His published ethnological papers (says Sir Michael Foster) are not numerous, nor can they be taken as a measure of his influence on this branch of study. In many ways he has made himself felt, not the least by the severity with which on the one hand he repressed the pretensions of shallow persons who, taking advantage of the glamour of the Darwinian doctrine, talked nonsense in the name of anthropological science, and on the other hand, exposed those who in the structure of the brain or of other parts, saw an impassable gulf between man and the monkey. The episode of the "hippocampus" stirred for a while not only science but the general public. He used his influence, already year by year growing more and more powerful, to keep the study of the natural history of man within its proper lines, and chiefly with this end in view held the Presidential Chair of the Ethnological Society in 1869-70. It was mainly through his influence that this older Ethnological Society was, a year later, in 1871, amalgamated with a newer rival society, the Anthropological, under the title of "The Anthropological Institute."
During this time he was constantly occupied with paleontological work, as the following letter to Sir Charles Lyell indicates:—]
Jermyn Street, November 27, 1865.
My dear Sir Charles,
I returned last night from a hasty journey to Ireland, whither I betook myself on Thursday night, being attracted vulture-wise by the scent of a quantity of carboniferous corpses. The journey was as well worth the trouble as any I ever undertook, seeing that in a morning's work I turned out ten genera of vertebrate animals of which five are certainly new; and of these four are Labyrinthodonts, amphibia of new types. These four are baptised Ophiderpeton, Lepterpeton, Ichthyerpeton, Keraterpeton. They all have ossified spinal columns and limbs. The special interest attaching to the two first is that they represent a type of Labyrinthodonts hitherto unknown, and corresponding with Siren and Amphiuma among living Amphibia. Ophiderpeton, for example, is like an eel, about three feet long with small fore legs and rudimentary hind ones.
In the year of grace 1861, there were three genera of European carboniferous Labyrinthodonts known, Archegosaurus, Scleroceplus, Parabatrachus.
The vertebral column of Archegosaurus was alone known, and it was in a remarkably imperfect state of ossification. Since that date, by a succession of odd chances, seven new genera have come into my hands, and of these six certainly have well-ossified and developed vertebral columns.
I reckon there are now about thirty genera of Labyrinthodonts known from all parts of the world and all deposits. Of these eleven have been established by myself in the course of the last half-dozen years, upon remains which have come into my hands by the merest chance.
Five and twenty years ago, all the world but yourself believed that a vertebrate animal of higher organisation than a fish in the carboniferous rocks never existed. I think the whole story is not a bad comment upon negative evidence.
January 1, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
I cannot do better than write my first letter of the year to you, if it is only to wish you and yours your fair share (and more than your fair share, if need be) of good for the New Year. The immediate cause of my writing, however, was turning out my pocket and finding therein an unanswered letter of yours containing a scrap on which is a request for a photograph, which I am afraid I overlooked. At least I hope I did, and then my manners won't be so bad. I enclose the latest version of myself.
I wish I could follow out your suggestion about a book on zoology. (By the way please to tell Miss Emma that my last book IS a book. [The first volume of his Hunterian Lectures on "Comparative Anatomy." A second volume never appeared. Miss Darwin, as her father wrote to Huxley after the delivery of his Working Men's Lectures in 1862, "was reading your Lectures, and ended by saying, 'I wish he would write a book.' I answered, 'he has just written a great book on the skull.' 'I don't call that a book,' she replied, and added, 'I want something that people can read; he does write so well.'"] Marry come up! Does her ladyship call it a pamphlet?)
But I assure you that writing is a perfect pest to me unless I am interested, and not only a bore but a very slow process. I have some popular lectures on Physiology, which have been half done for more than a twelvemonth, and I hate the sight of them because the subject no longer interests me, and my head is full of other matters. [See letter of April 22, 1863.]
So I have just done giving a set of lectures to working-men on "The Various Races of Mankind," which really would make a book in Miss Emma's sense of the word, and which I have had reported. But when am I to work them up? Twenty-four Hunterian Lectures loom between me and Easter. I am dying to get out the second volume of the book that is not a book, but in vain.
I trust you are better, though the last news I had of you from Lubbock was not so encouraging as I could have wished.
With best wishes and remembrances to Mrs. Darwin.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Thanks for "fur Darwin," I had it.
26 Abbey Place, January 15, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
Many thanks for Deslongchamps' paper which I do not possess.
I received another important publication yesterday morning in the shape of a small but hearty son, who came to light a little before six. The wife is getting on capitally, and we are both greatly rejoiced at having another boy, as your godson ran great risks of being spoiled by a harem of sisters.
The leader in the "Reader" IS mine, and I am glad you like it. The more so as it has got me into trouble with some of my friends. However, the revolution that is going on is not to be made with rose-water.
I wish if anything occurs to you that would improve the scientific part of the "Reader," you would let me know as I am in great measure responsible for it.
I am sorry not to have a better account of your health. With kind remembrances to Mrs. Darwin and the rest of your circle.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Jermyn Street, May 1, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
I send you by this post a booklet none of which is much worth your reading, while of nine-tenths of it you may say as the man did who had been trying to read Johnson's "Dictionary," "that the words were fine, but he couldn't make much of the story." [Probably "A Catalogue of the Collection of Fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology," etc.]
But perhaps the young lady who has been kind enough to act as taster of my books heretofore will read the explanatory notice, and give me her ideas thereupon (always recollecting that almost the whole of it was written in the pre-Darwinian epoch.)
I do not hear very good accounts of you—to my sorrow—though rumours have reached me that the opus magnum is completely developed though not yet born. [On "Pangenesis."]
I am grinding at the mill and getting a little tired. My belongings flourishing as I hope you are.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Jermyn Street, May 29, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
I meant to have written to you yesterday to say how glad I shall be to read whatever you like to send me.
I have to lecture at the Royal Institution this week, but after Friday, my time will be more at my own disposal than usual; and as always I shall be most particularly glad to be of any use to you.
Any glimmer of light on the question you speak of is of the utmost importance, and I shall be immensely interested in learning your views. And of course I need not add I will do my best to upset them. That is the nature of the beast.
I had a letter from one of the ablest of the younger zoologists of
Germany, Haeckel, the other day, in which this passage occurs:—
"The Darwinian Theory, the establishment and development of which is the object [of] all my scientific labours, has gained ground immensely in Germany (where it was at first so misunderstood) during the last two years, and I entertain no doubt that it will before long be everywhere victorious." And he adds that I dealt far too mildly with Kolliker.
With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Darwin and your family.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This year, as is seen from the foregoing, he was again in direct communication with Professor Ernst Haeckel of Jena, the earliest and strongest champion of Darwinian ideas in Germany. The latter wished to enlarge his observations by joining some English scientific expedition, if any such were in preparation, but was dissuaded by the following reply. The expected book of Darwin's was the "Pangenesis," and this is also referred to in the three succeeding letters to Darwin himself.]
The Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, London, June 7, 1865.
My dear Sir,
Many thanks for your letter, and for the welcome present of your portrait, which I shall value greatly, and in exchange for which I enclose my own. Indeed I have delayed writing to you in order to be able to send the last "new and improved" edition of myself.
I wish it were in my power to help you to any such appointment as that you wish for. But I do not think our government is likely to send out any scientific expedition to the South Seas. There is a talk about a new Arctic expedition, but I doubt if it will come to much, and even if it should be organised I could not recommend your throwing yourself away in an undertaking which promises more frost-bites than anything else to a naturalist.
In truth, though I have felt and can still feel the attraction of foreign travel in all its strength, I would counsel you to stop at home, and as Goethe says, find your America here. There are plenty of people who can observe and whose places, if they are expended by fever or shipwreck, can be well enough filled up. But there are very few who can grapple with the higher problems of science as you have done and are doing, and we cannot afford to lose you. It is the organisation of knowledge rather than its increase which is wanted just now. And I think you can help in this great undertaking better in Germany than in New Zealand.
Darwin has been very ill for more than a year past, so ill, in fact, that his recovery was at one time doubtful. But he contrives to work in spite of fate, and I hope that before long we shall have a new book from him.
By way of consolation I sent him an extract from your letter touching the progress of his views.
I am glad that you did not think my critique of Kolliker too severe. He is an old friend of mine, and I desired to be as gentle as possible, while performing the unpleasant duty of showing how thoroughly he had misunderstood the question.
I shall look with great interest for your promised book. Lately I have been busy with Ethnological questions, and I fear I shall not altogether please your able friend Professor Schleicher in some remarks I have had to make upon the supposed value of philological evidence.
May we hope to see you at the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham? It would give many, and especially myself, much pleasure to become personally acquainted with you.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
The Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, June 1, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
Your MS. [of "Pangenesis"] reached me safely last evening.
I could not refrain from glancing over it on the spot, and I perceive I shall have to put on my sharpest spectacles and best considering cap.
I shall not write till I have thought well on the whole subject.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Jermyn Street, July 16, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
I have just counted the pages of your MS. to see that they are all right, and packed it up to send you by post, registered, so I hope it will reach you safely. I should have sent it yesterday, but people came in and bothered me about post time.
I did not at all mean by what I said to stop you from publishing your views, and I really should not like to take that responsibility. Somebody rummaging among your papers half a century hence will find "Pangenesis" and say, "See this wonderful anticipation of our modern theories, and that stupid ass Huxley preventing his publishing them." And then the Carlyleans of that day will make me a text for holding forth upon the difference between mere vulpine sharpness and genius.
I am not going to be made a horrid example of in that way. But all I say is, publish your views, not so much in the shape of formed conclusions, as of hypothetical developments of the only clue at present accessible, and don't give the Philistines more chances of blaspheming than you can help.
I am very grieved to hear that you have been so ill again.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
26 Abbey Place, October 2, 1865.
My dear Darwin,
"This comes hoping you are well," and for no other purpose than to say as much. I am just back from seven weeks' idleness at Littlehampton with my wife and children, the first time I have had a holiday of any extent with them for years.
We are all flourishing—the babies particularly so—and I find myself rather loth to begin grinding at the mill again. There is a vein of laziness in me which crops out uncommonly strong in your godson, who is about the idlest, jolliest young four year old I know.
You will have been as much grieved as I have been about dear old Hooker. According to the last accounts, however, he is mending, and I hope to see him in the pristine vigour again before long.
My wife is gone to bed or she would join me in the kindest regards and remembrances to Mrs. Darwin and your family.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The sound judgment and nice sense of honour for which Huxley was known among his friends often led those who were in difficulties to appeal to him for advice. About this time a dispute arose over an alleged case of unacknowledged "conveyance" of information. Writing to Hooker, he says the one party to the quarrel failed to "set the affair straight with half a dozen words of frank explanation as he might have done;" as to the other, "like all quiet and mild men who do get a grievance, he became about twice as 'wud' as Berserks like you and me." Both came to him, so that he says, "I have found it very difficult to deal honestly with both sides without betraying the confidence of either or making matters worse." Happily, with his help, matters reached a peaceful solution, and his final comment is:—]
I don't mind fighting to the death in a good big row, but when A and B are supplying themselves from C's orchard, I don't think it is very much worth while to dispute whether B filled his pockets directly from the trees or indirectly helped himself to the contents of A's basket. If B has so helped himself, he certainly ought to say so like a man, but if I were A, I would not much care whether he did or not.
— has been horribly disgusted about it, but I am not sure the discipline may not have opened his eyes to new and useful aspects of nature.
[The summer of 1865 saw the inception of an educational experiment—an International Education Society—to which Huxley gladly gave his support as a step in the right direction. He had long been convinced of the inadequacy of existing forms of education—survivals from the needs of a bygone age—to prepare for the new forms into which intellectual life was passing. That educators should be content to bring up the young generation in the modes of thought which satisfied their forefathers three centuries ago, as if no change had passed over the world since then, filled him with mingled amazement and horror.
The outcome of the scheme was the International College, at Spring Grove, Isleworth, under the headmastership of Dr. Leonhard Schmitz; one of the chief members of the committee being Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Smith, while at the head of the Society was Richard Cobden, under whose presidency it had been registered some time before. John Stuart Mill, however, refused to join, considering that this was not the most needed reform in education, and that he could not support a school in which the ordinary theology was taught.
An article in the "Reader" for June 17, 1865, sketches the plan. The design was to give a liberal education to boys whether intended for a profession or for commerce. The education for both was the same up to a certain point, corresponding to that given in our higher schools, together with foreign languages and the elements of physical and social science, after which the courses bifurcated. (For a fuller account of the scientific education see below.) Special stress was laid on modern languages, both for themselves and as a preparation and help for classical teaching. Accordingly, the International College was one of three parallel institutions in England, France, and Germany, where a boy could in turn acquire a sound knowledge of all three languages while continuing the same course of education. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870, however, proved fatal to the scheme.
Some letters to his friend Dr. W.K. Parker, show the good-fellowship which existed between them, as well as the interest he took in the style and success of Parker's work. (A man of whom he wrote (preface to Professor Jeffery Parker's "Life of W.K. Parker" 1893), that "in him the genius of an artist struggled with that of a philosopher, and not unfrequently the latter got the worst of the contest." He speaks too of his "minute accuracy in observation and boundless memory for details and imagination which absolutely rioted in the scenting out of subtle and often far-fetched analogies.") Parker was hard at work on Birds, a subject in which his friend and leader also was deeply interested, and was indeed preparing an important book upon it.
Referring to his candidature for the Royal Society, he writes on February 21, 1865:] "With reference to your candidature, I am ready to bring your name forward whenever you like, and to back you with 'all my might, power, amity, and authority,' as Essex did Bacon (you need not serve me as Bacon did Essex afterwards), but my impression has been that you did not wish to come forward this year."
[And on November 2, 1866, congratulating him on his] "well-earned honour" [of the F.R.S.]—"Go on and prosper. These are not the things wise men work for; but it is not the less proper of a wise man to take them when they come unsought."
26 Abbey Place, December 3, 1865.
My dear Parker,
I have been so terribly pressed by my work that I have only just been able to finish the reading of your paper.
Very few pieces of work which have fallen in my way come near your account of the Struthious skull in point of clearness and completeness. It is a most admirable essay, and will make an epoch in this kind of inquiry.
I want you, however, to remodel the introduction, and to make some unessential but convenient difference in the arrangement of some of the figures.
Secondly, full as the appendix is of most valuable and interesting matter, I advise you for the present to keep it back.
My reason is that you have done justice neither to yourself nor to your topics, and that if the appendix is printed as it stands, your labour will be in great measure lost.
You start subjects enough for half a dozen papers, and partly from the compression thus resulting, and partly from the absence of illustrations, I do not believe there are half a dozen men in Europe who will be able to follow you. Furthermore, though the appendix is relevant enough—every line of it—to those who have dived deep, as you and I have—to any one else it has all the aspects of a string of desultory discussions. AS YOUR FATHER CONFESSOR, I FORBID THE PUBLICATION OF THE APPENDIX. After having had all this trouble with you I am not going to have you waste your powers for want of a little method, so I tell you.
What you are to do is this. You are to rewrite the introduction and to say that the present paper is the first of a series on the structure of the vertebrate skull; that the second will be "On the development of the osseous cranium of the Common Fowl" (and here (if you are good), I will permit you to introduce the episode on cartilage and membrane [illegible]); the third will be "On the chief modifications of the cranium observed in the Sauropsida."
The fourth, "On the mammalian skull."
The fifth, "On the skull of the Ichthyopsida."
I will give you two years from this time to execute these five memoirs; and then if you have stood good-temperedly the amount of badgering and bullying you will get from me whenever you come dutifully to report progress, you shall be left to your own devices in the third year to publish a paper on "The general structure and theory of the vertebrate skull."
You have a brilliant field before you, and a start such that no one is likely to catch you. Sit deliberately down over against the city, conquer it and make it your own, and don't be wasting powder in knocking down odd bastions with random shells.
I write jestingly, but I really am very much in earnest. Come and have a talk on the matter as soon as you can, for I should send in my report. You will find me in Jermyn Street, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday mornings, Thursday afternoon, but not Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Send a line to say when you will come.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 1.20.
1866.
[Besides his Fullerian lectures on Ethnology at the Royal Institution this year, Huxley published in February 1866 a paper in the "Natural History Review," on the "Prehistoric Remains of Caithness," based upon a quantity of remains found the previous autumn at Keiss. This, and the article on the "Neanderthal Skull" in the "Natural History Review" for 1864, attracted some notice among foreign anthropologists. Dr. H. Welcker writes about them; Dr. A. Ecker wants the "Prehistoric Remains" for his new "Archiv fur Anthropologie"; the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris elects him a Foreign Associate.
He was asked by Dr. Fayrer to assist in a great scheme he had proposed to the Asiatic Society (Comp. Chapter 22 ad init. and Appendix 1.), to gather men of every tribe from India, the Malayan Peninsula, Persia, Arabia, the Indian Archipelago, etc., for anthropological purposes. It was well received by the Council of the Society and by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal; anything Huxley could say in its favour would be of great weight. Would he come out as Dr. Fayrer's guest?
Unable to go to Calcutta, he sent the following letter:—]
Jermyn Street, London, June 14, 1866.
My dear Fayrer,
I lose no time in replying to your second letter, and my first business is to apologise for not having answered the first, but it reached me in the thick of my lectures, and like a great many other things which ought to have been done I put off replying to a more convenient season. I have been terribly hard worked this year, and thought I was going to break down a few weeks ago but luckily I have pulled through.
I heartily wish that there were the smallest chance of my being able to accept your kind invitation and take part in your great scheme at Calcutta. But it is impossible for me to leave England for more than six weeks or two months, and that only in the autumn, a time of year when I imagine Calcutta is not likely to be the scene of anything but cholera patients.
As to your plan itself, I think it a most grand and useful one if it can be properly carried out. But you do things on so grand a scale in India that I suppose all the practical difficulties which suggest themselves to me may be overcome.
It strikes me that it will not do to be content with a single representative of each tribe. At least four or five will be needed to eliminate the chances of accident, and even then much will depend upon the discretion and judgment of the local agent who makes the suggestion. This difficulty, however, applies chiefly if not solely to physical ethnology. To the philologer the opportunities for comparing dialects and checking pronunciation will be splendid, however [few] the individual speakers of each dialect may be. The most difficult task of all will be to prevent the assembled Savans from massacring the "specimens" at the end of the exhibition for the sake of their skulls and pelves!
I am really afraid that my own virtue might yield if so tempted!
Jesting apart, I heartily wish your plans success, and if there are any more definite ways in which I can help, let me know, and I will do my best. You will want, I should think, a physical and a philological committee to organise schemes: (1) for systematic measuring, weighing, and portraiture, with observation and recording of all physical characters; and (2) for uniform registering of sounds by Roman letters and collection of vocabularies and grammatical forms upon an uniform system.
I should advise you to look into the Museum of the Societe d'Anthropologie of Paris, and to put yourself in communication with M. Paul Broca, one of its most active members, who has lately been organising a scheme of general anthropological instructions. But don't have anything to do with the quacks who are at the head of the "Anthropological Society" over here. If they catch scent of what you are about they will certainly want to hook on to you.
Once more I wish I had the chance of being able to visit your congress. I have been lecturing on Ethnology this year [As Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution.], and shall be again this year, and I would give a good deal to be able to look at the complex facts of Indian Ethnology with my own eyes.
But as the sage observed, "what's impossible can't be," and what with short holidays—a wife and seven children—and miles of work in arrear, India is an impossibility for me.
You say nothing about yourself, so I trust you are well and hearty, and all your belongings flourishing.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[In paleontology he published this year papers on the "Vertebrate Remains from the Jarrow Colliery, Kilkenny;" on a new "Telerpeton from Elgin," and on some "Dinosaurs from South Africa." The latter, and many more afterwards, were sent over by a young man named Alfred Brown, who had a curious history. A Quaker gentleman came across him when employed in cleaning tools in Cirencester College, found that he was a good Greek and Latin scholar, and got him a tutorship in a clergyman's family at the Cape. He afterwards entered the postal service, and being inspired with a vivid interest in geology, spent all the leave he could obtain from his office on the Orange River in getting fossils from the Stormberg Rocks. These, as often as he could afford to send such weighty packages, he sent to Sir R. Murchison, to whom he had received a letter of introduction from his official superior. Sir Roderick, writing to Huxley, says "that he was proud of his new recruit," to whom he sent not only welcome words of encouragement, but the no less welcome news that the brother of his "discoverer," hearing of the facts from Professor Woodward, offered to defray his expenses so that he could collect regularly.
On April 2 Huxley was in Edinburgh to receive the first academic distinction conferred upon him in Britain. He received the honorary degree of the University in company with Tyndall and Carlyle. It was part of the fitness of things that he should be associated in this honour with his close friend Tyndall; but though he frequently acknowledged his debt to Carlyle as the teacher who in his youth had inspired him with his undying hatred of shams and humbugs of every kind, and whom he had gratefully come to know in after days, Carlyle did not forgive the publication of "Man's Place in Nature." Years after, near the end of his life, my father saw him walking slowly and alone down the opposite side of the street, and touched by his solitary appearance, crossed over and spoke to him. The old man looked at him, and merely remarking, "You're Huxley, aren't you? the man that says we are all descended from monkeys," went on his way.
On July 6 he writes to tell Darwin that he has lodged a memorial of his about the fossils at the Gallegos river, which was to be visited by the "Nassau" [Chapter 22] exploring ship, with the hydrographer direct, instead of sending it in to the Lords of the Admiralty, who would only have sent it on to the hydrographer. This letter he heads "Country orders executed with accuracy and despatch."
The following letter to Charles Kingsley explains itself:—]
Jermyn Street, April 12, 1866.
My dear Kingsley,
I shall certainly do myself the pleasure of listening to you when you preach at the Royal Institution. I wonder if you are going to take the line of showing up the superstitions of men of science. Their name is legion, and the exploit would be a telling one. I would do it myself only I think I am already sufficiently isolated and unpopular.
However, whatever you are going to do I am sure you will speak honestly and well, and I shall come and be assistant bottleholder.
I am glad you like the working men's lectures. I suspect they are about the best things of that line that I have done, and I only wish I had had the sense to anticipate the run they have had here and abroad, and I would have revised them properly.
As they stand they are terribly in the rough, from a literary point of view.
No doubt crib-biting, nurse-biting and original sin in general are all strictly reducible from Darwinian principles; but don't by misadventure run against any academical facts.
Some whales have all the cerebral vertebrae free NOW, and every one of them has the full number, seven, whether they are free or fixed. No doubt whales had hind legs once upon a time. If when you come up to town you go to the College of Surgeons, my friend Flower the Conservator (a good man whom you should know), will show you the whalebone whale's thigh bones in the grand skeleton they have recently set up. The legs, to be sure, and the feet are gone, the battle of life having left private Cetacea in the condition of a Chelsea pensioner.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This year the British Association met at Nottingham, and Huxley was president of Section D. In this capacity he invited Professor Haeckel to attend the meeting, but the impending war with Austria prevented any Prussian from leaving his country at the time, though Haeckel managed to come over later.
Huxley did not deliver a regular opening address to the section on the Thursday, but on the Friday made a speech, which was followed by a discussion upon biology and its several branches, especially morphology and its relation to physiology ("the facts concerning form are questions of force, every form is force visible.") He lamented that the subdivisions of the section had to meet separately as a result of specialisation, the reason for which he found in the want of proper scientific education in schools. And this was the fault of the universities, for just as in the story, "Stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite pig, and so the old woman can't get home," science would not be taught in the schools until it is recognised by the universities.
This prepared the way for Dean Farrar's paper on science teaching in the public schools. His experience as a master at Harrow made him strongly oppose the existing plan of teaching all boys classical composition whether they were suited for it or no. He wished to exchange a great deal of Latin verse-making for elementary science.
This paper was doubly interesting to Huxley, as coming from a classical master in a public school, and he remarked, "He felt sure that at the present time, the important question for England was not the duration of her coal, but the due comprehension of the truths of science, and the labours of her scientific men."
On the practical side, however, Mr. J. Payne said the great difficulty was the want of teachers; and suggested that if men of science were really in earnest they would condescend to teach in the schools.
It was to a certain extent in answer to this appeal that Huxley gave his lectures on Physiography in 1869, and instituted the course of training for science teachers in 1871.
He concluded his work at Nottingham by a lecture to working men.
The following is in reply to Mr. Spencer who had accused himself of losing his temper in an argument:—]
26 Abbey Place, Sunday, November 8, 1868.
My dear Spencer,
Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme and unjust severity.
I recollect you LOOKED rather savage at one point in our discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made upon you.
What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know, but so far as I am concerned I assure you I have often said that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the extent to which I have tried your patience.
So you see that you have, what the Buddhists call a stock of accumulated merit, envers moi—and if you should ever feel inclined to "d—n my eyes" you can do so and have a balance left.
Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to apologise to me about any such matters, but believe me (d—nd or und—d)
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
26 Abbey Place, November 11, 1866.
My dear Darwin,
I thank you for the new edition of the "Origin," and congratulate you on having done with it for a while, so as to be able to go on to that book of a portion of which I had a glimpse years ago. I hear good accounts of your health, indeed the last was that you were so rampageous you meant to come to London and have a spree among its dissipations. May that be true.
I am in the thick of my work, and have only had time to glance at your
"Historical Sketch."
What an unmerciful basting you give "our mutual friend." I did not know he had put forward any claim! and even now that I read it black and white, I can hardly believe it.
I am glad to hear from Spencer that you are on the right (that is MY) side in the Jamaica business. But it is wonderful how people who commonly act together are divided about it.
My wife joins with me in kindest wishes to Mrs. Darwin and yourself.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
You will receive an elementary physiology book, not for your reading but for Miss Darwin's. Were you not charmed with Haeckel?
[The "Jamaica business" here alluded to was Governor Eyre's suppression of the negro rising, in the course of which he had executed, under martial law, a coloured leader and member of the Assembly, named Gordon. The question of his justification in so doing stirred England profoundly. It became the touchstone of ultimate political convictions. Men who had little concern for ordinary politics, came forward to defend a great constitutional principle which they conceived to be endangered. A committee was formed to prosecute Governor Eyre on a charge of murder, in order to vindicate the right of a prisoner to trial by due process of law. Thereupon a counter-committee was organised for the defence of the man who, like Cromwell, judged that the people preferred their real security to forms, and had presumably saved the white population of Jamaica by striking promptly at the focus of rebellion.
The "Pall Mall Gazette" of October 29, 1866, made a would-be smart allusion to the part taken in the affair by Huxley, which evoked, in reply, a calm statement of his reasons for joining the prosecuting committee:—
It is amusing (says the "Pall Mall") to see how the rival committees, the one for the prosecution and the other for the defence of Mr. Eyre, parade the names of distinguished persons who are enrolled as subscribers on either side. Mill is set against Carlyle, and to counterbalance the adhesion of the Laureate to the Defence Fund, the "Star" hastens to announce that Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Huxley have given their support to the Jamaica Committee. Everything, of course, depends on the ground on which the subscriptions are given. One can readily conceive that Mr. Tennyson has been chiefly moved by a generous indignation at the vindictive behaviour of the Jamaica Committee. It would be curious also to know how far Sir Charles Lyell's and Mr. Huxley's peculiar views on the development of species have influenced them in bestowing on the negro that sympathetic recognition which they are willing to extend even to the ape as "a man and a brother."
The reply appeared in the "Pall Mall" of October 31:—]
Sir,
I learn from yesterday evening's "Pall Mall Gazette" that you are curious to know whether certain "peculiar views on the development of species," which I am said to hold in the excellent company of Sir Charles Lyell, have led me to become a member of the Jamaica Committee.
Permit me without delay to satisfy a curiosity which does me honour. I have been induced to join that committee neither by my "peculiar views on the development of species," nor by any particular love for, or admiration of the negro—still less by any miserable desire to wreak vengeance for recent error upon a man whose early career I have often admired; but because the course which the committee proposes to take appears to me to be the only one by which a question of the profoundest practical importance can be answered. That question is, Does the killing a man in the way Mr. Gordon was killed constitute murder in the eye of the law, or does it not?
You perceive that this question is wholly independent of two others which are persistently confused with it, namely—was Mr. Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing fire-brand? and was Mr. Eyre actuated by the highest and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken rashness or worse impulses?
I do not presume to speak with authority on a legal question; but, unless I am misinformed, English law does not permit good persons, as such, to strangle bad persons, as such. On the contrary, I understand that, if the most virtuous of Britons, let his place and authority be what they may, seize and hang up the greatest scoundrel in Her Majesty's dominions simply because he is an evil and troublesome person, an English court of justice will certainly find that virtuous person guilty of murder. Nor will the verdict be affected by any evidence that the defendant acted from the best of motives, and, on the whole, did the State a service.
Now, it MAY be that Mr. Eyre was actuated by the best of motives; it MAY be that Jamaica is all the better for being rid of Mr. Gordon; but nevertheless the Royal Commissioners, who were appointed to inquire into Mr. Gordon's case, among other matters, have declared that:—
The evidence, oral and documentary, appears to us to be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner took his trial. ("Report" page 37.)
And again that they
Cannot see in the evidence which has been adduced, any sufficient proof, either of his (Mr. Gordon's) complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay, or of his having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government. ("Report" page 38.)
Unless the Royal Commissioners have greatly erred, therefore, the killing of Mr. Gordon can only be defended on the ground that he was a bad and troublesome man; in short, that although he might not be guilty, it served him right.
I entertain so deeply-rooted an objection to this method of killing people—the act itself appears to me to be so frightful a precedent, that I desire to see it stigmatised by the highest authority as a crime. And I have joined the committee which proposes to indict Mr. Eyre, in the hope that I may hear a court of justice declare that the only defence which can be set up (if the Royal Commissioners are right) is no defence, and that the killing of Mr. Gordon was the greatest offence known to the law—murder.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.
T.H. Huxley.
The Atehnaeum Club, October 30, 1866.
[Two letters to friends who had taken the opposite side in this burning question show how resolutely he set himself against permitting a difference on matters of principle to affect personal relations with his warmest opponents.]
Jermyn Street, November 8, 1866.
My dear Kingsley,
The letter of which you have heard, containing my reasons for becoming a member of the Jamaica Committee was addressed to the "Pall Mall Gazette" in reply to some editorial speculations as to my reasons for so doing.
I forget the date of the number in which my letter appeared, but I will find it out and send you a copy of the paper.
Mr. Eyre's personality in this matter is nothing to me; I know nothing about him, and, if he is a friend of yours, I am very sorry to be obliged to join in a movement which must be excessively unpleasant to him.
Furthermore, when the verdict of the jury which will try him is once given, all hostility towards him on my part will cease. So far from wishing to see him vindictively punished, I would much rather, if it were practicable, indict his official hat and his coat than himself.
I desire to see Mr. Eyre indicted and a verdict of guilty in a criminal court obtained, because I have, from its commencement, carefully watched the Gordon case; and because a new study of all the evidence which has now been collected has confirmed my first conviction that Gordon's execution was as bad a specimen as we have had since Jeffries' time of political murder.
Don't suppose that I have any particular admiration for Gordon. He belongs to a sufficiently poor type of small political agitator—and very likely was a great nuisance to the Governor and other respectable persons.
But that is no reason why he should be condemned, by an absurd tribunal and with a brutal mockery of the forms of justice, for offences with which impartial judges, after a full investigation, declare there is no evidence to show that he was connected.
Ex-Governor Eyre seized the man, put him in the hands of the preposterous subalterns, who pretended to try him—saw the evidence and approved of the sentence. He is as much responsible for Gordon's death as if he had shot him through the head with his own hand. I daresay he did all this with the best of motives, and in a heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes have no more right to kill people in this fashion than other folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas or some other quiet place where there is less hero-worship and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more importance than hero-worship.
In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is that it will help a great many people to find out what their profoundest political beliefs are.
The hero-worshippers who believe that the world is to be governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, justly if they can; but if not, unjustly drive or kick them the right way, will sympathise with Mr. Eyre.
The other sect (to which I belong) who look upon hero-worship as no better than any other idolatry, and upon the attitude of mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice as between man and man as of far greater importance than even the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law of England.
People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert one another. To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle and without bitterness.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
November 9, 1866.
My dear Tyndall,
Many thanks for the kind note which accompanied your letter to the
Jamaica Committee.
When I presented myself at Rogers' dinner last night I had not heard of the letter, and Gassiot began poking fun at me, and declaring that your absence was due to a quarrel between us on the unhappy subject.
I replied to the jest earnestly enough, that I hoped and believed our old friendship was strong enough to stand any strain that might be put on it, much as I grieved that we should be ranged in opposite camps in this or any other cause.
That you and I have fundamentally different political principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us during the progress of the American War. The fact is made still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit of which I greatly admired without being able to recognise in it any important fact or argument which had not passed through my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee.
Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ, each supporting his own side to the best of his ability, and respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in which Englishmen have for many years been engaged.
If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another which I value as one of the good things of my life.
If not, we shall come to grief. I mean to do my best.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Huxley was always of opinion that to write a good elementary text-book required a most extensive and intimate knowledge of the subject under discussion. Certainly the "Lessons on Elementary Physiology" which appeared at the end of 1866 were the outcome of such knowledge, and met with a wonderful and lasting success as a text-book. A graceful compliment was passed upon it by Sir William Lawrence, when, in thanking the author for the gift of the book, he wrote (January 24, 1867), "in your modest book 'indocti discant, ament meminisse periti!'"
This was before the days of American copyright, and English books were usually regarded as fair prey by the mass of American publishers. Among the exceptions to this practical rule were the firm of D. Appleton & Co., who made it a point of honour to treat foreign authors as though they were legally entitled to some equitable rights. On their behalf an arrangement was made for an authorised American edition of the "Physiology" by Dr. Youmans, whose acquaintance thus made my father did not allow to drop.
It is worth noting that by the year 1898 this little book had passed through four editions, and been reprinted thirty-one times.]
CHAPTER 1.21.
1867.
[It has already been noted that Huxley's ethnological work continued this year with a second series of lectures at the Royal Institution, while he enlarged his paper on "Two widely contrasted forms of Human Crania," and published it in the "Journal of Anatomy." One paleontological memoir of his appeared this year on Acanthopholis, a fossil from the chalk marl, an additional piece of work for which he excuses himself to Sir Charles Lyell (January 4, 1867):—]
The new reptile advertised in "Geol. Mag." has turned up in the way of business, and I could not help giving a notice of it, or I should not have undertaken anything fresh just now.
The Spitzbergen things are very different, and I have taken sundry looks at them and put them by again to let my thoughts ripen.
They are Ichthyosaurian, and I am not sure they do not belong to two species. But it is an awful business to compare all the Ichthyosaurians. I THINK that one form is new. Please to tell Nordenskiold this much.
[However, his chief interest was in the anatomy of birds, at which he had been working for some time, and especially the development of certain of the cranial bones as a basis of classification. On April 11, expanding one of his Hunterian Lectures, he read a paper on this subject at the Zoological Society, afterwards published in their "Proceedings" for 1867.
As he had found the works of Professor Cornay of help in the preparation of this paper, he was careful to send him a copy with an acknowledgment of his indebtedness, eliciting the reply, "c'est si beau de trouver chez l'homme la science unie a la justice."
He followed this up with another paper on "The Classification and Distribution of the Alectoromorphae and Heteromorphae" in 1868, and to the work upon this the following letter to his ally, W.K. Parker, refers:—]
Royal Geological Survey of Great Britain, Jermyn Street, July 17, 1867.
My dear Parker,
Nothing short of the direct temptation of the evil one could lead you to entertain so monstrous a doctrine, as that you propound about Cariamidae.
I recommend fasting for three days and the application of a scourge thrice in the twenty-four hours! Do this, and about the fourth day you will perceive that the cranial differences alone are as great as those between Cathartes and Serpentarius.
If you want to hear something new and true it is this:—
1. That Memora is more unlike all the other Passerines (i.e. Coracomorphae) than they are unlike one another, and that it will have to stand in a group by itself.
It is as much like a wren as you are—less so, in fact, if you go on maintaining that preposterous fiction about Serpentarius.
2. Wood-peckers are more like crows than they are like cuckoos.
Aegithognathae.
Coracomorphae.
Desmognathae.
*Cypselomorphae.—Coccygomorphae.—*Gecinomorphae.
[*Shown on a horizontal line between Coracomorphae and Desmognathae.]
3. Sundevell is the sharpest fellow who has written on the classification of birds.
4. Nitzsch and W.K. Parker [Except in the case of Serpentarius.] are the sharpest fellows who have written on their osteology.
5. Though I do not see how it follows naturally on the above, still, where can I see a good skeleton of Glareola?
None in college, B.M.S. badly prepared.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[An incident which diversified one of the Gilchrist lectures to working men is thus recorded by the "Times" of January 23, 1867:—]
A GOOD EXAMPLE.
Last night, at the termination of a lecture on ethnology, delivered by Professor Huxley to an audience which filled the theatre of the London Mechanics' Institute in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, the lecturer said that he had received a letter as he entered the building which he would not take the responsibility of declining to read, although it had no reference to the subject under consideration. He then read the letter, which was simply signed "A Regular Attendant at Your Lectures," and which in a few words drew attention to the appalling distress existing among the population out of work at the East End, and suggested that all those present at the lecture that night should be allowed the opportunity of contributing one or two pennies each towards a fund for their relief, and that the professor should become the treasurer for the evening. This suggestion was received by the audience with marks of approval. The professor said he would not put pressure on anyone; he would simply place his own subscription in one of the skulls on the table. This he did, and all the audience coming on the platform, threw in money in copper and silver until the novel cash box was filled with coin which amounted to a large sum. A gentleman present expressed a hope that the example set by that audience might be followed with good results wherever large bodies assembled either for educational or recreative purposes.
[At the end of April this year my father spent a week in Brittany with
Dr. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock, rambling about the neighbourhood of
Rennes and Vannes, and combining the examination of prehistoric remains
with the refreshment of holiday making.
Few letters of this period exist. The x Club was doing its work. Most of those to whom he would naturally have written he met constantly. Two letters to Professor Haeckel give pieces of his experience. One suggests the limits of aggressive polemics, as to which I remember his once saying that he himself had only twice been the aggressor in controversy, without waiting to be personally attacked; once where he found his opponent was engaged in a flanking movement; the other when a man of great public reputation had come forward to champion an untenable position of the older orthodoxy, and a blow dealt to his pretensions to historical and scientific accuracy would not only bring the question home to many who neglected it in an impersonal form, but would also react upon the value of the historical arguments with which he sought to stir public opinion in other spheres. The other letter touches on the influence, at once calming and invigorating, as he had known it to the full for the last twelve years, which a wife can bring in the midst of outward struggles to the inner life of the home.]
Jermyn Street, London, May 20, 1867.
My dear Haeckel,
Your letter, though dated the 12th, has but just reached me. I mention this lest you should think me remiss, my sin in not writing to you already being sufficiently great. But your book did not reach me until November, and I have been hard at work lecturing, with scarcely an intermission ever since.
Now I need hardly say that the "Morphologie" is not exactly a novel to be taken up and read in the intervals of business. On the contrary, though profoundly interesting, it is an uncommonly hard book, and one wants to read every sentence of it over.
I went through it within a fortnight of its coming into my hands, so as to get at your general drift and purpose, but up to this time I have not been able to read it as I feel I ought to read it before venturing upon criticism. You cannot imagine how my time is frittered away in these accursed lectures and examinations.
There can be but one opinion, however, as to the knowledge and intellectual grasp displayed in the book; and, to me, the attempt to systematise biology as a whole is especially interesting and valuable.
I shall go over this part of your work with great care by and by, but I am afraid you must expect that the number of biologists who will do so, will remain exceedingly small. Our comrades are not strong in logic and philosophy.
With respect to the polemic excursus, of course, I chuckle over them most sympathetically, and then say how naughty they are! I have done too much of the same sort of thing not to sympathise entirely with you; and I am much inclined to think that it is a good thing for a man, once at any rate in his life, to perform a public war-dance against all sorts of humbug and imposture.
But having satisfied one's love of freedom in this way, perhaps the sooner the war-paint is off the better. It has no virtue except as a sign of one's own frame of mind and determination, and when that is once known, is little better than a distraction.
I think there are a few patches of this kind, my dear friend, which may as well come out in the next edition, e.g. that wonderful note about the relation of God to gas, the gravity of which greatly tickled my fancy.
I pictured to myself the effect which a translation of this would have upon the minds of my respectable countrymen!
Apropos of translation. Darwin wrote to me on that subject, and with his usual generosity, would have made a considerable contribution towards the expense if we could have seen our way to the publication of a translation. But I do not think it would be well to translate the book in fragments, and, as a whole, it would be a very costly undertaking, with very little chance of finding readers.
I do not believe that in the British Islands there are fifty people who are competent to read the book, and of the fifty, five and twenty have read it or will read it in German.
What I desire to do is to write a review of it, which will bring it into some notice on this side of the water, and this I hope to do before long. If I do not it will be, you well know, from no want of inclination, but simply from lack of time.
In any case, as soon as I have been able to study the book carefully, you shall have my honest opinion about all points.
I am glad your journey has yielded so good a scientific harvest, and especially that you found my "Oceanic Hydrozoa" of some use. But I am shocked to find that you had no copy of the book of your own, and I shall take care that one is sent to you. It is my first-born work, done when I was very raw and inexperienced, and had neither friends nor help. Perhaps I am all the fonder of the child on that ground.
A lively memory of you remains in my house, and wife and children will be very glad to hear that I have news of you when I go home to dinner.
Keep us in kindly recollection, and believe me,
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
July 16, 1867.
My dear Haeckel,
My wife and I send you our most hearty congratulations and good wishes. Give your betrothed a good account of us, and for we hope in the future to entertain as warm a friendship for her as for you. I was very glad to have the news, for it seemed to me very sad that a man of your warm affections should be surrounded only by hopeless regrets. Such surroundings inflict a sort of partial paralysis upon one's whole nature, a result which is, to me, far more serious and regrettable than the mere suffering one undergoes.
The one thing for men, who like you and I stand pretty much alone, and have a good deal of fighting to do in the external world, is to have light and warmth and confidence within the four walls of home. May all these good things await you!
Many thanks for your kind invitation to Jena. I am sure my wife would be as much pleased as I to accept it, but it is very difficult for her to leave her children.
We will keep it before us as a pleasant possibility, but I suspect you and Madame will be able to come to England before we shall reach Germany.
I wish I had rooms to offer you, but you have seen that troop of children and they leave no corner unoccupied.
Many thanks for the Bericht and the genealogical tables. You seem, as usual, to have got through an immense amount of work.
I have been exceedingly occupied with a paper on the "Classification of
Birds," a sort of expansion of one of my Hunterian Lectures this year.
It has now gone to press, and I hope soon to be able to send you a copy
of it.
Occupation of this and other kinds must be my excuse for having allowed so much longer a time to slip by than I imagined had done before writing to you. It is not for want of sympathy, be sure, for my wife and I have often talked of the new life opening out to you.
This is written in my best hand. I am proud of it, as I can read every word quite easily myself, which is more than I can always say for my own MS.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The same experience is attested and enforced in the correspondence with Dr. Anton Dohrn, which begins this year. Genial, enthusiastic, as pungent as he was eager in conversation, the future founder of the Marine Biological Station at Naples, on his first visit to England, made my father's acquaintance by accepting his invitation to stay with him] "for as long as you can make it convenient to stay" [at Swanage,] "a little country town with no sort of amusement except what is to be got by walking about a rather pretty country. But having warned you of this, I repeat that it will give me much pleasure to see you if you think it worthwhile to come so far."
[Dr. Dohrn came, and came into the midst of the family—seven children, ranging from ten years to babyhood, with whom he made himself as popular by his farmyard repertory, as he did with the elders by other qualities. The impression left upon him appears from a letter written soon after:—
"Ich habe heute mehrere Capitel in Mill's 'Utilitarianism' gelesen and das Wort happiness mehr als einmal gefunden: hatte ich eine Definition dieses vielumworbenen Wortes irgend Jemand zu geben, ich wurde sagen (I have been reading several chapters of Mill's 'Utilitarianism' to-day, and met with the word 'happiness' more than once; if I had to give anybody a definition of this much debated word, in other say): go and see the Huxley family at Swanage; and if you would enjoy the same I enjoyed, you would feel what is happiness, and never more ask for a definition of this sentiment."]
Swanage, September 22, 1867.
My dear Dohrn,
Thanks to my acquaintance with the "Microskopische Anatomie," and to the fact that you employ our manuscript characters, and not the hieroglyphics of what I venture to call the "cursed" and not "cursiv" Schrift, your letter was as easy as it was pleasant to read. We are all glad to have news of you, though it was really very unnecessary to thank us for trying to make your brief visit a pleasant one. Your conscience must be more "pungent" than your talk, if it pricks you with so little cause. My wife rejoices saucily to find that phrase of hers has stuck so strongly in your mind, but you must remember her fondness for "Tusch."
You must certainly marry. In my bachelor days, it was unsafe for anyone to approach me before mid-day, and for all intellectual purposes I was barren till the evening. Breakfast at six would have upset me for the day. You and the lobster noted the difference the other day.
Whether it is matrimony or whether it is middle age I don't know, but as time goes on you can combine both.
I cannot but accept your kind offer to send me Fanny Lewald's works, though it is a shame to rob you of them. In return my wife insists on your studying a copy of Tennyson, which we shall send you as soon as we return to civilisation, which will be next Friday. If you are in London after that date we shall hope to see you once more before you return to the bosom of the "Fatherland."
I did my best to give the children your message, but I fear I failed ignominiously in giving the proper bovine vocalisation to "Mroo."
That small curly-headed boy Harry, struck, I suppose by the kindness you both show to children, has effected a synthesis between you and Tyndall, and gravely observed the other day, "Doctor Dohrn-Tyndall do say Mroo."
My wife…Sends her kind regards. The "seven" are not here or they would vote love by acclamation.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[He did not this year attend the British Association, which was held in Dundee. This was the first occasion on which an evening was devoted to a working men's lecture, a step important as tending towards his own ideal of what science should be:—not the province of a few, but the possession of the many.
This first lecture was delivered by Professor Tyndall, who wrote him an account of the meeting, and in particular of his reconciliation with Professors Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and Tait, with whom he had had a somewhat embittered controversy.
In his reply, Huxley writes:—]
To J. Tyndall.
Thanks also for a copy of the "Dundee Advertiser" containing your lecture. It seemed to me that the report must be a very good one, and the lecture reads exceedingly well. You have inaugurated the working men's lectures of the Association in a way that cannot be improved. And it was worth the trouble, for I suspect they will become a great and noble feature in the meetings.
Everything seems to have gone well at the meeting, the educational business carried [i.e. a recommendation that natural science be made a part of the curriculum in the public schools], and the anthropologers making fools of themselves in a most effectual way. So that I do not feel that I have anything to reproach myself with for being absent.
I am very pleased to hear of the reconciliation with Thomson and Tait. The mode of it speaks well for them, and the fact will remove a certain source of friction from amongst the cogs of your mental machinery.