VII
CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN"
The piercing clearness of mind described by Prof. Sidgwick, which could not express itself otherwise than trenchantly and drove straight at the heart of the subject, gave Huxley the popular reputation of being above all things a controversialist. Naturally enough, the public knew little and cared less for the unspectacular researches among the Invertebrates, which had won such high scientific fame. They were only stirred when the results of study in geology, in fossil forms and simian anatomy, clashed with long-established popular conceptions. There was also a gladiatorial delight in watching controversy not simply abstract, but fanned by personal conviction, which marked the champions above all as good fighters.
It must be noted, however, that, vigorous as he was in carrying war into the enemy's country, on two occasions only did Huxley set forth without being first personally attacked. One was his review of the Vestiges of Creation, when he was irritated by the writer's "prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind."
If it had any influence on me at all [he writes], it set me against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I wrote on the Vestiges while under that influence (1854).
The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Réville and his applications of scientific methods to the problem.
Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to superior knowledge of the spiritual world.
It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry, and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on opinions worthy of all respect.
For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to push his researches into the history and origin of the world and its life, he invariably ran up against a sign-board with the notice, "No Thoroughfare—By Order—Moses." Geology and Biology were shut in by a ring-fence; the universe beyond was a Forbidden Land, guarded by the Lamas of ecclesiastical authority.
The first great clash with this authority, which focussed attention upon the scientific struggle for freedom of thought, was that which followed the publication of the Origin of Species at the end of 1859, and culminated in the debate with the Bishop of Oxford at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860. A fierce but more limited struggle for freedom of criticism within the pale of the Church was to follow the publication of Essays and Reviews (1860) and Bishop Colenso's examination of the Pentateuch in 1862 and onwards.
The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on thought at large. Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the book to the public. The reviewer of the Times, knowing nothing about the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the opening paragraphs himself. But it was his retort to the Bishop of Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the challenge of authority was to be taken up. The story is well known; how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to "smash Darwin." Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical degree. He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day, but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop's Quarterly article that was published a few days later.
After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and "spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and unfairness," wrote Hooker.
He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart…. In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey.
Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and that ridicule is a two-edged weapon. As he spoke these words Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and whispered: "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands."
The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did not rise until the meeting called for him. Then he "slowly and deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet and very grave." He began with a general statement in defence of Darwin's theory. "I am here only in the interests of science, and I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august client." Darwin's theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural History, as the undulatory theory was of the phenomena of light. No one objected to the latter because an undulation of light had never been arrested and measured. Darwin offered an explanation of facts, and his book was full of new facts, all bearing on his theory. Without asserting that every part of that theory had been confirmed, he maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species which had yet been offered. As to the psychological distinction between men and animals, and the question of the Creation: "You say that development drives out the Creator; but you assert that God made you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case." Nobody could say at what moment of the history of his development man became consciously intelligent. The whole question was not so much one of a transmutation or transition of species as of the production of forms which became permanent. The Ancon sheep was not produced gradually; it originated in the birth of the original parent of the whole stock, which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection.
But if the question were to be treated, not as a matter for the calm investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if he were asked whether he would choose to be descended from the poor animal of low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as we pass, or from a man endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who should use these gifts to discredit and crush humble seekers after truth, he must hesitate what answer to make.
The actual words were not taken down at the time; they were finely eloquent, and gained effect from the clear, deliberate utterance; but the nearest approach to them was recorded in a letter of J.R. Green, the future historian, written immediately after the meeting:—
I asserted—and I repeat—that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who, not content with (an equivocal[1]) success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
[Footnote 1: Referring to this letter afterwards, my father felt certain that he had never used the word "equivocal." In this he was borne out by Prof. Victor Carus and Prof. Farrar, who were present.]
The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been coldly received—no more than a cheer of encouragement from his immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out. As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side. The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was, he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his own.