XVI
HOOKER, FORBES, TYNDALL, AND SPENCER
Of his nearer contemporaries the two most intimate and faithful of his life-long friendships were with Tyndall and Hooker, concerning the utter frankness of which he writes to the latter:—
I wish you wouldn't be apologetic about criticism from people who have a right to criticize. I always look upon any criticism as a compliment, not but what the old Adam in T.H.H. will arise and fight vigorously against all impugnment and irrespective of all odds in the way of authority, but that is the way of the beast. Why I value your and Tyndall's and Darwin's friendship so much is, among other things, that you all pitch into me when necessary. You may depend upon it, however blue I may look when in the wrong, it's wrath with myself and nobody else.
The common note in these friendships was not only community of aims, but an essential generosity and sincerity. This it was that had drawn him so strongly to Edward Forbes among the leaders of biology when he returned, an unknown but promising pioneer of science, from the voyage of the Rattlesnake. For Forbes inspired his admiration and affection as a man of letters and an artist who had not merged the man in the man of science; free from pedantry or jealousy—the two besetting faults of literary and scientific men; earnest, disinterested, ready to give his time and influence to help any man who was working for the cause; one of the few to whom a proud man could feel obliged without losing a particle of independence or self-respect.
My notions [he writes] are diametrically opposed to his in some matters, and he helps me to oppose him…. I had a long paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such a man and yet respect myself.
Without his aid and sympathy the young man would never have persevered in the course he ventured to choose, and in following which it was one of his greatest hopes that they should work in harmony for long years at the aims so dear to both.
"One could trust him so thoroughly!" There lay the root of friendship. And the trust was thoroughly reciprocated. The entire frankness between friends is brightly illustrated by the history of the award of the Royal Medal in 1854. As a member of the Royal Society Council, Huxley had to vote on the names proposed for the various medals. For the Royal Medal first Hooker was named, and received his hearty support; then Forbes was put up, in his eyes equally deserving, and almost more closely bound to him by ties of active friendship, so that, whichever way he ultimately voted, his action might possibly be ascribed to personal, not scientific, motives. Thereupon he explained to the Council that he considered their claims equal; that, whichever chanced to have been put forward first, he would never have proposed the other in opposition to him. As he had spoken of Hooker's merits, so also he spoke of Forbes's, positively, and not by way of comparison; and this done, voted for both!
Hooker was actually elected. Huxley then wrote to both his friends, explaining fully what he had done. Had he felt that one of the two had strongly superior claims, and thought it right to vote for him only, the other, he was sure, would have fully appreciated his motives, and it would have done no injury to their friendship.
He was not mistaken. Among his most precious possessions he kept
Forbes's reply:—
I heartily concur in the course you have taken, and, had I been placed as you have been, would have done exactly the same…. Your way of proceeding was as true an act of friendship as any that could be performed. As to myself, I dream so little about medals that the notion of being on the list never entered my brain, even when asleep. If it ever comes, I shall be pleased and thankful; if it does not, it is not the sort of thing to break my equanimity. Indeed, I would always like to see it given not as a mere honour, but as a help to a good man, and this it is assuredly in Hooker's case. Government people are so ignorant that they require to have people's merits drummed into their heads by all possible means, and Hooker's getting the medal may be of real service to him before long. I am in a snug, though not an idle, nest; he has not got his resting-place yet. And so, my dear Huxley, I trust that you know me too well to think that I am either grieved or envious; and you, Hooker, and I are much of the same way of thinking.
Frankness was the only remedy for such an imbroglio, and, as Huxley wrote to Hooker about a similar case a couple of years later:—
It's deuced hard to keep straight in this wicked world, but, as you say, the only chance is to out with it, and I thank you much for writing so frankly about the matter.
[Illustration: From a Photograph by Downey, 1890 To face p. 102]
With Hooker, the keen observer and critical reasoner, the man of warm impulses and sane judgments, he had a peculiarly intimate bond of friendship summed up in a letter of 1888, when they had received the Copley medal in successive years:—
It is very pleasant to have our niches in the Pantheon close together. It is getting on for forty years since we were first "acquent," and, considering with what a very considerable dose of tenacity, vivacity, and that glorious firmness (which the beasts who don't like us call obstinacy) we are both endowed, the fact that we have never had the shadow of a shade of a quarrel is more to our credit than being ex-Presidents and Copley medallists. But we have had a masonic bond in both being well salted in early life. I have always felt that I owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of things gained in the old Rattlesnake.
From earliest days, soon after they had returned, the one from the South Seas, the other from the Himalayas, they had stood shoulder to shoulder confidently in the struggle to put science on a firm and independent footing. When the future of the Natural History Collections at the British Museum was in the balance, they energetically resolved to constitute themselves into a permanent "Committee of Safety," to watch over what was being done and take measures with the advice of others when necessary. Together as biologists they realized the greatness of Darwin's vision; together they bore the brunt of the battle of the Origin at Oxford. In seeking a good mouthpiece for scientific opinion, in reorganizing and administering the great scientific societies, in their work for scientific education, they shared the same ideas, and their friendship and Tyndall's formed the starting-point of the x Club, with its regular meetings of old friends. More than once they went off on a short holiday tour together, and when Huxley was invalided in 1873 it was Hooker who took charge and carried him off for a month's active trip in the geological paradise of the Auvergne. The care and company of so good a friend made the crowning ingredient in a most successful prescription. And when both had retired from official life a new interest in common sprang up through Huxley's incursion into botany. While recruiting his health in the high Alps, his interest was aroused by the Gentians, and he wrote a valuable paper on their morphology and distribution. This interest continued itself into the making of a rock-garden in his Eastbourne home, where, in his spare hours, he proceeded to put into happy practice Candide's famous maxim, "Cultivons notre jardin," and drew from this occupation the simile of the wild chalk down and the cultivated garden in his Romanes Lecture to illustrate the contrast between the cosmic process and the social organism.
Hooker often sent his friend plants from his own garden, sometimes banteringly including one which would "flourish in any neglected corner."
An unclouded intimacy of friendship lasted to the end, and it was
Hooker who received the last letter written by his friend.
Close as a brother, too, and claiming the name of brother in affectionate adoption, was John Tyndall, radiant in genial warmth and high spirits. They, too, were at one in thoughts, sympathies, and aims; they travelled together, especially in the Alps, where Tyndall mainly carried out the investigation of certain problems in relation to the glaciers which Huxley had suggested to him, and, being "a masterful man and over-generous," insisted that the resulting paper on glaciers should bear both their names.
Tyndall came to the School of Mines as Professor of Physics in 1859 at his friend's instigation, and for nine years they were, as colleagues, in daily contact, and indeed were not far separated when Tyndall succeeded Faraday at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street.
Tyndall, who remained a bachelor till late in middle life, always found a warm corner beside his friend's hearth. From the earliest days of the household in the little house at Waverley Place he was admitted to the inner circle of a lively friendship by Mrs. Huxley also, that keen judge of character, and to the children ranked as a kind of unofficial uncle. On New Year's Day he was chief among the two or three intimates who were bidden here, having no domestic hearth of their own, Herbert Spencer and Hirst being the other "regulars," and later Michael Foster.
As the two men both had ready pens and stood side by side in many controversies, they came to be regarded by the public as a pair of Great Twin Brethren, the Castor and Pollux of many a scientific battle of Lake Regillus. Odd confusions sometimes followed. In 1876, not long after Tyndall's marriage to the daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, Huxley was described in a newspaper paragraph as setting out for America "with his titled bride," and even, on Tyndall's death, received the doubtful honour of a funeral sermon.
True that they did not see eye to eye on some of the most fundamental matters of social and political principle, and where they did Tyndall's vehement enthusiasm would sometimes sweep him into activities where his friend could not follow. But these things were no bar to their mutual affection and esteem, and in token of this two letters of 1866 may be quoted, when England was sharply divided on the question of Governor Eyre's action in suppressing an incipient revolt in Jamaica.
In particular, a negro preacher named Gordon had been arrested, court-martialled, and summarily executed. A Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the case declared that the evidence given appeared to be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner took his trial, and that in the evidence adduced they could not see any sufficient proof of Gordon's complicity in the outbreak, or of having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government.
To many thoughtful and law-abiding persons such a proceeding appeared to be no better than judicial murder, constituting a hideous precedent; a committee was formed to present a formal indictment against Governor Eyre and obtain a judicial pronouncement on the question, quite apart from the two other questions persistently confused with it—namely, was Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing firebrand, and was Governor Eyre actuated by the highest and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken rashness or worse impulses?
With this high constitutional end in view—the protection of individual liberty—Huxley joined the committee. To Charles Kingsley, who confessed to taking the hero-worshipper's view of Governor Eyre, Huxley replied:—
I dare say he did all this with the best of motives and in a heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes have no more right to kill people in this fashion than other folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas or some other quiet place where there is less hero-worship and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more importance than hero-worship.
In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is that it will help a great many people to find out what their profoundest political beliefs are.
The hero-worshippers who believe that the world is to be governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, justly if they can, but, if not, unjustly drive or kick them the right way, will sympathize with Mr. Eyre.
The other sect (to which I belong), who look upon hero-worship as no better than any other idolatry and upon the attitude of mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice as between man and man as of far greater importance than even the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law of England.
People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert one another. To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle and without bitterness.
To Tyndall, whose convictions were bred in Ulster and fostered by an ardent devotion to Carlyle, he wrote in the same strain, apropos of a friend's banter on their sudden division:—
I replied to the jest earnestly enough—that I hoped and believed our old friendship was strong enough to stand any strain that might be put on it, much as I grieved that we should be ranged in opposite camps in this or any other case.
That you and I have fundamentally different political principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us during the progress of the American War. The fact is made still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in it any important fact or argument which had not passed through my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee.
Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ, each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in which Englishmen have for many years been engaged.
If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another which I value as one of the good things of my life.
That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life.
It was probably after a meeting of the x Club, in the freedom of which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following reply:—
Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme and unjust severity.
I recollect you looked rather savage at one point in our discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made upon you.
What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know, but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the extent to which I have tried your patience.
So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of accumulated merit, envers moi; and if you should ever feel inclined to "d—— my eyes," you can do so and have a balance left.
Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d—ned or und—d),—Ever yours faithfully….
If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation, he was a living inspiration to the friends of the next generation, especially to the pupils and teaching lieutenants who worked in close touch with him. His younger disciples always felt that in acute criticism and vast learning nobody surpassed him; but what they yet more admired than his learning was his wisdom. It was a delight to read an essay fresh from his pen, but an ever so much higher delight to hear him talk for five minutes. "His," says Professor Hubrecht, "was the most beautiful and the most manly intellect I ever knew of." The personal affection as well as admiration he inspired may be gathered from Sir E. Ray Lankester's words: "There has been no man or woman whom I have met in my journey through life whom I have loved and regarded as I have him, and I feel that the world has shrunk and become a poor thing now that his splendid spirit and delightful presence are gone from it." And Professor Jeffery Parker concludes his Recollections of his old chief with these words:—
Whether a professor is usually a hero to his demonstrator I cannot say; I only know that, looking back across an interval of many years and a distance of half the circumference of the globe, I have never ceased to be impressed with the manliness and sincerity of his character, his complete honesty of purpose, his high moral standard, his scorn of everything mean or shifty, his firm determination to speak what he held to be truth at whatever cost of popularity. And for these things "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any."
Indeed, his relations with his demonstrators were typical of his judgment of men, his distinction between the essential and the unessential, which made him a successful administrator.
To a new subordinate "The General," as he was always called, was rather stern and exacting; but when once he was convinced that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared." "Never mind, Parker," he said, instantly capping my quotation, "cast four anchors out of the stern and wish for day."
The first passport to his friendship was entire sincerity. Whatever other claims might be advanced, he would shut out from any approach to intimacy those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead of raising it.