “But, you
see, I do not believe in his prophecies, and some people say I am not
much of a priest.”
Speaking of Dean Stanley, I am reminded of a very interesting meeting
which took place at my house, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, on 26th November
1878, just after his return from his visit to the United States. He had
a great wish to see Darwin, who was one of the few remarkable men of
the age with whom he was not personally acquainted. They moved in
totally different circles, Darwin having, owing to ill-health, long
given up going into general society. He had, however, a great admiration
for the Dean’s liberality, courage, and character, and was glad of the
opportunity of meeting him. So we arranged that they should both come to
lunch. They were mutually pleased with each other, although they had not
many subjects in common to talk about. Darwin was no theologian, and
Stanley did not take the slightest interest in nor had he any knowledge
of any branch of natural history, although his father was eminent as an
ornithologist and President of the Linnean Society. I once took him over
the Zoological Gardens. His remarks were, of course, original and
amusing, but the sole interest he appeared to find in any of the animals
was in tracing some human trait, either in appearance or character. The
Dean enjoyed intensely the broader aspects and beauties of nature as
shown in scenery, but the details of animal and plant life were entirely
outside his sympathies.
Another introduction consequent upon Huxley’s voyage in the
_Rattlesnake_ was to Dr. Vaughan, then Headmaster of Harrow. Mrs.
Vaughan was Captain Owen Stanley’s sister, and soon after Huxley’s
return he was asked to dine and pass the night at Harrow. This was a new
experience. The young, rough sailor-surgeon was at first quite out of
his element in the refined, scholastic, ecclesiastical society he found
himself plunged into. Among those who were present was an Oxford don
(the first of the class Huxley had ever met), whose great learning,
suave manner and air of superiority during dinner, greatly alarmed and
repelled him, as he afterwards confessed. Bed-time came, and both stood
upon the staircase, lighted candle in hand. They looked straight into
each other’s eyes, and the don addressed a few words directly to Huxley
for the first time. He was much interested, and an animated conversation
ensued. Instead of bidding each other “good night” they adjourned to a
neighbouring room, sat down and talked till two o’clock in the morning.
This was the beginning of Huxley’s life-long friendship with the late
Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett.
It may surprise some people to know, but that he has told it himself in
an exceedingly interesting and delightfully written short
autobiographical sketch prefixed to his works, that Huxley was not in
early life anything of what is commonly called a naturalist. Most men
who have distinguished themselves in the field of zoology or
palæontology have loved the subject from their early boyhood, a love
generally shown by the formation of collections of specimens. Huxley
never did anything of the kind. His early tastes were for literature and
for engineering. He attributed the awakening of his interest in anatomy
to Professor Wharton Jones’s lectures at Charing Cross Hospital, where
he received his medical education. Wharton Jones was one of the pioneers
of microscopic research in this country; a great enthusiast in his work,
but a man of modest and exceedingly retiring disposition, and very
little known outside a small circle of friends. He published several
papers on histology in the _Philosophical Transactions_, and made a
specialty of ophthalmic surgery. Perhaps of his various contributions to
the advancement of his subject, not the least important was that of
making a scientific anatomist of Huxley.
The next man who had a real influence upon Huxley’s professional career
was Sir John Richardson, a very keen zoologist, at that time principal
medical officer at Haslar Hospital, near Portsmouth, where the naval
assistant surgeons first proceeded on appointment. It was through him
that Huxley was appointed to the surveying ship, _H.M.S. Rattlesnake_.
He was not naturalist to the expedition, as has been sometimes said;
indeed, he would at this time have been hardly qualified for such a
post, for, although he had published a short paper on the microscopic
structure of the human hair, he had as yet done no zoological work.
Moreover, the ship did carry an accredited naturalist, John
Macgillivray, who published a _Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S.
“Rattlesnake,” during 1846-50_, in two volumes (1852).
Huxley’s official duties were only with the health of the crew, and as
he had a surgeon above him, he had plenty of leisure at his command. How
this leisure was employed in laying the foundation upon which his
future distinction rested has often been told. He had his microscope
with him, and he threw himself with the greatest ardour into the
investigation of the structure of the lowly organised but beautiful
forms of animal life which abounded in the seas through which the ship
sailed, and which the surveying operations in which she was engaged gave
ample opportunities for observing under the most favourable conditions.
This was almost a new field of research. He became fascinated with it,
and his success in its pursuit was the main cause of his adopting
zoology as the principal subject to engage his energies during the rest
of his life.
As said before, Huxley, unlike many other zoologists, was never a
collector, and had not the slightest tincture of the spirit of a museum
curator. He cared for a specimen according to the facilities it afforded
for investigation. He cut it up, got all the knowledge he could out of
it, and threw it away. I believe he never made a preparation of any
kind, and he cared little for dissections sealed down in bottles.
When, in 1862, he was appointed to the Hunterian Professorship at the
College of Surgeons, he took for the subject of several yearly courses
of lectures the anatomy of the vertebrata, beginning with the primates,
and as the subject was then rather new to him, and as it was a rule with
him never to make a statement in a lecture that was not founded upon his
own actual observation, he set to work to make a series of original
dissections of all the forms he treated of. These were carried on in the
workroom at the top of the college, and mostly in the evenings, after
his daily occupation at Jermyn Street (the School of Mines, as it was
then called) was over, an arrangement which my residence in the college
buildings enabled me to make for him. These rooms contained a large
store of material, entire or partially dissected animals preserved in
spirit, which, unlike those mounted in the museum, were available for
further investigation in any direction, and these, supplemented
occasionally by fresh subjects from the Zoological Gardens, formed the
foundation of the lectures, afterwards condensed into the volume on the
Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals, published in 1871. On these evenings it
was always my privilege to be with him, and to assist in the work in
which he was engaged. In dissecting, as in everything else, he was a
very rapid worker, going straight to the point he wished to ascertain
with a firm and steady hand, never diverted into side issues, nor
wasting any time in unnecessary polishing up for the sake of
appearances, the very opposite, in fact, to what is commonly known as
“finikin.” His great facility for bold and dashing sketching came in
most usefully in this work, the notes he made being largely helped out
by illustrations. He might have been a great artist, some of his
anatomical sketches reminding me much of Sir Charles Bell’s, but he
never had time to cultivate his faculties in this direction, and, I
believe, never attempted any finished work. His power of drawing on the
black-board during the lectures was of great assistance to him and to
his audience, and his outdoor sketches, made during some of his travels,
as in Egypt, though slight were full of artistic feeling. His genius was
also conspicuously shown by the clever drawings, often full of playful
fancy, which covered the paper that happened to be lying before him when
sitting at a council or committee meeting. On such occasions his hand
was rarely idle.
It is very singular that although, as admitted by all who heard him, he
was one of the clearest and most eloquent of scientific lecturers of his
time, he always disliked lecturing; and the nervousness from which he
suffered in his early days was never entirely overcome, however little
apparent it might be to his audience. After his first public lecture at
the Royal Institution he received an anonymous letter, telling him that
he had better not try anything of the kind again, as whatever he was fit
for, it was certainly not giving lectures! Instead of being discouraged,
he characteristically set to work to mend whatever faults he had of
style and manner, with what success is well known. Nevertheless, he
often told me of the awful feeling of alarm which always came over him
on entering the door of the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, or
even the College of Surgeons, where the subject was most familiar and
the audience entirely sympathetic. He had a feeling that he must break
down before the lecture was over, and it was only by recalling to his
memory the number of times he had lectured without anything of the kind
happening, and then drawing conclusions as to the improbability of its
occurring now, that he was able to brace himself up to the effort of
beginning his discourse. When once fairly away on his subject all such
apprehensions were at an end. Such experiences are, of course, very
common, but they were probably aggravated greatly in Huxley’s case by
the ill health, that miserable, hypochondriacal dyspepsia which, as he
says himself, was his constant companion for the last half century of
his life. Bearing in mind the serious inroad this made in the amount of
time available for active employment, it is marvellous to think of the
quantity he was able to accomplish. When the time comes for forming a
just estimate of the value of his scientific work, and if quality as
well as quantity be fairly taken into account, it will, without doubt,
bear comparison with, if it will not exceed, that of any of his
contemporaries.
If, instead of taking up medicine and afterwards science as a
profession, he had gone to the bar, he must infallibly have achieved the
highest measure of success. As an advocate he could scarcely have been
surpassed. His clear, penetrating insight into the essentials of an
intricate question, the rapidity with which he swept aside all that was
irrelevant, and the forcible way in which he could state the arguments
for his own side of a case, and his brilliant power of repartee, would
have been irresistible in a court of justice. He was also free from a
quality which paralyses the effective action of many men of great mental
capacity--the faculty of seeing something at least of both sides of a
case at the same time. When he took up a cause he took it up in thorough
earnest, and it must be admitted that there was then very little chance
of his feeling any sympathy for the other side. He had some strong
prejudices against doctrines, against institutions, and against
individuals, and as his nature was absolutely honest and truthful, he
never cared to conceal them. On the other hand, no man was more loyal to
the causes he approved of or the people he liked. He could always be
relied upon to carry out to the uttermost of his power anything he had
undertaken to do. To the younger workers in his own fields of research
nothing could exceed his generous assistance, sympathy, and
encouragement. These qualities were, above all others, the main causes
of the devoted attachment he won from every one who was brought much
into personal contact with him.
In one of the recent biographical notices which have appeared of Huxley
it is said that “no man of more reverent religious feeling ever trod
this earth.” This statement has much of truth in it. If the term
“religious” be limited to acceptance of the formularies of one of the
current creeds of the world, it cannot be applied to Huxley, but no one
could be intimate with him without feeling that he possessed a deep
reverence for “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,” and an
abhorrence of all that is the reverse of these, and that, although he
found difficulty in expressing it in definite words, he had a pervading
sense of adoration for the infinite, very much akin to the highest
religion.
XXIV
EULOGIUM ON CHARLES DARWIN[87]
The Council of the Linnean Society has honoured me with the request that
I would say some words regarding the life and work of our illustrious
member Charles Darwin, whose name, it may be said with truth, is more
widely known throughout the civilised world than any other that has been
enrolled upon the list of Fellows of the Society.
Darwin has, moreover, special claims for consideration from us on such
an occasion as this, inasmuch as a large and very important portion of
his work was first communicated to the world by means of papers read at
our meetings and published in our Journal.
Here, on the 1st of July 1858, was read the celebrated essay “On the
Variation of Organic Beings in a State of Nature, on the Natural means
of Selection, on the Comparison of Domestic Races and True Species.”
Here also were first made known, in a succession of memoirs, extending
over many years, those remarkable investigations into the structure and
life-history of plants, “any one of which, taken on its own merits” (I
quote the words of one of our leading authorities in this department of
science), “would alone have made the reputation of any ordinary
botanist.”
Darwin’s life and Darwin’s work are, however, so familiar to every one
here, and have been so recently and so exhaustively treated of, in every
aspect in which they can be viewed, that to attempt to say anything new
upon them, or even to clothe what is well-known in any original form,
would be for me a hopeless task.
The brevity with which I will speak will therefore be not a measure of
our appreciation of the subject or of the man, but of a conviction that
few words are needed to express what we all know and all feel.
The recently published _Life and Letters_ has brought before a wide
circle of readers a most vivid presentiment of what Darwin really was.
A character so simple, so transparent, so unaffected, duly recognising
its own strength, and at the same time fully conscious of its own
imperfections, a life so singularly consistent, so steadily uniform
throughout in its aims, and so undeviatingly honest to all its
convictions: such a character and such a life, already well known to his
intimate friends, is now before the whole world revealed, as one may
say, to its very depths.
Nothing more of any importance, either of character or life, will ever
be known. Any additional detail of incident or adventure that can ever
be brought to light, any further publication of his voluminous
correspondence, would only fill in little vacuities that may be left in
the picture, but will never alter the outlines, or the colour, or the
tone. The picture, as already drawn in that book, will remain,
substantially, the same, for it is that of the man himself, and, as I
have said, of a man singularly free from the complexities and
contradictions which make up the composite character of many whose names
have risen conspicuous above those of their fellow-men. To the admirable
qualities of his domestic life, his modesty, his graciousness, his
geniality, his generous appreciation of the work and opinions of others,
justice has been fully rendered, even by the least sympathetic critics
of his scientific work. One of the most recent of these is constrained
to say, “To know Darwin was to feel attracted to him, to know much of
him was to love him.”[88]
It concerns us here to speak rather of the one great characteristic
which, throughout the whole of his lengthened career, dominated all
others, and made him what he was,--the consuming, irrepressible longing
to unravel the mysteries of living nature, to penetrate the shroud which
conceals the causes and methods by which all the wonders and all the
diversity, all the beauty--yes, and all the deformity too--which we see
around us in the life of animals and plants have been brought about.
Against our ignorance on these subjects his life was one long battle,
and in reading its history and seeing the gradual development of his
plan of operations, one is continually reminded of a great strategist
directing a vast army spread over a wide and varied field of operations;
now surveying the whole at a glance, now pressing on his various forces
wherever an opening presents itself anywhere along the line, now
carefully scrutinising the weak and the strong points of every position;
omitting no precaution where danger threatens, now bringing one branch
of the forces to bear, followed up and supported, if need be, by others
of a different kind, one after another, in close and telling array;
masses of facts, experiments, observations, and arguments thrown in to
stop a breach or strengthen any menaced or wavering post, and all
arranged, grouped, marshalled, and handled with the skill and vigilance
with which a successful general handles a living army in the conduct of
a great and complicated campaign.
To all this, most of the work which we others do is but irregular,
guerilla warfare, attacks on isolated points, mere outpost skirmishing,
while his was the indefatigable, patient, unintermittent toil, conducted
in such a manner and on such a scale that it could scarcely fail to
secure victory in the end.
The main victory gained by his work was, as we all know, the destruction
of the conception of species as being beyond certain narrow limits fixed
and unchangeable, a conception which prevailed almost universally before
his time. That this has been gained chiefly by means of Darwin’s work
and writing, there can be no doubt. Let us admit that others had
prepared the way, that the work was carried on simultaneously by many
others also, that if the present generally accepted view is true, it
must have made its way if Darwin had not lived or spoken; I say, grant
all this to the fullest, and the fact remains that he was the main agent
in the conversion of almost the whole scientific world from one to a
totally opposite conception of one of the most important operations of
nature.
Such a revolution as this, with all its momentous consequences to the
study of zoology and botany, effected in so short a space of time, is,
as has often been said, without a parallel in the history of science,
and it is one the full significance of which those who have not lived
through it, and been workers at biology in both the pre-Darwinian and
post-Darwinian epochs, must find difficulty in realising.
There is, moreover, no doubt but that this rapid conversion was much
facilitated by the fascinating nature of the theory of the operation of
natural selection in intensifying and fixing variation, as originally
propounded in these rooms independently and simultaneously by Darwin and
by Wallace. This theory has been subjected to keen criticism, and
difficulties have undoubtededly been shown in accepting it as a complete
explanation of many of the phenomena of evolution. That other factors
have been at work besides natural selection in bringing about the
present condition of the organic world, probably every one now admits,
as, I need not say, Darwin did himself. This, however, is not the
occasion to enter into a critical examination of this large and complex
subject. Indeed, the time seems scarcely yet come when we can do so with
the necessary calmness and impartiality. Prejudices on the one hand and
on the other, and the cloud of side-issues which were aroused when the
theory was first promulgated, and which prevented many from
understanding what was really implied by it, still hover around, and
many of us deem it best to rest with suspended judgment not only upon
this, but upon the various other hypotheses put forward to account for
the origin of species, and to turn again with increased interest and
zeal to investigate the facts upon which these hypotheses are based. No
one can deny that, whatever opinion may ultimately prevail regarding
Darwin and his works, the controversies that have gathered round them
have proved a marvellous stimulus to research, and have given new life
to investigations into a great variety of subjects,--subjects so diverse
as palæontology, morphology, embryology, the geographical distribution,
the habits, and the life-history of all living things,--into every
branch, in fact, of biological science.