Of this occasion Professor Henry F. Osborn, one of his old pupils, writes in his "Memorial Tribute to Thomas H. Huxley" ("Transactions of the N.Y. Acad. Society" volume 15):—
Huxley's last public appearance was at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford. He had been very urgently invited to attend, for, exactly a quarter of a century before, the Association had met at Oxford, and Huxley had had his famous encounter with Bishop Wilberforce. It was felt that the anniversary would be an historic one, and incomplete without his presence, and so it proved to be. Huxley's especial duty was to second the vote of thanks for the Marquis of Salisbury's address—one of the invariable formalities of the opening meetings of the Association. The meeting proved to be the greatest one in the history of the Association. The Sheldonian Theatre was packed with one of the most distinguished scientific audiences ever brought together, and the address of the Marquis was worthy of the occasion. The whole tenor of it was the unknown in science. Passing from the unsolved problems of astronomy, chemistry, and physics, he came to biology. With delicate irony he spoke of the] "COMFORTING WORD, EVOLUTION," [and passing to the Weismannian controversy, implied that the diametrically opposed views so frequently expressed nowadays threw the whole process of evolution into doubt. It was only too evident that the Marquis himself found no comfort in evolution, and even entertained a suspicion as to its probability. It was well worth the whole journey to Oxford to watch Huxley during this portion of the address. In his red doctor-of-laws gown, placed upon his shoulders by the very body of men who had once referred to him as "a Mr. Huxley" (This phrase was actually used by the "Times".), he sank deeper into his chair upon the very front of the platform and restlessly tapped his foot. His situation was an unenviable one. He had to thank an ex-Prime Minister of England and present Chancellor of Oxford University for an address, the sentiments of which were directly against those he himself had been maintaining for twenty-five years. He said afterwards that when the proofs of the Marquis's address were put into his hands the day before, he realised that he had before him a most delicate and difficult task. Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) one of the most distinguished living physicists, first moved the vote of thanks, but his reception was nothing to the tremendous applause which greeted Huxley in the heart of that University whose cardinal principles he had so long been opposing. Considerable anxiety had been felt by his friends lest his voice should fail to fill the theatre, for it had signally failed during his Romanes Lecture delivered in Oxford the year before, but when Huxley arose he reminded you of a venerable gladiator returning to the arena after years of absence. He raised his figure and his voice to its full height, and, with one foot turned over the edge of the step, veiled an unmistakable and vigorous protest in the most gracious and dignified speech of thanks.
Throughout the subsequent special sessions of this meeting Huxley could not appear. He gave the impression of being aged but not infirm, and no one realised that he had spoken his last word as champion of the law of evolution. (See, however, below.)
Such criticism of the address as he actually expressed reappears in the leading article, "Past and Present," which he wrote for "Nature" to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation (November 1, 1894).
The essence of the criticism is that with whatever demonstrations of hostility to parts of the Darwinian theory Lord Salisbury covered the retreat of his party from their ancient positions, he admitted the validity of the main points for which Darwin contended.]
The essence of this great work (the "Origin of Species") may be stated summarily thus: it affirms the mutability of species and the descent of living forms, separated by differences of more than varietal value, from one stock. That is to say, it propounds the doctrine of evolution as far as biology is concerned. So far, we have merely a restatement of a doctrine which, in its most general form, is as old as scientific speculation. So far, we have the two theses which were declared to be scientifically absurd and theologically damnable by the Bishop of Oxford in 1860.
It is also of these two fundamental doctrines that, at the meeting of the British Association in 1894, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford spoke as follows:—
"Another lasting and unquestioned effect has resulted from Darwin's work. He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the immutability of species…"
"Few now are found to doubt that animals separated by differences far exceeding those that distinguished what we know as species have yet descended from common ancestors."
Undoubtedly, every one conversant with the state of biological science is aware that general opinion has long had good reason for making the volte face thus indicated. It is also mere justice to Darwin to say that this "lasting and unquestioned" revolution is, in a very real sense, his work. And yet it is also true that, if all the conceptions promulgated in the "Origin of Species" which are peculiarly Darwinian were swept away, the theory of the evolution of animals and plants would not be in the slightest degree shaken.
[The strain of this single effort was considerable] "I am frightfully tired," [he wrote on August 11,] "but the game was worth the candle."
[Letters to Sir J.D. Hooker and to Professor Lewis Campbell contain his own account of the affair. The reference in the latter to the priests is in reply to Professor Campbell's story of one of Jowett's last sayings. They had been talking of the collective power of the priesthood to resist the introduction of new ideas; a long pause ensued, and the old man seemed to have slipped off into a doze, when he suddenly broke the silence by saying,] "The priests will always be too many for you."
The Spa, Tunbridge Wells, August 12, 1894.
My dear Hooker,
I wish, as everybody wished, you had been with us on Wednesday evening at Oxford when we settled accounts for 1860, and got a receipt in full from the Chancellor of the University, President of the Association, and representative of ecclesiastical conservatism and orthodoxy.
I was officially asked to second the vote of thanks for the address, and got a copy of it the night before—luckily—for it was a kittle business…
It was very queer to sit there and hear the doctrines you and I were damned for advocating thirty-four years ago at Oxford, enunciated as matters of course—disputed by no reasonable man!—in the Sheldonian Theatre by the Chancellor…
Of course there is not much left of me, and it will take a fortnight's quiet at Eastbourne (whither we return on Tuesday next) to get right. But it was a pleasant last flare-up in the socket!
With our love to you both.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, August 18, 1894.
My dear Campbell,
I am setting you a good example. You and I are really too old friends to go on wasting ink in honorary prefixes.
I had a very difficult task at Oxford. The old Adam, of course, prompted the tearing of the address to pieces, which would have been a very easy job, especially the latter half of it. But as that procedure would not have harmonised well with the function of a seconder of a vote of thanks, and as, moreover, Lord S. was very just and good in his expressions about Darwin, I had to convey criticism in the shape of praise.
It was very curious to me to sit there and hear the Chancellor of the
University accept, as a matter of course, the doctrines for which the
Bishop of Oxford coarsely anathematised us thirty-four years earlier. E
pur si muove!
I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life—always growing and increasing—is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.
My wife had a very bad attack of her old enemy some weeks ago, and she thought she would not be able to go to Oxford. However, she picked up in the wonderfully elastic way she has, and I believe was less done-up than I when we left on the Friday morning. I was glad the wife was there, as the meeting gave me a very kind reception, and it was probably the last flare-up in the socket.
The Warden of Merton took great care of us, but it was sad to think of the vacuity of Balliol.
Please remember me very kindly to Father Steffens and the Steeles, and will you tell Herr Walther we are only waiting for a balloon to visit the hotel again?
With our affectionate regards to Mrs. Campbell and yourself.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Here also belong several letters of miscellaneous interest. One is to
Mrs. Lewis Campbell at the Maloja.]
Hodeslea, August 20, 1894.
My dear Mrs. Campbell,
What a pity I am not a telepath! I might have answered your inquiry in the letter I was writing to your husband yesterday.
The flower I found on the island in Sils Lake was a cross between Gentiana lutea and Gentiana punctata—nothing new, but interesting in many ways as a natural hybrid.
As to baptizing the island, I am not guilty of usurping ecclesiastical functions to that extent. I have a notion that the island has a name already, but I cannot recollect it. Walther would know.
My wife had a bad attack, and we were obliged to give up some visits we had projected. But she got well enough to go to Oxford with me for a couple of days, and really stood the racket better than I did.
At present she is fairly well, and I hope the enemy may give her a long respite. The Colliers come to us at the end of this month, and that will do her good.
With our affectionate regards to you both and remembrances to our friends.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
[The first of the following set refers to a lively piece of nonsense which Huxley wrote just before going to stay with the Romanes' at Oxford on the occasion of the Romanes Lecture. (See above.) After Professor Romanes' death, Mrs. Romanes asked leave to print it in the biography of her husband. In the other letters, Huxley gives his consent, but, with his usual care for the less experienced, tried to prevent any malicious perversion of the fun which might put her in a false position.]
To Mrs. Romanes.
Hodeslea, September 20, 1894.
I do not think I can possibly have any objection to your using my letter if you think it worth while—but perhaps you had better let me look at it, for I remember nothing about it—and my letters to people whom I trust are sometimes more plain-spoken than polite about things and men. You know at first there was some talk of my possibly supplying Gladstone's place in case of his failure, and I would not be sure of my politeness in that quarter!
Pray do not suppose that your former letter was other than deeply interesting and touching to me. I had more than half a mind to reply to it, but hesitated with a man's horror of touching a wound he cannot heal.
And then I got a bad bout of "liver," from which I am just picking up.
Hodeslea, September 22, 1894.
It's rather a rollicking epistle, I must say, but as my wife (who sends her love) says she thinks she is the only person who has a right to complain (and she does not), I do not know why it should not be published.
P.S.—I fancy very few people will catch the allusion about not contradicting me. But perhaps it would be better to take the opinion of some impartial judge on that point.
I do not care the least on my own account, but I see my words might be twisted into meaning that you had told me something about your previous guest, and that I referred to what you had said.
Of course you had done nothing of the kind, but as a wary old fox, experienced sufferer from the dodges of the misrepresenter, I feel bound not to let you get into any trouble if I can help it.
A regular lady's P.S. this.
P.S.—Letter returned herewith.
To Mr. Leslie Stephen.
Hodeslea, October 16, 1894.
My dear Stephen,
I am very glad you like to have my omnium gatherum, and think the better of it for gaining me such a pleasant letter of acknowledgment.
It is a great loss to me to be cut off from all my old friends, but sticking closely to my hermitage, with fresh air and immense quantities of rest, have become the conditions of existence for me, and one must put up with them.
I have not paid all the debt incurred in my Oxford escapade yet—the last "little bill" being a sharp attack of lumbago, out of which I hope I have now emerged. But my deafness alone should bar me from decent society. I have not the moral courage to avoid making shots at what people say, so as not to bore them; and the results are sometimes disastrous.
I don't see there is any real difference between us. You are charitable enough to overlook the general immorality of the cosmos on the score of its having begotten morality in one small part of its domain.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
To Mr. G— S—. [See above.]
Hodeslea, October 31, 1894.
Dear Mr. S—,
"Liver," "lumbago," and other small ills the flesh is heir to, have been making me very lazy lately, especially about letter-writing.
You have got into the depths where the comprehensible ends in the incomprehensible—where the symbols which may be used with confidence so far begin to get shaky.
It does not seem to me absolutely necessary that matter should be composed of solid particles. The "atoms" may be persistent whirlpools of a continuous "substance"—which substance, if at rest, could not affect us (all sensory impression being dependent on motion) and subsequently would FOR US = 0. The evolution of matter would be the getting under weigh of this "nothing for us" until it became the "something for us," the different motions of which give us the mental states we call the qualities of things.
But it needs a very steady head to walk safely among these abysses of thought, and the only use of letting the mind range among them is as a corrective to the hasty dogmatism of the so-called materialists, who talk just as glibly of that of which they know nothing as the most bigoted of the orthodox.
[Here also stand two letters to Lord Farrer, one before, the other after, his address at the Statistical Society on the Relations between Morals, Economics and Statistics, which touch on several philosophical and social questions, always, to his mind, intimately connected, and wherein wrong modes of thought indubitably lead to wrong modes of action. Noteworthy is a defence of the fundamental method of Political Economy, however much its limitations might be forgotten by some of its exponents. The reference to the Church agitation to introduce dogmatic teaching into the elementary schools has also a lasting interest.]
Hodeslea, November 6, 1894.
My dear Farrer,
Whenever you get over the optimism of your youthful constitution (I wish I were endowed with that blessing) you will see that the Gospels and I are right about the Devil being "Prince" (note the distinction—not "king") of the Cosmos.
The a priori road to scientific, political, and all other doctrine is H.R.H. Satan's invention—it is the intellectual, broad, and easy path which leadeth to Jehannum.
The king's road is the strait path of painful observation and experiment, and few they be that enter thereon.
R.G. Latham, queerest of men, had singular flashes of insight now and then. Forty years ago he gravely told me that the existence of the Established Church was to his mind one of the best evidences of the recency of the evolution of the human type from the simian.
How much there is to confirm this view in present public opinion and the intellectual character of those who influence it!
It explains all your difficulties at once, and I regret that I do not seem to have mentioned it at any of those mid-day symposia which were so pleasant when you and I were younger.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—Apropos of Athelstan Riley and his friends—I fool rather obliged to them. I assented to the compromise (1) because I felt that English opinion would not let us have the education of the masses at any cheaper price; (2) because, with the Bible in lay hands, I was satisfied that the teaching from it would gradually become modified into harmony with common sense.
I do not doubt that this is exactly what has happened, and is the ground of the alarm of the orthodox.
But I do not repent of the compromise in the least. Twenty years of reasonably good primary education is "worth a mass."
Moreover the Diggleites stand to lose anyhow, and they will lose most completely and finally if they win at the elections this month. So I am rather inclined to hope they may.
Hodeslea, Staveley Road, Eastbourne, November 3, 1894.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
They say that the first thing an Englishman does when he is hard up for money is to abstain from buying books. The first thing I do when I am liver-y, lumbagy, and generally short of energy, is to abstain from answering letters. And I am only just emerging from a good many weeks of that sort of flabbiness and poverty.
Many thanks for your notice of Kidd's book. Some vile punsters called it an attempt to put a Kid glove on the iron hand of Nature. I thought it (I mean the book, not the pun) clever from a literary point of view, and worthless from any other. You will see that I have been giving Lord Salisbury a Roland for his Oliver in "Nature". But, as hinted, if we only had been in Section D!
With my wife's and my kind regards and remembrances.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, December 19, 1894.
My dear Farrer,
I am indebted to you for giving the recording angel less trouble than he might otherwise have had, on account of the worse than usual unpunctuality of the London and Brighton this morning. For I have utilised the extra time in reading and thinking over your very interesting address.
Thanks for your protest against the mischievous a priori method, which people will not understand is as gross an anachronism in social matters as it would be in Hydrostatics. The so-called "Sociology" is honeycombed with it, and it is hard to say who are worse, the individualists or the collectivists. But in your just wrath don't forget that there is such a thing as a science of social life, for which, if the term had not been so hopelessly degraded, Politics is the proper name.
Men are beings of a certain constitution, who, under certain conditions, will as surely tend to act in certain ways as stones will tend to fall if you leave them unsupported. The laws of their nature are as invariable as the laws of gravitation, only the applications to particular cases offer worse problems than the case of the three bodies.
The Political Economists have gone the right way to work—the way that the physical philosopher follows in all complex affairs—by tracing out the effects of one great cause of human action, the desire of wealth, supposing it to be unchecked.
If they, or other people, have forgotten that there are other potent causes of action which may interfere with this, it is no fault of scientific method but only their own stupidity.
Hydrostatics is not a "dismal science," because water does not always seek the lowest level—e.g. from a bottle turned upside down, if there is a cork in the neck!
There is much need that somebody should do for what is vaguely called "Ethics" just what the Political Economists have done. Settle the question of what will be done under the unchecked action of certain motives, and leave the problem of "ought" for subsequent consideration.
For, whatever they ought to do, it is quite certain the majority of men will act as if the attainment of certain positive and negative pleasures were the end of action.
We want a science of "Eubiotics" to tell us exactly what will happen if human beings are exclusively actuated by the desire of well-being in the ordinary sense. Of course the utilitarians have laid the foundations of such a science, with the result that the nicknamer of genius called this branch of science "pig philosophy," making just the same blunder as when he called political economy "dismal science."
"Moderate well-being" may be no more the worthiest end of life than wealth. But if it is the best to be had in this queer world—it may be worth trying for.
But you will begin to wish the train had been PUNCTUAL!
Draw comfort from the fact that if error is always with us, it is, at any rate, remediable. I am more hopeful than when I was young. Perhaps life (like matrimony, as some say) should begin with a little aversion!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Some years before this, a fund for a "Darwin Medal" had been established in memory of the great naturalist, the medal to be awarded biennially for researches in biology. With singular appropriateness, the first award was made to Dr. A.R. Wallace, the joint propounder of the theory of Natural Selection, whose paper, entrusted to Darwin's literary sponsorship, caused the speedy publication of Darwin's own long-continued researches and speculations. The second, with equal appropriateness, was to Sir J.D. Hooker, both as a leader in science and a helper and adviser of Darwin.
Huxley's own view of such scientific honours as medals and diplomas was that they should be employed to stimulate for the future rather than to reward for the past; and delighted as he was at the poetic justice of these two awards, this justice once satisfied, he let his opinion be known that thenceforward the Darwin Medal ought to be given only to younger men. But when this year he found the Darwin Medal awarded to himself "for his researches in biology and his long association with Charles Darwin," he could not but be touched and gratified by this mark of appreciation from his fellow-workers in science, this association in one more scientific record with old allies and true friends—to "have his niche in the Pantheon" next to Hooker and near to Darwin.
It was a rare instance of the fitness of things that the three men who had done most to develop and to defend Darwin's ideas should live to stand first in the list of the Darwin medalists; and Huxley felt this to be a natural closing of a chapter in his life, a fitting occasion on which to bid farewell to public life in the world of science. Almost at the same moment another chapter in science reached its completion in the "coming of age" of "Nature", a journal which, when scientific interests at large had grown stronger, had succeeded in realising his own earlier efforts to found a scientific organ, and with which he had always been closely associated.
As mentioned above, he wrote for the November number an introductory article called "Past and Present," comparing the state of scientific thought of the day with that of twenty-five years before, when the journal was first started. To celebrate the occasion, a dinner was to be held this same month of all who had been associated with "Nature", and this Huxley meant to attend, as well as the more important anniversary dinner of the Royal Society on St. Andrew's Day.]
I have promised [he writes on November 6 to Sir M. Foster] to go to the
"Nature" dinner if I possibly can. Indeed I should be sorry to be away.
As to the Royal Society nothing short of being confined to bed will
stop me. And I shall be good for a few words after dinner.
Thereafter I hope not to appear again on any stage.
[His letter about the medal expresses his feelings as to the award.]
Hodeslea, November 2, 1894.
My dear Foster,
Didn't I tell the P.R.S., Secretaries, Treasurer, and all the Fellows thereof, when I spoke about Hooker years ago, that thenceforth the Darwin Medal was to be given to the young, and not to useless old extinct volcanoes? I ought to be very angry with you all for coolly ignoring my wise counsels.
But whether it is vanity or something a good deal better, I am not. One gets chill old age, and it is very pleasant to be warmed up unexpectedly even against one's injunctions. Moreover, my wife is very pleased, not to say jubilant; and if I were made Archbishop of Canterbury I should not be able to convince her that my services to Theology were hardly of the sort to be rewarded in that fashion.
I need not say what I think about your action in the matter, my faithful old friend. With our love to you both.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I suppose you are all right again, as you write from the R.S. Liver permitting I shall attend meeting and dinner. It is very odd that the Medal should come along with my pronouncement in "Nature", which I hope you like. I cut out rather a stinging paragraph at the end.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 11, 1894.
My dear Donnelly,
Why on earth did I not answer your letter before? Echo (being Irish) says, "Because of your infernal bad habit of putting off; which is growing upon you, you wretched old man."
Of course I shall be very glad if anything can be done for S—. Howes has written to me about him since your letter arrived—and I am positively going to answer his epistle. It's Sunday morning, and I feel good.
You will have seen that the R.S. has been giving me the Darwin Medal, though I gave as broad a hint as was proper the last time I spoke at the Anniversary, that it ought to go to the young men. Nevertheless, with ordinary inconsistency of the so-called "rational animal," I am well pleased.
I hope you will be at the dinner, and would ask you to be my guest—but as I thought my boys and boys-in-law would like to be there, I have already exceeded my lawful powers of invitation, and had to get a dispensation from Michael Foster.
I suppose I shall be like a horse that "stands at livery" for some time after—but it is positively my last appearance on any stage.
We were very glad to hear from Lady Donnelly that you had had a good and effectual holiday. With our love.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I return Howes' letter in case you want it. I see I need not write to him again after all. Three cheers!
Please give Lady Donnelly this. A number of estimable members of her sex have flown at me for writing what I thought was a highly complimentary letter. But SHE will be just, I know.
"The best of women are apt to be a little weak in the great practical arts of give-and-take, and putting up with a beating, and a little too strong in their belief in the efficacy of government. Men learn about these things in the ordinary course of their business; women have no chance in home life, and the boards and councils will be capital schools for them. Again, in the public interest it will be well; women are more naturally economical than men, and have none of our false shame about looking after pence. Moreover, they don't job for any but their lovers, husbands, and children, so that we know the worst."
[The speech at the Royal Society Anniversary dinner—which he evidently enjoyed making—was a fine piece of speaking, and quite carried away the audience, whether in the gentle depreciation of his services to science, or in his profession of faith in the methods of science and the final triumph of the doctrine of evolution, whatever theories of its operation might be adopted or discarded in the course of further investigation.
I quote from the "Times" report of the speech:—]
But the most difficult task that remains is that which concerns myself. It is 43 years ago this day since the Royal Society did me the honour to award me a Royal medal, and thereby determined my career. But, having long retired into the position of a veteran, I confess that I was extremely astonished—I honestly also say that I was extremely pleased to receive the announcement that you had been good enough to award to me the Darwin Medal. But you know the Royal Society, like all things in this world, is subject to criticism. I confess that with the ingrained instincts of an old official that which arose in my mind after the reception of the information that I had been thus distinguished was to start an inquiry which I suppose suggests itself to every old official—How can my Government be justified? In reflecting upon what had been my own share in what are now very largely ancient transactions, it was perfectly obvious to me that I had no such claims as those of Mr. Wallace. It was perfectly clear to me that I had no such claims as those of my lifelong friend Sir Joseph Hooker, who for 25 years placed all his great sources of knowledge, his sagacity, his industry, at the disposition of his friend Darwin. And really, I begin to despair of what possible answer could be given to the critics whom the Royal Society, meeting as it does on November 30, has lately been very apt to hear about on December 1. Naturally there occurred to my mind that famous and comfortable line, which I suppose has helped so many people under like circumstances, "They also serve who only stand and wait." I am bound to confess that the standing and waiting, so far as I am concerned, to which I refer, has been of a somewhat peculiar character. I can only explain it, if you will permit me to narrate a story which came to me in my old nautical days, and which, I believe, has just as much foundation as a good deal of other information which I derived at the same period from the same source. There was a merchant ship in which a member of the Society of Friends had taken passage, and that ship was attacked by a pirate, and the captain thereupon put into the hands of the member of the Society of Friends a pike, and desired him to take part in the subsequent action, to which, as you may imagine, the reply was that he would do nothing of the kind; but he said that he had no objection to stand and wait at the gangway. He did stand and wait with the pike in his hands, and when the pirates mounted and showed themselves coming on board he thrust his pike with the sharp end forward into the persons who were mounting, and he said, "Friend, keep on board thine own ship." It is in that sense that I venture to interpret the principle of standing and waiting to which I have referred. I was convinced as firmly as I have ever been convinced of anything in my life, that the "Origin of Species" was a ship laden with a cargo of rich value, and which, if she were permitted to pursue her course, would reach a veritable scientific Golconda, and I thought it my duty, however naturally averse I might be to fighting, to bid those who would disturb her beneficent operations to keep on board their own ship. If it has pleased the Royal Society to recognise such poor services as I may have rendered in that capacity, I am very glad, because I am as much convinced now as I was 34 years ago that the theory propounded by Mr. Darwin—I mean that which he propounded, not that which has been reported to be his by too many ill-instructed, both friends and foes—has never yet been shown to be inconsistent with any positive observations, and if I may use a phrase which I know has been objected to, and which I use in a totally different sense from that in which it was first proposed by its first propounder, I do believe that on all grounds of pure science it "holds the field," as the only hypothesis at present before us which has a sound scientific foundation. It is quite possible that you will apply to me the remark that has often been applied to persons in such a position as mine, that we are apt to exaggerate the importance of that to which our lives have been more or less devoted. But I am sincerely of opinion that the views which were propounded by Mr. Darwin 34 years ago may be understood hereafter as constituting an epoch in the intellectual history of the human race. They will modify the whole system of our thought and opinion, our most intimate convictions. But I do not know, I do not think anybody knows, whether the particular views which he held will be hereafter fortified by the experience of the ages which come after us; but of this thing I am perfectly certain, that the present course of things has resulted from the feeling of the smaller men who have followed him that they are incompetent to bend the bow of Ulysses, and in consequence many of them are seeking their salvation in mere speculation. Those who wish to attain to some clear and definite solution of the great problems which Mr. Darwin was the first person to set before us in later times must base themselves upon the facts which are stated in his great work, and, still more, must pursue their inquiries by the methods of which he was so brilliant an exemplar throughout the whole of his life. You must have his sagacity, his untiring search after the knowledge of fact, his readiness always to give up a preconceived opinion to that which was demonstrably true, before you can hope to carry his doctrines to their ultimate issue; and whether the particular form in which he has put them before us may be such as is finally destined to survive or not is more, I venture to think, than anybody is capable at this present moment of saying. But this one thing is perfectly certain—that it is only by pursuing his methods, by that wonderful single-mindedness, devotion to truth, readiness to sacrifice all things for the advance of definite knowledge, that we can hope to come any nearer than we are at present to the truths which he struggled to attain.
To Sir J.D. Hooker.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 4, 1894.
My dear old Man,
See the respect I have for your six years' seniority! I wished you had been at the dinner, but was glad you were not. Especially as next morning there was a beastly fog, out of which I bolted home as fast as possible.
I shall have to give up these escapades. They knock me up for a week afterwards. And really it is a pity, just as I have got over my horror of public speaking, and find it very amusing. But I suppose I should gravitate into a bore as old fellows do, and so it is as well I am kept out of temptation.
I will try to remember what I said at the "Nature" dinner. I scolded the young fellows pretty sharply for their slovenly writing. [A brief report of this speech is to be found in the "British Medical Journal" for December 8, 1894, page 1262.]
There will be a tenth volume of Essays some day, and an Index rerum. Do you remember how you scolded me for being too speculative in my maiden lecture on Animal Individuality forty odd years ago? "On revient toujours," or, to put it another way, "The dog returns to his etc. etc."
So I am deep in philosophy, grovelling through Diogenes Laertius—Plutarch's "Placita" and sich—and often wondering whether the schoolmasters have any better ground for maintaining that Greek is a finer language than English than the fact that they can't write the latter dialect.
So far as I can see, my faculties are as good (including memory for anything that is not useful) as they were fifty years ago, but I can't work long hours, or live out of fresh air. Three days of London bowls me over.
I expect you are in much the same case. But you seem to be able to stoop over specimens in a way impossible to me. It is that incapacity has made me give up dissection and microscopic work. I do a lot on my back, and I can tell you that the latter posture is an immense economy of strength. Indeed, when my heart was troublesome, I used to spend my time either in active outdoor exercise or horizontally.
The Stracheys were here the other day, and it was a great pleasure to us to see them. I think he has had a very close shave with that accident. There is nobody whom I should more delight to honour—a right good man all round—but I am not competent to judge of his work. You are, and I do not see why you should not suggest it. I would give him a medal for being R. Strachey, but probably the Council would make difficulties.
By the way, do you see the "Times" has practically climbed down about the Royal Society—came down backwards like a bear, growling all the time? I don't think we shall have any more first of December criticisms.
Lord help you through all this screed. With our love to you both.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Abram, Abraham became
By will divine;
Let pickled Brian's name
Be changed to Brine!
"Poetae Minores".
Poor Brian.—Brutal jest!
[(Sir Joseph's son, Brian, had fallen into a pan of brine.)
The following was written to a friend who had alluded to his painful recollection of a former occasion when he was Huxley's guest at the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society, and was hastily summoned from it to find his wife dying.]
I fully understand your feeling about the R.S. Dinner. I have not forgotten the occasion when you were my guest: still less my brief sight of you when I called the next day.
These things are the "lachrymae rerum"—the abysmal griefs hidden under the current of daily life, and seemingly forgotten, till now and then they come up to the surface—a flash of agony—like the fish that jumps in a calm pool.
One has one's groan and goes to work again.
If I knew of anything else for it, I would tell you; but all my experience ends in the questionable thanksgiving, "It's lucky it's no worse."
With which bit of practical philosophy, and our love, believe me, ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[Before speaking of his last piece of work, in the vain endeavour to complete which he exposed himself to his old enemy, influenza, I shall give several letters of miscellaneous interest.
The first is in reply to Lord Farrer's inquiry as to where he could obtain a fuller account of the subject tersely discussed in the chapter he had contributed to the "Life of Owen". ("Which," wrote Lord Farrer, "is just what I wanted as an outline of the Biological and Morphological discussion of the last 100 years. But it is 'Pemmican' to an aged and enfeebled digestion. Is there such a thing as a diluted solution of it in the shape of any readable book?")]
Hodeslea, January 26, 1895.
My dear Farrer,
Miserable me! Having addressed myself to clear off a heap of letters that have been accumulating, I find I have not answered an inquiry of yours of nearly a month's standing. I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you of any book (readable or otherwise) that will convert my "pemmican" into decent broth for you.
There are histories of zoology and of philosophical anatomy, but they all of them seem to me to miss the point (which you have picked out of the pemmican). Indeed, that is just why I took such a lot of pains over these 50 or 60 pages. And I am immensely tickled by the fact that among all the critical notices I have seen, not a soul sees what I have been driving at as you have done. I really wish you would write a notice of it, just to show these Gigadibses (vide Right Reverend Blougram) what blind buzzards they are! [See Browning's "Bishop Blougram's Apology":—"Gigadibs the literary man" with his Abstract intellectual plan of life Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws.]
Enter a maid. "Please sir, Mrs. Huxley says she would be glad if you would go out in the sun." "All right, Allen." Anecdote for your next essay on Government!
The fact is, I have been knocked up ever since Tuesday, when our University Deputation came off; and my good wife (who is laid up herself) suspects me (not without reason) of failing to take advantage of a gleam of sunshine.
By the way, can you help us over the University business? Lord Rosebery is favourable, and there is absolutely nobody on the other side except sundry Philistines, who, having got their degrees, are desirous of inflating their market value.
Yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
[The next is in answer to an appeal for a subscription, from the Church
Army.]
January 26, 1895.
I regret that I am unable to contribute to the funds of the Church Army.
I hold it to be my duty to do what I can for the cases of distress of which I have direct knowledge; and I am glad to be able now and then to give timely aid to the industrious and worthy people with whom, as a householder, I am brought into personal relation; and who are so often engaged in a noiseless and unpitied but earnest struggle to do well.
In my judgment, a domestic servant, who is perhaps giving half her wages to support her old parents, is more worthy of help than half-a-dozen Magdalens.
Under these circumstances, you will understand that such funds as are at my disposal are already fully engaged.
[The following is to a gentleman—an American, I think—who sent him a long manuscript, an extraordinary farrago of nonsense, to read and criticise, and help to publish. But as he seemed to have acted in sheer simplicity, he got an answer:—]
Hodeslea, January 31, 1895.
Dear Sir,
I should have been glad if you had taken the ordinary, and, I think, convenient course of writing for my permission before you sent the essay which has reached me, and which I return by this post. I should then have had the opportunity of telling you that I do not undertake to read, or take any charge of such matters, and we should both have been spared some trouble.
I the more regret this, since being unwilling to return your work without examination, I have looked at it, and feel bound to give you the following piece of advice, which I fear may be distasteful, as good counsel generally is.
Lock up your essay. For two years—if possible, three—read no popular expositions of science, but devote yourself to a course of sound PRACTICAL instruction in elementary physics, chemistry, and biology.
Then re-read your essay; do with it as you think best; and, if possible, regard a little more kindly than you are likely to do at present, yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following passage from a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker refers to a striking discovery made by Dubois:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 14, 1895.
The Dutchmen seem to have turned up something like the "missing link" in Java, according to a paper I have just received from Marsh. I expect he was a Socratic party, with his hair rather low down on his forehead and warty cheeks.
Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois (fossil)
rather Aino-ish about the body, small in the calf, and cheese-cutting in the shins. Le voici!
CHAPTER 3.14.
1895.
Two months of almost continuous frost, during which the thermometer fell below zero, marked the winter of 1894-95. Tough, if not strong, as Huxley's constitution was, this exceptional cold, so lowering to the vitality of age, accentuated the severity of the illness which followed in the train of influenza, and at last undermined even his powers of resistance.
But until the influenza seized him, he was more than usually vigorous and brilliant. He was fatigued, but not more so than he expected, by attending a deputation to the Prime Minister in the depth of January, and delivering a speech on the London University question; and in February he was induced to write a reply to the attack upon agnosticism contained in Mr. Arthur Balfour's "Foundations of Belief". Into this he threw himself with great energy, all the more because the notices in the daily press were likely to give the reading public a wrong impression as to its polemic against his own position. Mr. Wilfrid Ward gives an account of a conversation with him on this subject:—
Some one had sent me Mr. A.J. Balfour's book on the "Foundations of Belief" early in February 1895. We were very full of it, and it was the theme of discussion on the 17th of February, when two friends were lunching with us. Not long after luncheon, Huxley came in, and seemed in extraordinary spirits, he began talking of Erasmus and Luther, expressing a great preference for Erasmus, who would, he said, have impregnated the Church with culture, and brought it abreast of the thought of the times, while Luther concentrated attention on individual mystical doctrines. "It was very trying for Erasmus to be identified with Luther, from whom he differed absolutely. A man ought to be ready to endure persecution for what he does hold; but it is hard to be persecuted for what you don't hold." I said that I thought his estimate of Erasmus's attitude towards the Papacy coincided with Professor R.C. Jebb's. He asked if I could lend him Jebb's Rede Lecture on the subject. I said that I had not got it at hand, but I added, "I can lend you another book, which I think you ought to read—Balfour's 'Foundations of Belief'."
He at once became extremely animated, and spoke of it as those who have read his criticisms, published in the following month, would expect.] "You need not lend me that. I have exercised my mind with it a good deal already. Mr. Balfour ought to have acquainted himself with the opinions of those he attacks. One has no objection to being abused for what one DOES hold, as I said of Erasmus; at least, one is prepared to put up with it. An attack on us by some one who understood our position would do all of us good—myself included. But Mr. Balfour has acted like the French in 1870: he has gone to war without any ordnance maps, and without having surveyed the scene of the campaign. No human being holds the opinions he speaks of as 'Naturalism.' He is a good debater. He knows the value of a word. The word 'Naturalism' has a bad sound and unpleasant associations. It would tell against us in the House of Commons, and so it will with his readers. 'Naturalism' contrasts with 'supernaturalism.' He has not only attacked us for what we don't hold, but he has been good enough to draw out a catechism for 'us wicked people,' to teach us what we MUST hold."
[It was rather difficult to get him to particulars, but we did so by degrees. He said], "Balfour uses the word phenomena as applying simply to the outer world and not to the inner world. The only people his attack would hold good of would be the Comtists, who deny that psychology is a science. They may be left out of account. They advocate the crudest eighteenth-century materialism. All the empiricists, from Locke onwards, make the observation of the phenomena of the mind itself quite separate from the study of mere sensation. No man in his senses supposes that the sense of beauty, or the religious feelings [this with a courteous bow to a priest who was present], or the sense of moral obligation, are to be accounted for in terms of sensation, or come to us through sensation." [I said that, as I understood it, I did not think Mr. Balfour supposed they would acknowledge the position he ascribed to them, and that one of his complaints was that they did not work out their premises to their logical conclusions. I added that so far as one of Mr. Balfour's chief points was concerned—the existence of the external world—Mill was almost the only man on their side in this century who had faced the problem frankly, and he had been driven to say that all men can know is that there are "permanent possibilities of sensation." He did not seem inclined to pursue the question of an external world, but said that though Mill's "Logic" was very good, empiricists were not bound by all his theories.
He characterised the book as a very good and even brilliant piece of work from a literary point of view; but as a helpful contribution to the great controversy, the most disappointing he had ever read. I said, "There has been no adverse criticism of it yet." He answered with emphasis], "No! BUT THERE SOON WILL BE." ["From you?" I asked.] "I let out no secrets," [was the reply.
He then talked with great admiration and affection of Mr. Balfour's brother, Francis. His early death, and W.K. Clifford's (Huxley said), had been the greatest loss to science—not only in England, but in the world—in our time.] "Half a dozen of us old fogies could have been better spared." [He remembered Frank Balfour as a boy at [Harrow] and saw his unusual talent there.] "Then my friend, Michael Foster, took him up at Cambridge, and found out that he had real genius for biology. I used to say there was science in the blood, but this new book of his brother's," [he added, smiling], "shows I was wrong."
Apropos to his remark about the Comtists, one of the company pointed out that in later life Comte recognised a science of "the individual," equivalent to what Huxley meant by psychology.] "That," [he replied], "was due to the influence of Clotilde de Vaux. You see," [he added, with a kind of Sir Charles Grandison bow to my wife], "what power your sex may have." [As Huxley was going out of the house, I said to him that Father A.B. (the priest who had been present) had not expected to find himself in his company.] "No! I trust he had plenty of holy water with him," [was the reply.
…After he had gone, we were all agreed as to the extraordinary vigour and brilliancy he had shown. Some one said, "He is like a man who is what the Scotch call 'fey.'" We laughed at the idea, but we naturally recalled the remark later on.
The story of how the article was written is told in the following letters. It was suggested by Mr. Knowles, and undertaken after perusal of the review of the book in the "Times". Huxley intended to have the article ready for the March number of the "Nineteenth Century", but it grew longer than he had meant it to be, and partly for this reason, partly for fear lest the influenza, then raging at Eastbourne, might prevent him from revising the whole thing at once, he divided it into two instalments. He writes to one daughter on March 1:—]
I suppose my time will come; so I am "making hay while the sun shines" (in point of fact it is raining and blowing a gale outside) and finishing my counterblast to Balfour before it does come.
Love to all you poor past snivellers from an expectant sniveller.
[And to another:—]
I think the cavalry charge in this month's "Nineteenth" will amuse you. The heavy artillery and the bayonets will be brought into play next month.
Dean Stanley told me he thought being made a bishop destroyed a man's moral courage. I am inclined to think that the practice of the methods of political leaders destroys their intellect for all serious purposes.
No sooner was the first part safely sent off than the contingency he had feared came to pass; only, instead of the influenza meaning incapacity for a fortnight, an unlucky chill brought on bronchitis and severe lung trouble. (As he wrote on February 28 to Sir M. Foster]: "If I could compound for a few hours' neuralgia, I would not mind; but those long weeks of debility make me very shy of the influenza demon. Here we are practically isolated…I once asked Gordon why he didn't have the African fever. 'Well,' he said, you see, fellows think they shall have it, and they do. I didn't think so, and didn't get it.' Exercise your thinking faculty to that extent.") The second part of the article was never fully revised for press.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 8, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
Your telegram came before I had looked at to-day's "Times" and the article on Balfour's book, so I answered with hesitation.
Now I am inclined to think that the job may be well worth doing, in that it will give me the opportunity of emphasising the distinction between the view I hold and Spencer's, and perhaps of proving that Balfour is an agnostic after my own heart. So please send the book.
Only if this infernal weather, which shrivels me up soul and body, lasts, I do not know how long I may be over the business. However, you tell me to take my own time.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 18, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
I send you by this post an instalment (the larger moiety) of my article, which I should be glad to have set up at once IN SLIP, and sent to me as speedily as may be. The rest shall follow in the course of the next two or three days.
I am rather pleased with the thing myself, so it is probably not so very good! But you will judge for yourself.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 19, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
We send our best congratulations to Mrs. Knowles and yourself on the birth of a grand-daughter. I forget whether you have had any previous experience of the "Art d'etre Grandpere" or not—but I can assure you, from 14 such experiences, that it is easy and pleasant of acquirement, and that the objects of it are veritable "articles de luxe," involving much amusement and no sort of responsibility on the part of the possessor.
You shall have the rest of my screed by to-morrow's post.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 20, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
Seven mortal hours have I been hard at work this day to try to keep my promise to you, and as I find that impossible, I have struck work and will see Balfour and his "Foundations", and even that ark of literature the "Nineteenth", at Ballywack, before I do any more.
But the whole affair shall be sent by a morning's post to-morrow. I have the proofs. I have found the thing getting too long for one paper, and requiring far more care than I could put into the next two days—so I propose to divide it, if you see no objection.
And there is another reason for this course. Influenza is raging here.
I hear of hundreds of cases, and if it comes my way, as it did before,
I go to bed and stop there—"the world forgetting and by the world
forgot"—until I am killed or cured. So you would not get your article.
As it stands, it is not a bad gambit. We will play the rest of the game afterwards, D.V. and K.V.
Hope mother and baby are doing well.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, February 23, 1895, 12.30 P.M.
My dear Knowles,
I have just played and won as hard a match against time as I ever knew in the days of my youth. The proofs, happily, arrived by the first post, so I got to work at them before 9, polished them off by 12, and put them into the post (myself) by 12.5. So you ought to have them by 6 P.M. And, to make your mind easy, I have just telegraphed to you to say so. But, Lord's sake! let some careful eye run over the part of which I have had no revise—for I am "capable de tout" in the way of overlooking errors.
I am very glad you like the thing. The second instalment shall be no worse.
I grieve to say that my estimation of Balfour, as a thinker, sinks lower and lower, the further I go.
God help the people who think his book an important contribution to thought! The Gigadibsians who say so are past divine assistance!
We are very glad to hear the grandchild and mother are getting on so well.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 8, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
The proofs have just arrived, but I am sorry to say that (I believe for the first time in our transactions) I shall have to disappoint you.
Just after I had sent off the manuscript influenza came down upon me with a swoop. I went to bed and am there still, with no chance of quitting it in a hurry. My wife is in the same case; item one of the maids. The house is a hospital, and by great good fortune we have a capital nurse.
Doctor says its a mild type, in which case I wonder what severe types may be like. ("But in the matter of aches and pains, restless paroxysms of coughing and general incapacity, I can give it a high character for efficiency." [To M. Foster, March 7.]) I find coughing continuously for fourteen hours or so a queer kind of mildness.
Could you put in an excuse on account of influenza?
Can't write any more.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 19, 1895.
My dear Knowles,
I am making use of the pen of my dear daughter and good nurse, in the first place to thank you for your cheque, in the second place to say that you must not look for the article this month. I haven't been out of bed since the 1st, but they are fighting a battle with bronchitis over my body.
Ever yours very faithfully,
For T.H.H., Sophy Huxley.
[The next four months were a period of painful struggle against disease, borne with a patience and gentleness which was rare even in the long experience of the trained nurses who tended him. To natural toughness of constitution he added a power of will unbroken by the long strain; and for the sake of others to whom his life meant so much, he wished to recover and willed to do everything towards recovery. And so he managed to throw off the influenza and the severe bronchitis which attended it. What was marvellous at his age, and indeed would scarcely have been expected in a young man, most serious mischief induced by the bronchitis disappeared. By May he was strong enough to walk from the terrace to the lawn and his beloved saxifrages, and to remount the steps to the house without help.
But though the original attack was successfully thrown off, the lung trouble had affected the heart; and in his weakened state, renal mischief ensued. Yet he held out splendidly, never giving in, save for one hour of utter prostration, all through this weary length of sickness. His first recovery strengthened him in expecting to get well from the second attack. And on June 10 he writes brightly enough to Sir J.D. Hooker:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 10, 1895.
My dear Old Friend,
It was cheering to get your letter and to hear that you had got through winter and diphtheria without scathe.
I can't say very much for myself yet, but I am carried down to a tent in the garden every day, and live in the fresh air all I can. The thing that keeps me back is an irritability of the stomach tending to the rejection of all solid food. However, I think I am slowly getting the better of it—thanks to my constitutional toughness and careful nursing and dieting.
What has Spencer been trampling on the "Pour le merite" for, when he accepted the Lyncei? I was just writing to congratulate him when, by good luck, I saw he had refused!
The beastly nausea which comes on when I try to do anything warns me to stop.
With our love to you both,
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The last time I saw him was on a visit to Eastbourne from June 22-24. I was astonished to find how well he looked in spite of all; thin, indeed, but browned with the endless sunshine of the 1895 summer as he sat every day in the verandah. His voice was still fairly strong; he was delighted to see us about him, and was cheerful, even merry at times. As the nurse said, she could not expect him to recover, but he did not look like a dying man. When I asked him how he was, he said, "A mere carcass, which has to be tended by other people." But to the last he looked forward to recovery. One day he told the nurse that the doctors must be wrong about the renal mischief, for if they were right, he ought already to be in a state of coma. This was precisely what they found most astonishing in his case; it seemed as if the mind, the strong nervous organisation, were triumphing over the shattered body. Herein lay one of the chief hopes of ultimate recovery.
As late as June 26 he wrote, with shaky handwriting but indomitable spirit, to relieve his old friend from the anxiety he must feel from the newspaper bulletins.]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 26, 1895.
My dear Hooker,
The pessimistic reports of my condition which have got into the papers may be giving you unnecessary alarm for the condition of your old comrade. So I send a line to tell you the exact state of affairs.
There is kidney mischief going on—and it is accompanied by very distressing attacks of nausea and vomiting, which sometimes last for hours and make life a burden.
However, strength keeps up very well considering, and of course all depends upon how the renal business goes. At present I don't feel at all like "sending in my checks," and without being over sanguine I rather incline to think that my native toughness will get the best of it—albuminuria or otherwise.
Ever your faithful friend,
T.H.H.
Misfortunes never come single. My son-in-law, Eckersley, died of yellow fever the other day at San Salvador—just as he was going to take up an appointment at Lima worth 1200 pounds a year. Rachel and her three children have but the slenderest provision.
[The next two days there was a slight improvement but on the third morning the heart began to fail. The great pain subdued by anaesthetics, he lingered on about seven hours, and at half-past three on June 29 passed away very quietly.
He was buried at Finchley, on July 4, beside his brother George and his little son Noel, under the shadow of the oak, which had grown up into a stately young tree from the little sapling it had been when the grave of his first-born was dug beneath it, five and thirty years before.
The funeral was of a private character. An old friend, the Reverend Llewelyn Davies, came from Kirkby Lonsdale to read the service; the many friends who gathered at the grave-side were there as friends mourning the death of a friend, and all touched with the same sense of personal loss.
By his special direction, three lines from a poem written by his wife, were inscribed upon his tombstone—lines inspired by his own robust conviction that, all question of the future apart, this life as it can be lived, pain, sorrow, and evil notwithstanding, is worth—and well worth-living:—
Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep;
For still He giveth His beloved sleep,
And if an endless sleep He wills, so best.]
CHAPTER 3.15.
He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his life than that?
[Such was Huxley's epitaph upon Henslow; it was the standard which he endeavoured to reach in his own life. It is the expression of that passion for veracity which was perhaps his strongest characteristic; an uncompromising passion for truth in thought, which would admit no particle of self-deception, no assertion beyond what could be verified; for truth in act, perfect straightforwardness and sincerity, with complete disregard of personal consequences for uttering unpalatable fact.
Truthfulness, in his eyes, was the cardinal virtue, without which no stable society can exist. Conviction, sincerity, he always respected, whether on his own side or against him. Clever men, he would say, are as common as blackberries; the rare thing is to find a good one. The lie from interested motives was only more hateful to him than the lie from self-delusion or foggy thinking. With this he classed the "sin of faith," as he called it; that form of credence which does not fulfil the duty of making a right use of reason; which prostitutes reason by giving assent to propositions which are neither self-evident nor adequately proved.
This principle has always been far from finding universal acceptance. One of his theological opponents went so far as to affirm that a doctrine may be not only held, but dogmatically insisted on, by a teacher who is, all the time, fully aware that science may ultimately prove it to be quite untenable.
His own course went to the opposite extreme. In teaching, where it was possible to let the facts speak for themselves, he did not further urge their bearing upon wider problems. He preferred to warn beginners against drawing superficial inferences in favour of his own general theories, from facts the real meaning of which was not immediately apparent. Father Hahn (S.J.), who studied under him in 1876, writes:—
One day when I was talking to him, our conversation turned upon evolution. "There is one thing about you I cannot understand," I said, "and I should like a word in explanation. For several months now I have been attending your course, and I have never heard you mention evolution, while in your public lectures everywhere you openly proclaim yourself an evolutionist." ("Revue des Questions Scientifiques" (Brussels), for October 1895.)
Now it would be impossible to imagine a better opportunity for insisting on evolution than his lectures on comparative anatomy, when animals are set side by side in respect of the gradual development of functions. But Huxley was so reserved on this subject in his lectures that, speaking one day of a species forming a transition between two others, he immediately added:—]