He continues:—]
That is what I mean by demonstrative evidence of evolution. An inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it. If that is not scientific proof, there are no merely inductive conclusions which can be said to be proved. And the doctrine of evolution, at the present time, rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as the Copernican theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies did at the time of its promulgation. Its logical basis is of precisely the same character—the coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements.
[He left New York on September 23.] "I had a very pleasant trip in Yankee-land," [he writes to Professor Baynes,] "and did NOT give utterance to a good deal that I am reported to have said there." [He reached England in good time for the beginning of his autumn lectures, and his ordinary busy life absorbed him again. He did not fail to give his London audiences the results of the recent discoveries in American paleontology, and on December 4, delivered a lecture at the London Institution, "On Recent Additions to the Knowledge of the Pedigree of the Horse." In connection with this he writes to Professor Marsh:—]
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., December 27, 1876.
My dear Marsh,
I hope you do not think it remiss of me that I have not written to you since my return, but you will understand that I plunged into a coil of work, and will forgive me. But I do not mean to let you slip away without sending you all our good wishes for its successor—which I hope will not vanish without seeing you among us.
I blew your trumpet the other day at the London Institution in a lecture about the Horse question. I did not know then that you had got another step back as I see you have by the note to my last lecture, which Youmans has just sent me.
I must thank you very heartily for the pains you have taken over the woodcuts of the lectures. It is a great improvement to have the patterns of the grinders.
I promised to give a lecture at the Royal Institution on the 21st January next, and I am thinking of discoursing on the Birds with teeth. Have you anything new to tell on that subject? I have implicit faith in the inexhaustibility of the contents of those boxes.
Our voyage home was not so successful as that out. The weather was cold and I got a chill which laid me up for several days, in fact I was not well for some weeks after my return. But I am vigorous again now.
Pray remember me kindly to all New Haven friends. My wife joins with me in kindest regards and good wishes for the new year. "Tell him we expect to see him next year."
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On December 16 he delivered a lecture "On the Study of Biology," in connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington ("Collected Essays" 3 262), dealing with the origin of the name Biology, its relation to Sociology—] "we have allowed that province of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you to recollect that this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist apparently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; or meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part of his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken"]—how to learn biology, the use of Museums, and above all, the utility of biology, as helping to give right ideas in this world, which] "is after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas."
[This lecture on Biology was first published among the "American
Addresses" in 1877.
It was about this time that an extremely Broad Church divine was endeavouring to obtain the signatures of men of science to a document he had drawn up protesting against certain orthodox doctrines. Huxley, however, refused to sign the protest, and wrote the following letter of explanation, a copy of which he sent to Mr. Darwin.]
November 18, 1876.
Dear Sir,
I have read the "Protest," with a copy of which you have favoured me, and as you wish that I should do so, I will trouble you with a brief statement of my reasons for my inability to sign it.
I object to clause 2 on the ground long since taken by Hume that the order of the universe such as we observe it to be, furnishes us with the only data upon which we can base any conclusion as to the character of the originator thereof.
As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins affect endless generations of their progeny. Men are tempted, men are punished for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own; and they are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their consciousness lasts.
The theological doctrines to which you refer, therefore, are simply extensions of generalisations as well based as any in physical science. Very likely they are illegitimate extensions of these generalisations, but that does not make them wrong in principle.
And I should consider it waste of time to "protest" against that which is.
As regards clause 3 I find that as a matter of experience, erroneous beliefs are punished, and right beliefs are rewarded—though very often the erroneous belief is based upon a more conscientious study of the facts than the right belief. I do not see why this should not be as true of theological beliefs as any others. And as I said before, I do not care to protest against that which is.
Many thanks for your congratulations. My tour was very pleasant and taught me a good deal.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.
4 Marlborough Place, November 19, 1876.
My dear Darwin,
I confess I have less sympathy with the half-and-half sentimental school which he represents than I have with thoroughgoing orthodoxy.
If we are to assume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words, than that he is malevolent and unjust. Infinite benevolence need not have invented pain and sorrow at all—infinite malevolence would very easily have deprived us of the large measure of content and happiness that falls to our lot. After all, Butler's "Analogy" is unassailable, and there is nothing in theological dogmas more contradictory to our moral sense, than is to be found in the facts of nature. From which, however, the Bishop's conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn't follow.
With best remembrances to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This incident suggests the story of a retort he once made upon what he considered an unseasonable protest in church, a story which exemplifies, by the way, his strong sense of the decencies of life, appearing elsewhere in his constant respect for the ordinary conventions of his dislike for mere Bohemianism as such.
Once in a country house he was sitting at dinner next to his hostess, a lady who, as will sometimes happen, liked to play the part of Lady Arbitress of the whole neighbourhood. She told him how much she disapproved of the Athanasian Creed, and described how she had risen and left the village church when the parson began to read it; and thinking to gain my father's assent, she turned to him and said graciously, "Now Mr. Huxley, don't you think I was quite right to mark my disapproval?"]
"My dear Lady —" [he replied,] "I should as soon think of rising and leaving your table because I disapproved of one of the entrees."
CHAPTER 2.9.
1877.
[In this year he delivered lectures and addresses on the "Geological History of Birds," at the Zoological Society's Gardens, June 7; on "Starfishes and their Allies," at the Royal Institution, March 7; at the London Institution, December 17, on "Belemnites" (a subject on which he had written in 1864, and which was doubtless suggested anew by his autumn holiday at Whitby, where the Lias cliffs are full of these fossils); at the Anthropological Conference, May 22, on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology" ("Collected Essays" 3 294), with special reference to the recent legislation as to experiments on living animals; and on "Technical Education" to the Working Men's Club and Institute, December 1 ("Collected Essays" 3 404): a perilous subject, indeed, considering, as he remarks, that] "any candid observer of the phenomena of modern society will readily admit that bores must be classed among the enemies of the human race; and a little consideration will probably lead him to the further admission, that no species of that extensive genus of noxious creatures is more objectionable than the educational bore…In the course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I have ventured to speak of education; indeed, the only part of this wide region into which, as yet, I have not adventured, is that into which I propose to intrude to-day."
[The choice of subject for this address was connected with a larger campaign for the establishment of technical education on a proper footing, which began with his work on the School Board, and was this year brought prominently before the public by another address delivered at the Society of Arts. The Clothworkers Company had already been assisting the Society of Arts in their efforts for the spread of technical education; and in July 1877 a special committee of the Guilds applied to him, amongst half a dozen others, to furnish them with a report as to the objects and methods of a scheme of technical education. This paper fills sixteen pages in the Report of the Livery Companies' Committee for 1878. The fundamental principles on which he bases his practical recommendations are contained in the following paragraph:—]
It appears to me that if every person who is engaged in an industry had access to instruction in the scientific principles on which that industry is based; in the mode of applying these principles to practice; in the actual use of the means and appliances employed; in the language of the people who know as much about the matter as we do ourselves; and lastly, in the art of keeping accounts, Technical Education would have done all that can be required of it.
[And his suggestions about buildings was at once adopted by the Committee, namely, that they should be erected at a future date, regard being had primarily rather to what is wanted in the inside than what will look well from the outside.
Now the Guilds formed a very proper body to set such a scheme on foot, because only such wealthy and influential members of the first mercantile city in the world could afford to let themselves be despised and jeered at for professing to teach English manufacturers and English merchants that they needed to be taught; and to spend 25,000 pounds a year towards that end for some time without apparent result.
That they eventually succeeded, is due no little to the careful plans drawn out by Huxley. He may be described as "really the engineer of the City and Guilds Institute; for without his advice," declared one of the leading members, "we should not have known what to have done."
At the same time he warned them against indiscriminate zeal;] "though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse." [The aim of the Livery Companies should specially be to aid the PRACTICAL teaching of science, so that at bottom the question turns mainly on the supply of teachers.
On December 11, 1879, he found a further opportunity of urging the cause of Technical Education. A lecture on Apprenticeships was delivered before the Society of Arts by Professor Silvanus Thompson. Speaking after the lecturer (see report in "Nature" 1879 page 139) he discussed the necessity of supplying the place of the old apprenticeships by educating children in the principles of their particular crafts, beyond the time when they were forced to enter the workshops. This could be done by establishing schools in each centre of industry, connected with a central institution, such as was to be found in Paris or Zurich. As for complaints of deficient teaching of handicrafts in the Board Schools, it was more important for them to make intelligent men than skilled workmen, as again was indicated in the French system.
As President of the Royal Society, he was on the above-mentioned Committee of the Guilds from 1883 to 1885, and on December 10, 1883, distributed the prizes in connection with the institution in the Clothworkers' Hall. After sketching the inception of the whole scheme, he referred to the Central Institute, then in course of building (begun in 1882, it was finished in 1884; the Technical College, Finsbury, was older by a year), and spoke of the difficulties in the way of organising such an institution:—]
That building is simply the body, not the flesh and bones, but the bricks and stones, of the Central Institute, and the business upon which Sir F. Bramwell and my other colleagues on the Committee have been so much occupied, is the making a soul for this body; and I can assure you making a soul for anything is an amazingly difficult operation. You are always in danger of doing as the man in the story of Frankenstein did, and making something which will eventually devour you instead of being useful to you.
[And here I may give a letter which refers to the movement for technical education, and the getting the City Companies under way in the matter. In the words of Mr. George Howell, M.P. (who sent it to the "Times" (July 3, 1895) just after Huxley's death), it has an additional interest "as indicating the nature of his own epitaph"; as a man "whose highest ambition ever was to uplift the masses of the people and promote their welfare intellectually, socially, and industrially."]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 2, 1880.
Dear Mr. Howell,
Your letter is a welcome New Year's gift. There are two things I really care about—one is the progress of scientific thought, and the other is the bettering of the condition of the masses of the people by bettering them in the way of lifting themselves out of the misery which has hitherto been the lot of the majority of them. Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive to me, but, if I am to be remembered at all, I would rather it should be as "a man who did his best to help the people" than by other title. So you see it is no small pleasure and encouragement to me to find that I have been, and am, of any use in this direction.
Ever since my experience on the School Board, I have been convinced that I should lose rather than gain by entering directly into politics…But I suppose I have some ten years of activity left in me, and you may depend upon it I shall lose no chance of striking a blow for the cause I have at heart. I thought the time had come the other day at the Society of Arts, and the event proves I was not mistaken. The animal is moving, and by a judicious exhibition of carrots in front and kicks behind, we shall get him into a fine trot presently. In the meantime do not let the matter rest…The (City) companies should be constantly reminded that a storm is brewing. There are excellent men among them, who want to do what is right, and need help against the sluggards and reactionaries. It will be best for me to be quiet for a while, but you will understand that I am watching for the turn of events.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This summer, too, he delivered a course on Biology for Teachers at South Kensington, and published not only his "American Addresses," but also the "Physiography," founded upon the course delivered seven years before. The book, of which 3386 copies were sold in the first six weeks, was fruitful in two ways; it showed that a geographical subject could be invested with interest, and it set going what was almost a new branch of teaching in natural science, even in Germany, the starting place of most educational methods, where it was immediately proposed to bring out an adaptation of the book, substituting, e.g. the Elbe for the Thames, as a familiar example of river action.
He was immensely pleased by a letter from Mr. John Morley, telling how his step-son, a boy of non-bookish tastes, had been taken with it. "My step-son was reading it the other night. I said, 'isn't it better to read a novel before going to bed, instead of worrying your head over a serious book like that?' 'Oh,' said he, 'I'm at an awfully interesting part, and I can't leave off.'" It was, Mr. Morley continued, "the way of making Nature, as she comes before us every day, interesting and intelligible to young folks."
To this he replied on December 14:—]
I shall get as vain as a peacock if discreet folk like you say such pretty things to me as you do about the "Physiography."
But it is very pleasant to me to find that I have succeeded in what I tried to do. I gave the lectures years ago to show what I thought was the right way to lead young people to the study of nature—but nobody would follow suit—so now I have tried what the book will do.
Your step-son is a boy of sense, and I hope he may be taken as a type of the British public!
[A good deal of time was taken up in the first half of the year by the Scottish Universities Commission, which necessitated his attendance in Edinburgh the last week in February, the first week in April, and the last week in July. He had hoped to finish off the necessary business at the first of these meetings, but no sooner had he arrived in Edinburgh, after a pleasant journey down with J.A. Froude, than he learned that] "the chief witness we were to have examined to-day, and whose due evisceration was one of the objects of my coming, has telegraphed to say he can't be here." [Owing to this and to the enforced absence of the judges on the Commission from some of the sittings, it was found necessary to have additional meetings at Easter, much to his disgust. He writes:—]
I am sorry to say I shall have to come here again in Easter week. It is the only time the Lord President is free from his courts, and although we all howled privately, there was no help for it. Whether we finish then or not will depend on the decision of the Government, as to our taking up the case of you troublesome women, who want admission into the University (very rightly too I think). If we have to go into this question it will involve the taking of new evidence and no end of bother. I find my colleagues very reasonable, and I hope some good may be done, that is the only consolation.
I went out with Blackie last evening to dine with the Skeltons, at a pretty place called the Hermitage, about three miles from here…Blackie and I walked home with snow on the ground and a sharp frost. I told you it would turn cold as soon as I got here, but I am none the worse.
[It was just the same in April:—]
It is quite cold here as usual, and there was ice on the ponds we passed this morning…I am much better lodged than I was last time, for the same thanks to John Bruce, but I do believe that the Edinburgh houses are the coldest in the universe. In spite of a good breakfast and a good fire, the half of me that is writing to you is as cold as charity.
April 4.
We toil at the Commission every day, and don't make any rapid progress. An awful fear creeps over me that we shall not finish this bout.
[While he was in Edinburgh for the third time, his attention was called to an article in the "Echo," the organ of the anti-vivisection party. He writes:—]
The "Echo" is pretty. It is one of a long series of articles from the same hand, but I don't think they hurt anybody and they evidently please the writer. For some reason or other they have not attacked me yet, but I suppose my turn will come.
[Again:—]
Thank you for sending me John Bright's speeches. They are very good, but hardly up to his old mark of eloquence. Some parts are very touching.
[His health was improving, as he notes with satisfaction:—]
Every day this week we have had about four hours of the Commission, and I have dined out four days out of the six. But I'm no the waur, and the late dinners have not been visited by fits of morning blue devils. So I am in hopes that I am getting back to the normal state that Clark prophesied for me.
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., April 29, 1877.
My dear Skelton,
Best thanks for your second edition. You paint the system (i.e. of Scotch education.) in such favourable colours, that I am thinking of taking advantage of it for my horde of "young barbarians." I am sure Scotch air would be of service to them—and in after-life they might have the inestimable advantage of a quasi-Scotch nationality—that greatest of all practical advantages in Britain.
We are to sit again in the end of July when Mrs. Skelton and you, if you are wise, will be making holiday.
Your invitation is most tempting, and if I had no work to do I should jump at it.
But alas! I shall have a deal of work, and I must go to my Patmos in
George Street. Ingrained laziness is the bane of my existence; and you
don't suppose that with the sun shining down into your bosky dell, and
Mrs. Skelton radiant, and Froude and yourself nicotiant, I am such a
Philistine as to do a stroke of work?
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[From Edinburgh he went to St. Andrews to make arrangements for his elder son to go to the University there as a student the following winter. Then he paid a visit to Sir W. Armstrong in Northumberland, afterwards spending a month at Whitby. His holiday work consisted in a great part of the article on "Evolution" for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," which is noted as finished on October 24, though not published till the next year.
In November the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Charles Darwin at Cambridge,] "a great step for Cambridge, though it may not seem much in itself," [he writes to Dohrn, November 21. In the evening after the public ceremony there was a dinner of the Philosophical Club, at which he spoke in praise of Darwin's services to science. Darwin himself was unable to be present, but received an enthusiastic account of the proceedings from his son, and wrote to thank Huxley, who replied:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 21, 1877.
My dear Darwin,
Nothing ever gave me greater pleasure than the using the chance of speaking my mind about you and your work which was afforded me at the dinner the other night. I said not a word beyond what I believe to be strictly accurate; and, please Sir, I didn't sneer at anybody. There was only a little touch of the whip at starting, and it was so tied round with ribbons that it took them some time to find out where the flick had hit.
T.H. Huxley.
[He writes to his wife:—]
I will see if I can recollect the speech. I made a few notes sitting in Dewar's room before the dinner. But as usual I did not say some things I meant to say and said others that came up on the spur of the moment.
[And again:—]
Please I didn't say that Reaumur was the other greatest scientific man since Aristotle. But I said that in a certain character of his work he was the biggest man between Aristotle and Darwin. I really must write out an "authorised version" of my speech. I hear the Latin oration is to be in "Nature" this week, and Lockyer wanted me to give him the heads of my speech, but I did not think it would be proper to do so, and refused. I have written out my speech as well as I can recollect it. I do not mind any friend seeing it, but you must not let it get about as the dinner was a private one.
[The notes of his speech run as follows:—]
Mr. President,
I rise with pleasure and with alacrity to respond to the toast which you have just proposed, and I may say that I consider one of the greatest honours which have befallen me, to be called upon to represent my distinguished friend Mr. Darwin upon this occasion. I say to represent Mr. Darwin, for I cannot hope to personate him, or to say all that would be dictated by a mind conspicuous for its powerful humility and strong gentleness.
Mr. Darwin's work had fully earned the distinction you have to-day conferred upon him four-and-twenty years ago; but I doubt not that he would have found in that circumstance an exemplification of the wise foresight of his revered intellectual mother. Instead of offering her honours when they ran a chance of being crushed beneath the accumulated marks of approbation of the whole civilised world, the University has waited until the trophy was finished, and has crowned the edifice with the delicate wreath of academic appreciation.
This is what I suppose Mr. Darwin might have said had he been happily able to occupy my place. Let me now speak in my own person and in obedience to your suggestion, let me state as briefly as possible what appear to me to be Mr. Darwin's distinctive merits.
From the time of Aristotle to the present day I know of but one man who has shown himself Mr. Darwin's equal in one field of research—and that is Reaumur. In the breadth of range of Mr. Darwin's investigations upon the ways and works of animals and plants, in the minute patient accuracy of his observations, and in the philosophical ideas which have guided them, I know of no one who is to be placed in the same rank with him except Reaumur.
Secondly, looking back through the same long period of scientific history, I know of but one man, Lyonnet, who not being from his youth a trained anatomist, has published such an admirable minute anatomical research as is contained in Mr. Darwin's work on the Cirripedes.
Thirdly, in that region which lies between Geology and Biology, and is occupied by the problem of the influence of life on the structure of the globe, no one, so far as I know, has done a more brilliant and far-reaching piece of work than the famous book upon Coral Reefs.
I add to these as incidental trifles the numerous papers on Geology, and that most delightful of popular scientific books, the "Journal of a Naturalist," and I think I have made out my case for the justification of to-day's proceedings.
But I have omitted something. There is the "Origin of Species," and all that has followed it from the same marvellously fertile brain.
Most people know Mr. Darwin only as the author of this work, and of the form of evolutional doctrine which it advocates. I desire to say nothing about that doctrine. My friend Dr. Humphry has said that the University has by to-day's proceedings committed itself to the doctrine of evolution. I can only say "I am very glad to hear it." But whether that doctrine be true or whether it be false, I wish to express the deliberate opinion, that from Aristotle's great summary of the Biological knowledge of his time down to the present day, there is nothing comparable to the "Origin of Species," as a connected survey of the phenomena of life permeated and vivified by a central idea. In remote ages the historian of science will dwell upon it as the starting-point of the Biology of his present and our future.
My friend Dr. Humphry has adverted to somebody about whom I know nothing, who says that the exact and critical studies pursued in this University are ill-calculated to preserve a high tone of mind.
I presume that this saying must proceed from some one wholly unacquainted with Cambridge. Whoever he may be, I beg him, if he can, to make the acquaintance of Charles Darwin.
In Mr. Darwin's name I beg leave to thank you for the honour you have done him.
[It happened that the quadrennial election of a Lord Rector at St. Andrews University fell in this year, and on behalf of a number of students, Huxley received a telegram from his son, now newly entered at St. Andrews, asking him to stand. He writes to his wife:—]
That boy of yours has just sent me a telegram, which I enclose. I sent back message to say that as a Commissioner on the Scotch Universities I could not possibly stand. The cockerel is beginning to crow early. I do believe that to please the boy I should have assented to it if it had not been for the Royal Commission.
[Apropos of controversies (November 23)]
We had a grand discussion at the Royal Society last night between Tyndall and Burdon Sanderson. The place was crammed, and we had a late sitting. I'm not sure, however, that we had got much further at the end than at the beginning, which is a way controversies have.
[The following story is worth recording, as an illustration not only of the way in which Huxley would give what help was in his power to another man of science in distress, but of the ready aid proffered on this, as on many other occasions, by a wealthy northern merchant who was interested in science. A German scientific worker in England, whom we will call H., had fallen into distress, and applied to him for help, asking if some work could not be put in his way. Huxley could think of nothing immediate but to suggest some lessons in German literature to his children, though in fact they were well provided for with a German governess; nevertheless he thought it a proper occasion to avail himself of his friend's offer to give help in deserving cases. He writes to his wife:—]
I made up my mind to write to X. the day before yesterday; this morning by return of post he sends me a cheque not only for the 60 pounds which I said H. needed, but 5 pounds over for his present needs with a charming letter.
It came in the nick of time, as H. came an hour or two after it arrived, and with many apologies told me he was quite penniless. The poor old fellow was quite overcome when I told him of how matters stood, and it was characteristic that as soon as he got his breath again, he wanted to know when he would begin teaching the children! I sent him to get an order on the Naples bank for discharge of his debt there. X.'s express stipulation was that his name should not be mentioned, so mind you say not a word about his most kind and generous act.
[The following letters of miscellaneous interest were written in this year:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 21, 1877.
My dear Morley,
I am always at the command of the "Fortnightly" so long as you are editor, but I don't think that the Belemnite business would do for you. [The lecture at the London Institution mentioned above.] The story would hardly be intelligible without illustrations.
There are two things I am going to do which may be more to the purpose. One is a screed on Technical Education which I am going to give to the Working Men's Union on the 1st December.
The other is a sort of Eloge on Harvey at the Royal Institution in
March apropos of his 300th birthday—which was Allfools Day.
You shall have either of these you like, but I advise Harvey; as if I succeed in doing what I shall aim at it will be interesting.
Why the deuce do you live at Brighton? St. John's Wood is far less cockneyfied, and its fine and Alpine air would be much better for you, and I believe for Mrs. Morley, than the atmosphere of the melancholy main, the effects of which on the human constitution have been so well expounded by that eminent empiric, Dr. Dizzy.
Anyhow, I wish we could see something of you now and then.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Darwin got his degree with great eclat on Saturday. I had to return thanks for his health at the dinner of the Philosophical Society; and oh! I chaffed the dons so sweetly.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 27, 1877.
My dear Morley,
You shall have both the articles—if it is only that I may enjoy the innocent pleasure of Knowles' face when I let him know what has become of them. [The rival editor. Cp. above.]
Stormy ocean, forsooth! I back the storm and rain through which I came home to-night against anything London-super-mare has to show.
I will send the manuscript to Virtue as soon as it is in a reasonable state.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 8, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Many thanks for the cheque. In my humble judgment it is quite as much as the commodity is worth.
It was a great pleasure to us all to have you with us on New Year's Day. My wife claims it as her day, and I am not supposed to know anything about the guests except Spencer and Tyndall. None but the very elect are invited to the sacred feast—so you see where you stand among the predestined who cannot fall away from the state of grace.
I have not seen Spencer in such good form and good humour combined for an age.
I am working away at Harvey, and will send the manuscript to Virtue's as soon as I am sufficiently forward.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, December 9, 1877.
My dear Tyndall,
I am so sorry to have been out when Mrs. Tyndall called to-day. By what we heard at the x on Thursday, I imagined you were practically all right again, or I should have been able to look after you to-day.
But what I bother you with this note for is to beg you not to lecture at the London Institution to-morrow, but to let me change days with you, and so give yourself a week to recover. And if you are seedy, then I am quite ready to give them another lecture on the Hokypotamus or whatever else may turn up.
But don't go and exert yourself in your present condition. These severe colds have often nothing very tangible about them, but are not to be trifled with when folks are past fifty.
Let me have an answer to say that I may send a telegram to Nicholson first thing to-morrow morning to say that I will lecture vice you. My "bottled life," as Hutton calls it in the "Spectator" this week, is quite ready to go off. [The "Spectator" for December 8, 1877, began an article thus:—"Professor Huxley delivered a very amusing address last Saturday at the Society of Arts, on the very unpromising subject of technical education; but we believe that if Professor Huxley were to become the President of the Social Science Association, or of the International Statistical Congress, he would still be amusing, so much bottled life does he infuse into the driest topic on which human beings ever contrived to prose."]
Now be a sane man and take my advice.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 2.10.
1878.
[The year 1878 was the tercentenary of Harvey's birth, and Huxley was very busy with the life and work of that great physician. He spoke at the memorial meeting at the College of Physicians (July 18), he gave a lecture on Harvey at the Royal Institution on January 25, afterwards published in "Nature" and the "Fortnightly Review," and intended to write a book on him in a projected "English Men of Science" series. (See below.)]
I am very glad you like "Harvey" [he writes to Professor Baynes on February 11]. He is one of the biggest scientific minds we have had. I expect to get well vilipended not only by the anti-vivisection folk, for the most of whom I have a hearty contempt, but apropos of Bacon. I have been oppressed by the humbug of the "Baconian Induction" all my life, and at last THE WORM HAS TURNED.
[Now in this lecture he showed that Harvey employed vivisection to establish the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and furthermore, that he taught this doctrine before the "Novum Organum" was published, and that his subsequent "Exercitatio" displays no trace of being influenced by Bacon's work. After glancing at the superstitious reverence for the "Baconian Induction," he pointed out Bacon's ignorance of the progress of science up to his time, and his inability to divine the importance of what he knew by hearsay of the work of Copernicus, or Kepler, or Galileo; of Gilbert, his contemporary, or of Galen; and wound up by quoting Ellis's severe judgment of Bacon in the General Preface to the Philosophic Works, in Spedding's classical edition (page 38):—] "That his method is impracticable cannot, I think, be denied, if we reflect, not only that it never has produced any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to be in accordance with it."
[How early this conviction had forced itself upon him, I cannot say; but it was certainly not later than 1859, when the "Origin of Species" was constantly met with "Oh, but this is contrary to the Baconian method." He had long felt what he expresses most clearly in the "Progress of Science" ("Collected Essays" 1 46-57), that Bacon's] "majestic eloquence and fervid vaticinations," [which] "drew the attention of all the world to the 'new birth of Time,'" [were yet, for all practical results on discovery,] "a magnificent failure." [The desire for "fruits" has not been the great motive of the discoverer; nor has discovery waited upon collective research.] "Those who refuse to go beyond fact," [he writes,] "rarely get as far as fact; and any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the 'anticipation of nature,' that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long-run."
[Thus he had been led to a settled disbelief in Bacon's scientific greatness, that reasoned "prejudice" against which Spedding himself was moved to write twice in defence of Bacon. In his first letter he criticised a passage in the lecture touching this question. On the one hand, he remarks, "Bacon would probably have agreed with you as to his pretensions as a scientific discoverer (he calls himself a bellman to call other wits together, or a trumpeter, or a maker of bricks for others to build with)." On the other hand, he asks, ought a passage from a fragment—the "Temporis partus masculus"—unpublished in Bacon's lifetime, to be treated as one of his representative opinions?
In his second letter he adduces, on other grounds, his own more favourable impression of Bacon's philosophical influence. A peculiar interest of this letter lies in its testimony to the influence of Huxley's writings even on his elder contemporaries.
From James Spedding.
February 1, 1878.
…When you admit that you study Bacon with a PREJUDICE, you mean of course an unfavourable opinion previously formed on sufficient grounds. Now I am myself supposed to have studied him with a prejudice the other way: but this I cannot admit, in any sense of the word; for when I first made his acquaintance I had no opinion or feeling about him at all—more than the ordinary expectation of a young man to find what he is told to look for. My earliest impression of his character came probably from Thomson—whose portrait of him, except as touched and softened by the tenderer hand of "the sweet-souled poet of the Seasons," did not differ from the ordinary one. It was not long indeed before I did begin to form an opinion of my own; one of those AFTER-judgments which are liable to be mistaken for prejudices by those who judge differently, and which, being formed, do, no doubt, tell upon the balance. For it was not long before I found myself indebted to him for the greatest benefit probably that any man, living or dead, can confer on another. In my school and college days I had been betrayed by an ambition to excel in themes and declamations into the study, admiration, and imitation of the rhetoricians. In the course of my last long vacation—the autumn of 1830—I was inspired with a new ambition, namely, to think justly about everything which I thought about at all, and to act accordingly; a conviction for which I cannot cease to feel grateful, and which I distinctly trace to the accident of having in the beginning of that same vacation given two shillings at a second-hand bookstall for a little volume of Dove's classics, containing the Advancement of Learning. And if I could tell you how many superlatives I have since that time degraded into the positive; how many innumerables and infinities I have replaced by counted numbers and estimated quantities; how many assumptions, important to the argument in hand, I have withdrawn because I found on more consideration that the fact might be explained otherwise; and how many effective epithets I have discarded when I found that I could not fully verify them; you would think it no less than just that I should claim for myself and concede to others the right of being judged by the last edition rather than the first. That a persistent endeavour to free myself from what you regard as Bacon's characteristic vice should have been the fruit of a desire to follow his example, will seem strange to you, but it is fact. Perhaps you will think it not less strange, but it is my real belief, that if your own writings had been in existence and come in my way at the same critical stage of my moral and mental development, they would have taught me the same lesson and inspired me with the same ambition; for in that particular (if I may say it without offence) I look upon you BOTH as eminent examples of the SAME virtue.
To the lecture he refers once more in a letter to Mr. John Morley. The political situation touched on in this and the next letter is that of the end of the Russo-Turkish war and the beginning of the Afghan war.]
Science Schools, South Kensington, February 7, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Many thanks for the cheque, and still more for your good word for the article. [On Harvey.] I knew it would "draw" Hutton, and his ingenuity has as usual made the best of the possibilities of attack. I am glad to find, however, that he does not think it expedient to reiterate his old story about the valuelessness of vivisection in the establishment of the doctrine of the circulation.
I hear that that absurd creature R— goes about declaring that I have made all sorts of blunders. Could not somebody be got to persuade him to put what he has to say in black and white?
Controversy is as abhorrent to me as gin to a reclaimed drunkard; but oh dear! it would be so nice to squelch that pompous imposter.
I hope you admire the late aspects of the British Lion. His tail goes up and down from the intercrural to the stiffly erect attitude per telegram, while his head is sunk in the windbag of the House of Commons.
I am beginning to think that a war would be a good thing if only for the inevitable clean sweep of all the present governing people which it would bring about.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To his eldest daughter.]
Science Schools, South Kensington, December 7, 1878.
Dearest Jess,
You are a badly used young person—you are; and nothing short of that conviction would get a letter out of your still worse used Pater, the bete noire of whose existence is letter-writing.
Catch me discussing the Afghan question with you, you little pepper pot. No, not if I know it. Read Fitzjames Stephen's letter in the "Times," also Bartle Frere's memorandum, also Napier of Magdala's memo. Them's my sentiments.
Also read the speech of Lord Hartington on the address. He is a man of sense like his father, and you will observe that he declares that the Government were perfectly within their right in declaring war without calling Parliament together…
If you had lived as long as I have and seen as much of men, you would cease to be surprised at the reputations men of essentially commonplace powers—aided by circumstances and some amount of cleverness—obtain.
I am as strong for justice as any one can be, but it is real justice, not sham conventional justice which the sentimentalists howl for.
At this present time real justice requires that the power of England should be used to maintain order and introduce civilisation wherever that power extends.
The Afghans are a pack of disorderly treacherous blood-thirsty thieves and caterans who should never have been allowed to escape from the heavy hand we laid upon them, after the massacre of twenty thousand of our men, women, and children in the Khoord Cabul Pass thirty years ago.
We have let them be, and the consequence is they now lend themselves to the Russians, and are ready to stir up disorder and undo all the good we have been doing in India for the last generation.
They are to India exactly what the Highlanders of Scotland were to the Lowlanders before 1745; and we have just as much right to deal with them in the same way.
I am of opinion that our Indian Empire is a curse to us. But so long as we make up our minds to hold it, we must also make up our minds to do those things which are needful to hold it effectually, and in the long run it will be found that so doing is real justice both for ourselves, our subject population, and the Afghans themselves.
There, you plague.
Ever your affectionate Daddy,
T.H. Huxley.
[A few days later he writes to his son:—]
The Liberals are making fools of themselves, and "the family" declare I am becoming a Jingo! another speech from Gladstone is expected to complete my conversion.
[Among other occupations he still had to attend the Scottish Universities Commission, for which he wrote the paragraph on examinations in its report; he lectured on the Hand at the Working Men's College; prepared new editions of the "Physiography," "Elementary Physiology," and "Vertebrate Anatomy," and at length brought out the "Introductory Primer" in the Science Primer Series, in quite a different form from what he had originally sketched out. But his chief interest lay in the Invertebrata. From April 29 to June 3 he lectured to working men at Jermyn Street upon the Crayfish; read a paper on the Classification and Distribution of Crayfishes at the Zoological Society on June 4, and lectured at the Zoological Gardens weekly from May 17 to June 21 on Crustaceous Animals. In all this work lay the foundations of his subsequent book on the Crayfish, which I find jotted down in the notes of this year to be written as an introduction to "Zoology," together with the "Dog" as an introduction to the "Mammalia", and "Man"—already dealt with in "Man's Place in Nature"—as an introduction to "Anthropology." This projected series is completed with a half-erased note of an introduction to "Psychology," which perhaps found some expression in parts of the "Hume," also written this year.
He notes down also, work on the Ascidians, and on the morphology of the Mollusca and Cephalopods brought back by the "Challenger," in connection with which he now began the monograph on the rare creature Spirula, a remarkable piece of work, being based upon the dissections of a single specimen, but destined never to be completed by his hand, though his drawings were actually engraved, and nothing remained but to put a few finishing touches and to write detailed descriptions of the plates.
Letters to W.K. Parker and Professor Haeckel touch on this part of his work; the former, indeed, offering a close parallel to a story, obviously of the same period, which the younger Parker tells in his reminiscences, to illustrate the way in which he would be utterly engrossed in a subject for the time being. Jeffery Parker, while demonstrator of biology, came to him with a question about the brain of the codfish at a time when he was deep in the investigation of some invertebrate group.] "Codfish?" [he replied,] "that's a vertebrate, isn't it? Ask me a fortnight hence, and I'll consider it."
4 Marlborough Place, September 25, 1878.
My dear Parker,
As far as I recollect Ammocoetes is a vertebrated animal—and I ignore it.
The paper you refer to was written by my best friend—a carefulish kind of man—and I am as sure that he saw what he says he saw, as if I had seen it myself.
But what the fact may mean and whether it is temporary or permanent—is thy servant a dog that he should worry himself about other things with backbones? Not if I know it.
Churchill has got over a whole batch of the American edition of the Vertebrata, so I have a respite. Mollusks are far more interesting—bugs sweeter—while the dinner crayfish hath no parallel for intense and absorbing interest in the three kingdoms of Nature.
What saith the Scripture? "Go to the ANT thou sluggard." In other words, study the Invertebrata.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Sketch of a vast winged ant advancing on a midget, and saying, as it looks through a pair of eyeglasses, "Well, really, what an absurd creature!!"]
4 Marlborough Place, London, April 28, 1878.
My dear Haeckel,
Since the receipt of your letter three months ago, I have been making many inquiries about Medusae for you, but I could hear of none—and so I have delayed my reply, until I doubt not you have been blaspheming my apparent neglect.
My "Sammlung"!! [Collection.] My dear friend, my cabin on board H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" was 7 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet 6 inches high. When my bed and my clothes were in it, there was not much room for any collection, except the voluntary one made by some thousands of specimens of Blatta orientalis [The cockroach.], with whose presence I should have been very glad to dispense.
My Medusae were never published. I have heaps of notes and drawings and half-a-dozen engraved plates. But after the publication of the "Oceanic Hydrozoa" I was obliged to take to quite other occupations, and all that material is like the "full many a flower, born to blush unseen," of our poet.
If you would pay us a visit you should look through the whole mass, if you liked, and you might find something interesting.
At present, I am very busy about Crayfishes (Flusskrebse), working out the relations between their structure and their Geographical Distribution, which are very curious and interesting.
I have also nearly finished the anatomy of Spirula for the "Challenger." It is essentially a cuttlefish, and the shell is really internal. With only one specimen, it has been a long and troublesome job—but I shall establish all the essential points and give half-a-dozen plates of anatomy.
You will recollect my eldest little daughter? She is going to be married next Saturday. It is the first break in our family, and we are very sad to lose her—though well satisfied with her prospects. She is but just twenty and a charming girl, though you may put that down to fatherly partiality if you like.
The second daughter has taken to art, and will make a painter if she be wise enough not to marry for some years.
My eldest son who comes next is taller than I am. He has been at one of the Scotch Universities for the last six months; and one of these fine days, next month, you will see a fair-haired stripling asking for Herr Professor Haeckel.
I am going to send him to Jena for three months to pick up your noble vernacular; and in the meanwhile to continue his Greek and Mathematics, in which the young gentleman is fairly proficient. If you can recommend any Professor under whom he can carry on his studies, it will be a great kindness.
I will give him a letter to you, and while I beg you not to give yourself any trouble about him, I need not say I shall be very grateful for any notice you may take of him.
I am giving him as much independence of action as possible, in order that he may learn to take care of himself.
Now that is enough about my children. Yours must yet be young—and you have not yet got to the marriage and university stage—which I assure you is much more troublesome than the measles and chicken-pox period.
My wife unites with me in kindest remembrances and good wishes.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[An outbreak of diphtheria among his children made the spring of 1878 a time of overwhelming anxiety. How it told upon his strong and self-contained chief is related by T.J. Parker—"I never saw a man more crushed than he was during the dangerous illness of one of his daughters, and he told me that, having then to make an after-dinner speech, he broke down for the first time in his life, and for one painful moment forgot where he was and what he had to say." This was one of the few occasions of his absence from College during the seventies. "When, after two days, he looked in at the laboratory," writes Professor Howes, "his dejected countenance and tired expression betokened only too plainly the intense anxiety he had undergone."
The history of the outbreak was very instructive. Huxley took a leading part in organising an inquiry and in looking into the matter with the health officer.] "As soon as I can get all the facts together," [he writes on December 10,] "I am going to make a great turmoil about our outbreak of diphtheria—and see whether I cannot get our happy-go-lucky local government mended." [As usual, the epidemic was due to culpable negligence. In the construction of some drains, too small a pipe was laid down. The sewage could not escape, and flooded back in a low-lying part of Kilburn. Diphtheria soon broke out close by. While it was raging there, a St. John's Wood dairyman running short of milk, sent for more to an infected dairy in Kilburn. Every house which he supplied that day with Kilburn milk was attacked with diphtheria.
But with relief from this heavy strain, his spirits instantly revived, and he writes to Tyndall.]
4 Marlborough Place, May 20, 1878.
My dear Tyndall,
I wrote you a most downhearted letter this morning about Madge, and not without reason. But having been away four hours, I come home to find a wonderful and blessed change. The fever has abated and she is looking like herself. If she could only make herself heard, I should have some sauciness. I see it in her eyes.
If you will be so kind as to kiss everybody you meet on my account it will be a satisfaction to me. You may begin with Mrs. Tyndall!
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[Professor Marsh, with whom Huxley had stayed at Yale College in 1876, paid his promised visit to England immediately after this.]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 24, 1878 (Evening).
My dear Marsh,
Welcome to England! I am delighted to hear of your arrival—but the news has only just reached me, as I have been away since Saturday with my wife and sick daughter who are at the seaside. A great deal has happened to us in the last six or seven weeks. My eldest daughter married, and then a week after an invasion of diphtheria, which struck down my eldest son, my youngest daughter, and my eldest remaining daughter altogether. Two of the cases were light, but my poor Madge suffered terribly, and for some ten days we were in sickening anxiety about her. She is slowly gaining strength now, and I hope there is no more cause for alarm—but my household is all to pieces—the Lares and Penates gone, and painters and disinfectors in their places.
You will certainly have to run down to Margate and see my wife—or never expect forgiveness in this world.
I shall be at the Science Schools, South Kensington, to-morrow till four—and if I do not see you before that time I shall come and look you up at the Palace Hotel.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
"Is it not provoking," [he writes to his wife,] "that we should all be dislocated when I should have been so glad to show him a little attention?" [Still, apart from this weekend at the seaside, Professor Marsh was not entirely neglected. He writes in his "Recollections" (page 6):—
How kind Huxley was to everyone who could claim his friendship, I have good cause to know. Of the many instances which occur to me, one will suffice. One evening in London at a grand annual reception of the Royal Academy, where celebrities of every rank were present, Huxley said to me,] "When I was in America, you showed me every extinct animal that I had read about, or even dreamt of. Now, if there is a single living lion in all Great Britain that you wish to see, I will show him to you in five minutes." [He kept his promise, and before the reception was over, I had met many of the most noted men in England, and from that evening, I can date a large number of acquaintances, who have made my subsequent visits to that country an ever-increasing pleasure.
As for his summer occupations, he writes to his eldest daughter on
July 2:—]
No, young woman, you don't catch me attending any congresses I can avoid, not even if F. is an artful committee-man. I must go to the British Association at Dublin—for my sins—and after that we have promised to pay a visit in Ireland to Sir Victor Brooke. After that I must settle myself down in Penmaenmawr and write a little book about David Hume—before the grindery of the winter begins.
[The meeting of the British Association took place this year in the third week of August at Dublin. Huxley gave an address in the Anthropological subsection ("Informal Remarks on the Conclusions of Anthropology" "British Association Report" 1878 pages 573-578.), and on the 20th received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Dublin University, the Public Orator presenting him in the following words:—
Praesento vobis Thomam Henricum Huxley—hominem vere physicum—hominem facundum, lepidum, venustum—eundem autem nihil (philosophia modo sua lucem praeferat) reformidantem—ne illud quidem Ennianum,
Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis.
The extract above given contains the first reference to the book on Hume (In the "English Men of Letters" series, edited by Mr. John Morley.), written this summer as a holiday occupation at Penmaenmawr. The speed at which it was composed is remarkable, even allowing for his close knowledge of the subject, acquired many years before. Though he had been "picking at it" earlier in the summer, the whole of the philosophical part was written during September, leaving the biographical part to be done later.
The following letters from Marlborough Place show him at work upon the book:—]
March 31, 1878.
My dear Morley,
I like the notion of undertaking your Hume book, and I don't see why I should not get it done this autumn. But you must not consider me pledged on that point, as I cannot quite command my time.
Tulloch sent me his book on Pascal. It was interesting as everything about Pascal must be, but Tulloch is not a model of style.
I have looked into Bruton's book, but I shall now get it and study it. Hume's correspondence with Rousseau seems to me typical of the man's sweet, easy-going nature. Do you mean to have a portrait of each of your men? I think it is a great comfort in a biography to get a notion of the subject in the flesh.
I have rather made it a rule not to part with my property in my books—but I daresay that can be arranged with Macmillan. Anyhow I shall be content to abide by the general arrangement if you have made one.
We have had a bad evening. Clifford has been here, and he is extremely ill—in fact I fear the worst for him. [See below.]
It is a thousand pities, for he has a fine nature all round, and time would have ripened him into something very considerable. We are all very fond of him.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
July 6, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Very many thanks for Diderot. I have made a plunge into the first volume and found it very interesting. I wish you had put a portrait of him as a frontispiece. I have seen one—a wonderful face, something like Goethe's.
I am picking at Hume at odd times. It seems to me that I had better make an analysis and criticism of the "Inquiry," the backbone of the essay—as it touches all the problems which interest us most just now. I have already sketched out a chapter on Miracles, which will, I hope, be very edifying in consequence of its entire agreement with the orthodox arguments against Hume's a priori reasonings against miracles.
Hume wasn't half a sceptic after all. And so long as he got deep enough to worry Orthodoxy, he did not care to go to the bottom of things.
He failed to see the importance of suggestions already made both by
Locke and Berkeley.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
September 30, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Praise me! I have been hard at work at Hume at Penmaenmawr, and I have got the hard part of the business—the account of his philosophy—blocked out in the bodily shape of about 180 pages foolscap manuscript.
But I find the job as tough as it is interesting. Hume's diamonds, before the public can see them properly, want a proper setting in a methodical and consistent shape—and that implies writing a small psychological treatise of one's own, and then cutting it down into as unobtrusive a form as possible.
So I am working away at my draft—from the point of view of an aesthetic jeweller.
As soon as I get it into such a condition as will need only verbal trimming, I should like to have it set up in type. For it is a defect of mine that I can never judge properly of any composition of my own in manuscript.
Moreover (don't swear at this wish) I should very much like to send it to you in that shape for criticism.
The Life will be an easy business. I should like to get the book out of hand before Christmas, and will do so if possible. But my lectures begin on Tuesday, and I cannot promise.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
October 21, 1878.
My dear Morley,
I have received slips up to chapter 9 of Hume, and so far I do not think (saving your critical presence) that there will be much need of much modification or interpolation.
I have made all my citations from a 4-volume edition of Hume, published by Black and Tait in 1826, which has long been in my possession.
Do you think I ought to quote Green and Grose's edition? It will be a great bother, and I really don't think that the understanding of Hume is improved by going back to eighteenth-century spelling.
I am at work upon the Life, which should not take long. But I wish that I had polished that off at Penmaenmawr as well. What with lecturing five days a week, and toiling at two anatomical monographs, it is hard to find time.
As soon as I have gone through all the eleven chapters about the Philosophy—I will send them to you and get you to come and dine some day—after you have looked at them—and go into it.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Science Schools, South Kensington, October 29, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Your letter has given me great pleasure. For though I have thoroughly enjoyed the work, and seemed to myself to have got at the heart of Hume's way of thinking, I could not tell how it would appear to others, still less could I pretend to judge of the literary form of what I had written. And as I was quite prepared to accept your judgment if it had been unfavourable, so being what it is, I hug myself proportionately and begin to give myself airs as a man of letters.
I am through all the interesting part of Hume's life—that is, the struggling part of it—and David the successful and the feted begins rather to bore me, as I am sorry to say most successful people do. I hope to send the first chapter to press in another week.
Might it not be better, by the way, to divide the little book into two parts?
Part 1.—Life, Literary and Political work, Part 2.—Philosophy,
subdividing the latter into chapters or sections? please tell me what you think.
I have not received the last chapter from the printer yet. When I do I will finish revising, and then ask you to come and have a symposium over it.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—Macmillan has a lien on "The Hand." I gave part of the lecture in another shape at Glasgow two years ago and M. had it reported for his magazine. If he is good and patient he will get it in some shape some day!
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 5, 1878.
My dear Morley,
"Davie's" philosophy is now all in print, and all but a few final pages of his biography.
So I think the time has come when that little critical symposium may take place.
Can you come and dine on Tuesday next (12) at 7? Or if any day except Wednesday 15th, next week, will suit you better, it will do just as well for me. There will be nobody but my wife and daughters, so don't dress.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—Will you be disgusted if in imitation of the "English Men of Letters" I set agoing an "English Men of Science." Few people have any conception of the part Englishmen have played in science, and I think it would be both useful and interesting to bring the truth home to the English mind.
I had about three thousand people to hear me on Saturday at Manchester, and it would have done you good to hear how they cheered at my allusion to personal rule. I had to stop and let them ease their souls.