orthodox theology. Perhaps there is something in the practical nature of
the average English mind which makes it indifferent and apathetic to
mere speculation. The ordinary Englishmen understands being a Churchman
or a Dissenter, a Roman Catholic or a no-Popery man; but he hardly
understands how people can be got to concern themselves with mere
sceptical speculation. Writings like those of Rousseau, for example,
never could have produced in England anything like the effect they
wrought in France. Of late years the effects of "free-thinking" (I am
using the phrase merely in the vulgar sense) have been poor, feeble and
uninfluential--wholly indeed without influence over the educated classes
of society. A certain limited and transient influence was once
maintained over a small surface of society by the speeches and the
writings of George Jacob Holyoake. Holyoake avowed himself an Atheist,
conducted a paper called (I think) "The Reasoner," was prosecuted under
the terms of a foolish and discreditable act of Parliament, and had for
a time something of notoriety and popular power. But Holyoake, a man of
pure character and gentle manners, is devoid of anything like commanding
ability, has no gleam of oratorical power, and is intellectually
unreliable and vacillating. Under no conceivable circumstances could he
exercise any strong or permanent control over the mind or the heart of
an age: and he has of late somewhat modified his opinions, and has
greatly altered his sphere of action, preferring to be a political and
social reformer in a small and modest way to the barren task of
endeavoring to uproot religious belief by arguments evolved from the
depth of the moral consciousness. Holyoake, the Atheist, may therefore
be said to have faded away.
His old place has lately been taken by a noisier, more egotistic and
robust sort of person, a young man named Bradlaugh, who at one time
dubbed himself "Iconoclast," and, bearing that ambitious title, used to
harangue knots of working men in the North of England with the most
audacious of free-thinking rhetoric. Bradlaugh has a certain kind of
brassy, stentorian eloquence and a degree of reckless self conceit which
almost amount to a conquering quality. But he has no intellectual
capacity sufficient to make a deep mark on the mind of any section of
society and he never attempts, so far as I know, any other than the old,
time-worn arguments against orthodoxy with which the world has been
wearily familiar since the days of Voltaire. Indeed, a man who gravely
undertakes to prove by argument that there is no God, places himself at
once in so anomalous, paradoxical and ridiculous a position that it is a
marvel the absurdity of the situation does not strike his own mind. A
man who starts with the reasonable assumption that belief is a matter of
evidence and then goes on to argue that a Being does not exist of whose
non-existence he can upon his own ground and pleading know absolutely
nothing, is not likely to be very formidable to any of his antagonists.
Orthodox theologians, therefore, are little concerned about men like
Bradlaugh--very often perhaps are ignorant of the existence of any such.
I only mention Holyoake and Bradlaugh at all because they are the only
prominent agitators of this kind who have appeared in England during my
time. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of either man. Both have
considerable abilities; both are, I am sure, sincere and honest. I have
never heard anything to the disparagement of Bradlaugh's character.
Holyoake I know personally, and esteem highly. But their influence has
been insignificant, and cannot have any long duration. I only speak of
it here to show how feeble has been the head made against orthodoxy in
England by professed infidelity in our time. There was, indeed, a book
written some years ago by a man of higher culture than Holyoake or
Bradlaugh, and which made a bubble or two of sensation at the time. I
mean "The Creed of Christendom," by William Rathbone Greg, a well-known
political and philosophical essayist, who wrote largely for the
"Edinburgh Review" and the "Westminster Review" and more lately for the
"Pall Mall Gazette," and has now a comfortable place under government.
But the "Creed of Christendom," though a clever book in its way, made no
abiding mark. It was read and liked by those whose opinions it
expressed, but I question if it ever made one single convert or
suggested a doubt to a truly orthodox mind. I mention it because it was
the only work of what is called a directly infidel character, not
pretending to a scientific basis, which was contributed to the
literature of English philosophy by a man of high culture and literary
reputation during my memory. It will be understood that I am speaking
now of works modeled after the old fashion of sceptical controversy, in
which the authors make it their avowed and main purpose to assail the
logical coherence and reasonableness of the Christian faith by arguments
which, sound or unsound, can be brought to no practical test and settled
by no possible decision. Such works may be influential among nations
which are addicted to or tolerant of mere religious speculation; it is
only a calling aloud to solitude to address them to the English public.
Even books of a very high intellectual class, such for example as
Strauss's "Life of Jesus," are translated into English in vain. They are
read and admired by those already prepared to admire and eager to read
them--the general public takes no heed of them.
I have ventured into this digression in order to show the more clearly
how important must be the influence of that new school of science which
has aroused such a commotion among the devotees of English orthodoxy.
There is not, so far as I know, among the leading scientific men of the
new school one single professed infidel in the old fashioned sense. The
fundamental difference between them and the orthodox is that they insist
upon regarding all subjects coming within the scope of human knowledge
as open to inquiry and to be settled only upon evidence. I suppose a day
will come when people will wonder that a scientific man, living in the
England of the nineteenth century, could have been denounced from
pulpits because he claimed the right and the duty to follow out his
scientific investigations whithersoever they should lead him. Yet I am
not aware that anything more desperately infidel than this has ever been
urged by our modern English _savans_.
Michel Chevalier tells a story of a French iconoclast of our own time
who devoted himself to a perpetual war against what he considered the
two worst superstitions of the age--belief in God and dislike of
spiders. This aggressive sage always carried about with him a golden box
filled with the pretty and favorite insects I have mentioned; and
whenever he happened to be introduced to any new acquaintance he
invariably plunged at once into the questions--"Do you believe in a God,
and are you afraid of spiders?"--and without waiting for an answer, he
instantly demonstrated his own superiority to at least one conventional
weakness by opening his box, taking out a spider, and swallowing it. I
think a good deal of the old-fashioned warfare against orthodoxy had
something of this spider-bolting aggressiveness about it. It assailed
men's dearest beliefs in the coarsest manner, and it had commonly only
horror and disgust for its reward. There is nothing of this spirit among
the leaders of English scientific philosophy to-day. Not merely are the
practically scientific men free from it, but even the men who are
called in a sort of a contemptuous tone "philosophers" are not to be
accused of it. Mill and Herbert Spencer have as little of it as Huxley
and Grove. Indeed the scientific men are nothing more or less than
earnest, patient, devoted inquirers, seeking out the truth fearlessly,
and resolute to follow wherever she invites. Whenever they have come
into open conflict with orthodoxy, it may be safely assumed that
orthodoxy threw the first stone. For orthodoxy, with a keen and just
instinct, detests these scientific men. The Low Church party, the great
mass of the Dissenting body (excluding, of course, Unitarians) have been
their uncompromising opponents. The High Church party, which, with all
its mediaeval weaknesses and its spiritual reaction, does assuredly boast
among its leaders some high and noble intellects, and among all its
classes earnest, courageous minds, has, on the contrary, given, for the
most part, its confidence and its attention to the teachings of the
_savans_. We have the testimony of Professor Huxley himself to the fact
that the leading minds of the Roman Catholic Church do at least take
care that the teachings of the _savans_ shall be understood, and that
they shall be combated, if at all, on scientific and not on theological
grounds.
No man is more disliked and dreaded by the orthodox than Thomas Huxley.
Darwin, who is really the _fons et origo_ of the present agitation, is
hardly more than a name to the outer world. He has written a book, and
that is all the public know about him. He never descends into the arena
of open controversy; we never read of him in the newspapers. I know of
no instance of a book so famous with an author so little known. Even
curiosity does not seem to concern itself about the individuality of
Darwin, whose book opened up a new era of controversy, spreading all
over the world, and was the sensation in England of many successive
seasons. Herbert Spencer, indeed, has lived for a long time hardly
noticed or known by the average English public. But then none of
Spencer's books ever created the slightest sensation among that public,
and three out of every four Englishmen never heard of the man or the
books. Herbert Spencer is infinitely better known in the United States
than he is in England, although I am far from admitting that he is
better appreciated even here than by those of his countrymen who are at
all acquainted with his masterly, his unsurpassed, contributions to the
philosophy of the world. The singular fact about Darwin is that his book
was absolutely the rage in England; everybody was bound to read it or at
least to talk about it and pretend to have understood it. More
excitement was aroused by it than even by Buckle's "History of
Civilization;" it fluttered the petticoats in the drawing-room as much
as the surplices in the pulpit; it occupied alike the attention of the
scholar and the fribble, the divine and the schoolgirl. Yet the author
kept himself in complete seclusion, and, for some mysterious reason or
other, public curiosity never seemed disposed to persecute him.
Therefore the theologians seem to have regarded him as the poet does the
cuckoo, rather as a voice in the air than as a living creature; and they
have not poured out much of their anger upon him personally. But Huxley
comes down into the arena of public controversy and is a familiar and
formidable figure there. Wherever there is strife there is Huxley. Years
ago he came into the field almost unknown like the Disinherited Knight
in Scott's immortal romance; and, while the good-natured spectators were
urging him to turn the blunt end of the lance against the shield of the
least formidable opponent, he dashed with splendid recklessness, and
with spearpoint forward, against the buckler of Richard Owen himself,
the most renowned of the naturalists of England. Indeed Huxley has the
soul and spirit of a gallant controversialist. He has many times warned
the orthodox champions that if they play at bowls they must expect
rubbers; and once in the fight he never spares. He has a happy gift of
shrewd sense and sarcasm combined; and, indeed, I know no man who can
exhibit a sophism as a sophism and hold it up to contempt and laughter
more clearly and effectively in a single sentence of exhaustive satire.
It would be wrong to regard Huxley merely as a scientific man. He is
likewise a literary man, a writer. What he writes would be worth reading
for its style and its expression alone, were it of no scientific
authority; whereas we all know perfectly well that scientific men
generally are read only for the sake of what they teach, and not at all
because of their manner of teaching it--rather indeed despite of their
manner of teaching it. Huxley is a fascinating writer, and has a happy
way of pressing continually into the service of strictly scientific
exposition illustrations caught from literature and art--even from
popular and light literature. He has a gift in this way which somewhat
resembles that possessed by a very different man belonging to a very
different class--I mean Robert Lowe, the present English Chancellor of
the Exchequer, who owes the greater part of his rhetorical success to
the prodigality of varied illustration with which he illumines his
speeches, and which catches, at this point or that, the attention of
every kind of listener. Huxley seems to understand clearly that you can
never make scientific doctrines really powerful while you are content
with the ear of strictly scientific men. He cultivates, therefore,
sedulously and successfully, the literary art of expression. A London
friend of mine, who has had long experience in the editing of high-class
periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers
of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and
cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write. Every literary
man, especially every editor, will cordially agree with me that at the
heart of this humorous extravagance is a solid kernel of truth. Now,
scientific men very often belong to the class of those who know
something, but cannot write. No one, however, could possibly confound
Thomas Huxley with the band of those to whom the gift of expression is
denied. He is a vivid, forcible, fascinating writer. His style as a
lecturer is one which, for me at least, has a special charm. It is,
indeed, devoid of any effort at rhetorical eloquence; but it has all the
eloquence which is born of the union of profound thought with simple
expression and luminous diction. There is not much of the poetic,
certainly, about him; only the occasional dramatic vividness of his
illustrations suggests the existence in him of any of the higher
imaginative qualities. I think there was something like a gleam of the
poetic in the half melancholy half humorous introduction of Balzac's
famous "Peau de Chagrin," into the Protoplasm lecture. But Huxley as a
rule treads only the firm earth, and deliberately, perhaps scornfully,
rejects any attempts and aspirings after the clouds. His mind is in this
way far more rigidly practical than that even of Richard Owen. He is
never eloquent in the sense in which Humboldt for example was so often
eloquent. Being a politician, I may be excused for borrowing an
illustration from the political arena, and saying that Huxley's
eloquence is like that of Cobden; it is eloquence only because it is so
simply and tersely truthful. The whole tone of his mind, the whole
tendency of his philosophy, may be observed to have this character of
quiet, fearless, and practical truthfulness. No seeker after truth could
be more earnest, more patient, more disinterested. "Dry light," as Bacon
calls it--light uncolored by prejudice, undimmed by illusion,
undistorted by interposing obstacle--is all that Huxley desires to have.
He puts no bound to the range of human inquiry. Wherever man may look,
there let him look earnestly and without fear. Truth is always naked
and not ashamed. The modest, self-denying profession of Lessing that he
wanted not the whole truth, and only asked to be allowed the pleasing
toil of investigation, must be almost unintelligible to a student like
Huxley; and indeed is only to be understood by any active inquirer, on
condition that he bears in mind the healthy and racy delight which the
mere labor of intellectual research gave to Lessing's vigorous and
elastic mind. No subject is sacred to Huxley; because with him truth is
more sacred than any sphere of inquiry. I suppose the true and pure
knight would have fearlessly penetrated any shrine in his quest of the
Holy Grail.
Professor Huxley's nature seems to me to have been cast in a finer mould
than that of Professor Tyndall, for example. Decidedly, Tyndall is a man
of great ability and earnestness. He has done, perhaps, more practical
work in science than Huxley has; he has written more; he sometimes
writes more eloquently. But he wants, to my thinking, that pure and
colorless impartiality of inquiry and judgment which is Huxley's
distinguishing characteristic. There is a certain coarseness of
materialism about Tyndall; there is a vehement and almost an arrogant
aggressiveness in him which must interfere with the clearness of his
views. He assails the orthodox with the temper of a Hot Gospeller.
Perhaps his Irish nature is partly accountable for this warm and eager
combativeness: perhaps his having sat so devotedly at the feet of his
friend, the great apostle of force, Thomas Carlyle, may help to explain
the unsparing vigor of his controversial style. However that may be,
Tyndall is assuredly one of the most impatient of sages, one of the most
intolerant of philosophers. If I have compared Huxley to the pure
devoted knight riding patiently in search of the Holy Grail, I may,
perhaps, liken Tyndall to the ardent champion who ranges the world,
fiercely defying to mortal combat any and every one who will not
instantly admit that the warrior's lady-love is the most beautiful and
perfect of created beings. His temper does unquestionably tend to weaken
Tyndall's authority. You may trust him implicitly where it is only a
question of a glacial theory or an atmospheric condition; but you must
follow the Carlylean philosopher very cautiously indeed where he
undertakes to instruct you on the subject of races. The negro, for
example, conquers Tyndall altogether. The philosopher loses his temper
and forgets his science the moment he comes to examine poor black
Sambo's woolly skull, and remembers that there are sane and educated
white people who maintain that the owner of the skull is a man and a
brother. In debates which cannot be settled by dry science, Huxley's
sympathies almost invariably guide him right: Tyndall's almost
invariably set him wrong. During the American Civil war, Huxley, like
Sir Charles Lyell and some other eminent scientific men, sympathized
with the cause of the North: Tyndall, on the other hand, was an eager
partisan of the South. A still more decisive test severed the two men
more widely apart. The story of the Jamaica massacre divided all England
into two fierce and hostile camps. I am not going to weary my readers
with any repetition of this often-told and horrible story. Enough to say
that the whole question at issue in England in relation to the Jamaica
tragedies was whether the belief that a negro insurrection is impending
justifies white residents in flogging and hanging as many negro men and
women, unarmed and unresisting, as they can find time to flog and hang,
without any ceremony of trial, evidence, or even inquiry. I do not
exaggerate or misstate. The ground taken by the advocates of the Jamaica
military measures was that although no insurrection was going on yet
there was reasonable ground to believe an insurrection impending; and
that therefore the white residents were justified in anticipating and
crushing the movement by the putting to death of every person, man or
woman, who could be supposed likely to have any part in it. Of course I
need hardly tell the student of history that this is exactly the ground
which was taken up, and with far greater plausibility and better excuse,
by the promoters of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. They said: "We
have evidence, and are convinced, that these Huguenots are plotting
against us. If we do not put them down, they will put us down. Let us be
first at the work and crush them." The Jamaica question then raised a
bitter controversy in England. Naturally, John Bright and Stuart Mill
and Goldwin Smith took one side of it: Thomas Carlyle and Charles
Kingsley and John Ruskin the other. That was to be expected: any one
could have told it beforehand. But the occasion brought out men who had
never taken part in political controversy before: and then you saw at
once what kind of hearts and sympathies these new agitators had. Herbert
Spencer emerged for the first time in his life, so far as I know, from
the rigid seclusion of a silent student's career, and appeared in public
as an active, hard-working member of a political organization. The
American Civil War had drawn Mill for the first time into the public
arena of politics; the Jamaica massacre made a political agitator of
Herbert Spencer. The noble human sympathies of Spencer, his austere and
uncompromising love of justice, his instinctive detestation of brute,
blind, despotic force, compelled him to come out from his seclusion and
join those who protested against the lawless and senseless massacre of
the wretched blacks of Jamaica. So, too, with Huxley, who, if he did not
take part in a political organization, yet lent the weight of his
influence and the vigor of his pen to add to the force of the protest.
During the whole of that prolonged season of incessant and active
controversy, with the keenest intellects and the sharpest tongues in
England employing themselves eagerly on either side, I can recall to
mind nothing which, for justice, sound sense, high principle, and
exquisite briefness of pungent sarcasm, equaled one of Huxley's letters
on the subject to the "Pall Mall Gazette." The mind which was not
touched by the force of that incomparable mixture of satire and sense
would surely have remained untouched though one rose from the dead. The
delicious gravity with which Huxley accepted all the positions of his
opponents, assumed the propositions about the high character of the
Jamaica governor and the white residents, and the immorality of poor
Gordon and the negroes, and then reduced the case of the advocates of
the massacre to "the right of all virtuous persons, as such, to put to
death all vicious persons, as such," was almost worthy of Swift himself.
On the other hand, Professor Tyndall plunged eagerly into the
controversy as a defender of the policy and the people by whose
authority the massacre was carried on. I do not suppose he made any
inquiry into the facts--nothing of his that I read or heard of led me to
suppose that he had; but he went off on his Carlylean theory about
governing minds, and superior races, and the right of strong men, and
all the rest of the nonsense which Carlyle once made fascinating, and
his imitators have lately made vulgar. I think I am not doing Tyndall an
injustice when I regard him as a less austere and trustworthy follower
of the pure truth than Huxley. In fact Tyndall is a born
controversialist. Some orthodox person once extracted from Huxley, or
from some of his writings, the admission that "the truth of the miracles
was all a question of evidence," and seemed to think he had got hold of
a great concession therein. Possibly the admission was made in the
spirit of sarcasm, but it none the less expressed a belief and
illustrated a temper profoundly characteristic of Thomas Huxley. With
him everything is a question of evidence; nothing is to be settled by
faith or by preliminary assumption. I am convinced that if you could
prove by sufficient evidence the truth of every miracle recorded in
Butler's "Lives of the Saints," Professor Huxley would bow resignedly,
and accept the truth--wanting only the truth, whatever it might be. But
I think Tyndall would rage and chafe a great deal, and I suspect that he
would use a good many hard words against his opponents before he
submitted to acknowledge aloud the defeat which his inner consciousness
already admitted. And yet I think it would be at least as difficult to
convince Huxley as it would be to convince Tyndall that Saint Denis
walked with his head under his arm, or that Saint Januarius (was it not
he?) crossed the sea on his cloak for a raft.