Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

CHAPTER 1.14.

1859-1860.

[The "Origin" appeared in November. As soon as he had read it, Huxley wrote the following letter to Darwin (already published in "Life of Darwin" volume 2 page 231):—

Jermyn Street W., November 23, 1859.

My dear Darwin,

I finished your book yesterday, a lucky examination having furnished me with a few hours of continuous leisure.

Since I read Von Baer's essays, nine years ago, no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression upon me, and I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. Nothing, I think, can be better than the tone of the book—it impresses those who know about the subject. As for your doctrine, I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite, in support of Chapter 9 [The Imperfection of the Geological Record], and most parts of Chapters 10 [The Geological Succession of Organic Beings], 11, 12 [Geographical Distribution], and Chapter 13 [Classification, Morphology, Embryology, and Rudimentary Organs] contains much that is most admirable, but on one or two points I enter a caveat until I can see further into all sides of the question.

As to the first four chapters [Chapter 1, Variation under Domestication; 2, Variation under Nature; 3, The Struggle for Existence; 4, Operation of Natural Selection; 5, Laws of Variation], I agree thoroughly and fully with all the principles laid down in them. I think you have demonstrated a true cause for the production of species, and have thrown the onus probandi, that species did not arise in the way you suppose, on your adversaries.

But I feel that I have not yet by any means fully realised the bearings of those most remarkable and original Chapters—III, IV, and V, and I will write no more about them just now.

The only objections that have occurred to me are—1st, That you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly; and 2nd, It is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all.

However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes.

I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it, you have earned the lasting gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead.

I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.

Looking back over my letter, it really expresses so feebly all I think about you and your noble book, that I am half-ashamed of it; but you will understand that, like the parrot in the story, "I think the more."

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A month later, fortune put into his hands the opportunity of striking a vigorous and telling blow for the newly-published book. Never was windfall more eagerly accepted. A short account of this lucky chance was written by him for the Darwin "Life" (volume 1 page 255).]

The "Origin" was sent to Mr. Lucas, one of the staff of the "Times" writers at that day, in what was I suppose the ordinary course of business. Mr. Lucas, though an excellent journalist, and at a later period, editor of "Once a Week," was as innocent of any knowledge of science as a babe, and be wailed himself to an acquaintance on having to deal with such a book. Whereupon, he was recommended to ask me to get him out of his difficulty, and he applied to me accordingly, explaining, however, that it would be necessary for him formally to adopt anything I might be disposed to write, by prefacing it with two or three paragraphs of his own.

I was too anxious to seize upon the opportunity thus offered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous readers of the "Times," to make any difficulty about conditions; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences.

When the article appeared, there was much speculation as to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets will, but not by my aid; and then I used to derive a good deal of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of some of my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine from the first paragraph!

As the "Times" some years since, referred to my connection with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence in the publication of this little history, if you think it worth the space it will occupy.

[The article appeared on December 26. Only Hooker was admitted into the secret. In an undated note Huxley writes to him:—]

I have written the other review you wot of, and have handed it over to my friend to deal as he likes with it…Darwin will laugh over a letter that I sent him this morning with a vignette of the Jermyn Street "pet" ready to fight his battle, and the "judicious Hooker" holding the bottle.

[And on December 31 he writes again:—]

Jermyn Street, December 31, 1859.

My dear Hooker,

I have not the least objection to my share in the "Times" article being known, only I should not like to have anything stated on my authority. The fact is, that the first quarter of the first column (down to "what is a species," etc.) is not mine, but belongs to the man who is the official reviewer for the "Times" (my "Temporal" godfather I might call him).

The rest is my ipsissima verba, and I only wonder that it turns out as well as it does—for I wrote it faster than ever I wrote anything in my life. The last column nearly as fast as my wife could read the sheets. But I was thoroughly in the humour and full of the subject. Of course as a scientific review the thing is worth nothing, but I earnestly hope it may have made some of the educated mob, who derive their ideas from the "Times," reflect. And whatever they do, they SHALL respect Darwin.

Pray give my kindest regards and best wishes for the New Year to Mrs. Hooker, and tell her that if she, of her own natural sagacity and knowledge of the naughtiness of my heart, affirms that I wrote the article, I shall not contradict her—but that for reasons of state—I must not be supposed to say anything. I am pretty certain the Saturday article was not written by Owen. On internal grounds, because no word in it exceeds an inch in length; on external, from what Cook said to me. The article is weak enough and one-sided enough, but looking at the various forces in action, I think Cook has fully redeemed his promise to me.

I went down to Sir P. Egerton on Tuesday—was ill when I started, got worse and had to come back on Thursday. I am all adrift now, but I couldn't stand being in the house any longer. I wish I had been born an an-hepatous foetus.

All sorts of good wishes to you, and may you and I and Tyndalides, and one or two more bricks, be in as good fighting order in 1861 as in 1860.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Speaking of this period and the half-dozen preceding years, in his 1894 preface to "Man's Place in Nature" he says:—]

Among the many problems which came under my consideration, the position of the human species in zoological classification was one of the most serious. Indeed, at that time it was a burning question in the sense that those who touched it were almost certain to burn their fingers severely. It was not so very long since my kind friend, Sir William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom I have known, had been well-nigh ostracised for his book "On Man," which now might be read in a Sunday school without surprising anybody; it was only a few years since the electors to the chair of Natural History in a famous northern university had refused to invite a very distinguished man to occupy it because he advocated the doctrine of the diversity of species of mankind, or what was called "polygeny." Even among those who considered man from the point of view, not of vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles asunder. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier another; and among my senior contemporaries, men like Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of the deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything which tended to break down the barrier between man and the rest of the animal world.

My own mind was by no means definitely made up about this matter when, in the year 1857, a paper was read before the Linnean Society "On the Characters, Principles of Division and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia," in which certain anatomical features of the brain were said to be "peculiar to the genus 'Homo,'" and were made the chief ground for separating that genus from all other mammals and placing him in a division, "Archencephala," apart from, and superior to, all the rest. As these statements did not agree with the opinions I had formed, I set to work to reinvestigate the subject; and soon satisfied myself that the structures in question were not peculiar to Man, but were shared by him with all the higher and many of the lower apes. I embarked in no public discussion of these matters, but my attention being thus drawn to them, I studied the whole question of the structural relations of Man to the next lower existing forms, with much care. And, of course, I embodied my conclusions in my teaching.

Matters were at this point when the "Origin of Species" appeared. The weighty sentence, "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" (1st edition page 488), was not only in full harmony with the conclusions at which I had arrived respecting the structural relations of apes and men, but was strongly supported by them. And inasmuch as Development and Vertebrate Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin's many specialities, it appeared to me that I should not be intruding on the ground he had made his own, if I discussed this part of the general question. In fact, I thought that I might probably serve the cause of Evolution by doing so.

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things clear to uninstructed people was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind. So, in 1860, I took the Relation of Man to the lower Animals for the subject of the six lectures to working men which it was my duty to deliver. It was also in 1860 that this topic was discussed before a jury of experts at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, and from that time a sort of running fight on the same subject was carried on, until it culminated at the Cambridge Meeting of the Association in 1862, by my friend Sir W. Flower's public demonstration of the existence in the apes of those cerebral characters which had been said to be peculiar to man.

[The famous Oxford Meeting of 1860 was of no small importance in Huxley's career. It was not merely that he helped to save a great cause from being stifled under misrepresentation and ridicule—that he helped to extort for it a fair hearing; it was now that he first made himself known in popular estimation as a dangerous adversary in debate—a personal force in the world of science which could not be neglected. From this moment he entered the front fighting line in the most exposed quarter of the field.

Most unluckily, no contemporary account of his own exists of the encounter. Indeed, the same cause which prevented his writing home the story of the day's work nearly led to his absence from the scene. It was known that Bishop Wilberforce, whose first class in mathematics gave him, in popular estimation, a right to treat on scientific matters, intended to "smash Darwin"; and, Huxley, expecting that the promised debate would be merely an appeal to prejudice in a mixed audience, before which the scientific arguments of the Bishop's opponents would be at the utmost disadvantage, intended to leave Oxford that very morning and join his wife at Hardwicke, near Reading, where she was staying with her sister. But in a letter, quoted below, he tells how, on the Friday afternoon, he chanced to meet Robert chambers, the reputed author of the "Vestiges of Creation," who begged him "not to desert them." Accordingly he postponed his departure; but seeing his wife next morning, had no occasion to write a letter.

Several accounts of the scene are already in existence: one in the "Life of Darwin" (volume 2 page 320), another in the 1892 "Life," page 236 sq.; a third that of "Lyell" (volume 2 page 335), the slight differences between them representing the difference between individual recollections of eye-witnesses. In addition to these I have been fortunate enough to secure further reminiscences from several other eye-witnesses.

Two papers in Section D, of no great importance in themselves, became historical as affording the opponents of Darwin their opportunity of making an attack upon his theory which should tell with the public. The first was on Thursday, June 28. Dr. Daubeny of Oxford made a communication to the Section, "On the final causes of the sexuality of plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species." (My best thanks are due to Mr. F. Darwin for permission to quote his accounts of the meeting; other citations are from the "Athenaeum" reports of July 14, 1860.) Huxley was called upon to speak by the President, but tried to avoid a discussion, on the ground "that a general audience, in which sentiment would unduly interfere with intellect, was not the public before which such a discussion should be carried on."

This consideration, however, did not stop the discussion; it was continued by Owen. He said he "wished to approach the subject in the spirit of the philosopher," and declared his "conviction that there were facts by which the public could come to some conclusion with regard to the probabilities of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory." As one of these facts, he stated that the brain of the gorilla "presented more differences, as compared with the brain of man, than it did when compared with the brains of the very lowest and most problematical of the Quadrumana."

Now this was the very point, as said above, upon which Huxley had made special investigations during the last two years, with precisely opposite results, such as, indeed, had been arrived at by previous investigators. Hereupon he replied, giving these assertions a "direct and unqualified contradiction," and pledging himself to "justify that unusual procedure elsewhere,"—a pledge which was amply fulfilled in the pages of the "Natural History Review" for 1861.

Accordingly it was to him, thus marked out as the champion of the most debatable theory of evolution, that, two days later, the Bishop addressed his sarcasms, only to meet with a withering retort. For on the Friday there was peace; but on the Saturday came a yet fiercer battle over the "Origin," which loomed all the larger in the public eye, because it was not merely the contradiction of one anatomist by another, but the open clash between Science and the Church. It was, moreover, not a contest of bare fact or abstract assertion, but a combat of wit between two individuals, spiced with the personal element which appeals to one of the strongest instincts of every large audience.

It was the merest chance, as I have already said, that Huxley attended the meeting of the section that morning. Dr. Draper of New York was to read a paper on the "Intellectual Development of Europe considered with reference to the views of Mr. Darwin." "I can still hear," writes one who was present, "the American accents of Dr. Draper's opening address when he asked 'Air we a fortuitous concourse of atoms?'" However, it was not to hear him, but the eloquence of the Bishop, that the members of the Association crowded in such numbers into the Lecture Room of the Museum, that this, the appointed meeting-place of the section, had to be abandoned for the long west room, since cut in two by a partition for the purposes of the library. It was not term time, nor were the general public admitted; nevertheless the room was crowded to suffocation long before the protagonists appeared on the scene, 700 persons or more managing to find places. The very windows by which the room was lighted down the length of its west side were packed with ladies, whose white handkerchiefs, waving and fluttering in the air at the end of the Bishop's speech, were an unforgettable factor in the acclamation of the crowd.

On the east side between the two doors was the platform. Professor Henslow, the President of the section, took his seat in the centre; upon his right was the Bishop, and beyond him again Dr. Draper; on his extreme left was Mr. Dingle, a clergyman from Lanchester, near Durham, with Sir J. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock in front of him, and nearer the centre, Professor Beale of King's College, London, and Huxley.

The clergy, who shouted lustily for the Bishop, were massed in the middle of the room; behind them in the north-west corner a knot of undergraduates (one of these was T.H. Green, who listened but took no part in the cheering) had gathered together beside Professor Brodie, ready to lift their voices, poor minority though they were, for the opposite party. Close to them stood one of the few men among the audience already in Holy orders, who joined in—and indeed led—the cheers for the Darwinians.

So "Dr. Draper droned out his paper, turning first to the right hand and then to the left, of course bringing in a reference to the Origin of Species which set the ball rolling."

An hour or more that paper lasted, and then discussion began. The President "wisely announced in limine that none who had not valid arguments to bring forward on one side or the other would be allowed to address the meeting; a caution that proved necessary, for no fewer than four combatants had their utterances burked by him, because of their indulgence in vague declamation." ("Life of Darwin" l.c.)

First spoke (writes Professor Farrar (Canon of Durham.)) a layman from Brompton, who gave his name as being one of the Committee of the (newly formed) Economic section of the Association. He, in a stentorian voice, let off his theological venom. Then jumped up Richard Greswell with a thin voice, saying much the same, but speaking as a scholar (The Reverend Richard Greswell, B.D., Tutor of Worcester College.); but we did not merely want any theological discussion, so we shouted them down. Then a Mr. Dingle got up and tried to show that Darwin would have done much better if he had taken him into consultation. He used the blackboard and began a mathematical demonstration on the question—"Let this point A be man, and let that point B be the mawnkey." He got no further; he was shouted down with cries of "mawnkey." None of these had spoken more than three minutes. It was when these were shouted down that Henslow said he must demand that the discussion should rest on SCIENTIFIC grounds only.

Then there were calls for the Bishop, but he rose and said he understood his friend Professor Beale had something to say first. Beale, who was an excellent histologist, spoke to the effect that the new theory ought to meet with fair discussion, but added, with great modesty, that he himself had not sufficient knowledge to discuss the subject adequately. Then the Bishop spoke the speech that you know, and the question about his mother being an ape, or his grandmother.

From the scientific point of view, the speech was of small value. It was evident from his mode of handling the subject that he had been "crammed up to the throat," and knew nothing at first hand; he used no argument beyond those to be found in his "Quarterly" article, which appeared a few days later, and is now admitted to have been inspired by Owen. "He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but," confesses one of his strongest opponents, "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." ("Life of Darwin" l.c.)

The Bishop spoke thus "for full half an hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness." "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?" ("Reminiscences of a Grandmother," "Macmillan's Magazine," October 1898. Professor Farrar thinks this version of what the Bishop said is slightly inaccurate. His impression is that the words actually used seemed at the moment flippant and unscientific rather than insolent, vulgar, or personal. The Bishop, he writes, "had been talking of the perpetuity of species of Birds; and then, denying a fortiori the derivation of the species Man from Ape, he rhetorically invoked the aid of FEELING, and said, 'If any one were to be willing to trace his descent through an ape as his GRANDFATHER, would he be willing to trace his descent similarly on the side of his GRANDMOTHER?' His false humour was an attempt to arouse the antipathy about degrading WOMAN to the quadrumana. Your father's reply showed there was vulgarity as well as folly in the Bishop's words; and the impression distinctly was, that the Bishop's party, as they left the room, felt abashed, and recognised the Bishop had forgotten to behave like a perfect gentleman.")

This was the fatal mistake of his speech. Huxley instantly grasped the tactical advantage which the descent to personalities gave him. He turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting beside him, and emphatically striking his hand upon his knee, exclaimed,] "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." [The bearing of the exclamation did not dawn upon Sir Benjamin until after Huxley had completed his "forcible and eloquent" answer to the scientific part of the Bishop's argument, and proceeded to make his famous retort. (The "Athenaeum" reports him as saying that 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 that theory because an undulation of light had never been arrested and measured. Darwin's theory was 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. With regard to the psychological distinction between men and animals, man himself was once a monad—a mere atom, and nobody could say at what moment in the history of his development he became consciously intelligent. The question was not so much one of a transmutation or transition of species, as of the production of forms which became permanent.

Thus the short-legged sheep of America was not produced gradually, but originated in the birth of an original parent of the whole stock, which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection.)

On this (continues the writer in "Macmillan's Magazine") Mr. Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet and very grave ("Young, cool, quiet, scientific—scientific in fact and in treatment."—J.R. Green. A certain piquancy must have been added to the situation by the superficial resemblance in feature between the two men, so different in temperament and expression. Indeed next day at Hardwicke, a friend came up to Mr. Fanning and asked who his guest was, saying, "Surely it is the son of the Bishop of Oxford."), he stood before us and spoke those tremendous words—words which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could remember just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath, though it left us in no doubt as to what it was. He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth. No one doubted his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had to be carried out; I, for one, jumped out of my seat.

The fullest and probably most accurate account of these concluding words is the following, from a letter of the late John Richard Green, then an undergraduate, to his friend, afterwards Professor Boyd Dawkins (The writer in "Macmillan's" tells me: "I cannot quite accept Mr. J.R. Green's sentences as your father's; though I didn't doubt that they convey the sense; but then I think that only a shorthand writer could reproduce Mr. Huxley's singularly beautiful style—so simple and so incisive. The sentence given is much too 'Green.'")]

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 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. (My father once told me that he did not remember using the word "equivocal" in this speech. (See his letter below.) The late Professor Victor Carus had the same impression, which is corroborated by Professor Farrar.) (As the late Henry Fawcett wrote in "Macmillan's Magazine," 1860:—"The retort was so justly deserved, and so inimitable in its manner, that no one who was present can ever forget the impression that it made.")

Further, Mr. A.G. Vernon-Harcourt, F.R.S., Reader in Chemistry at the
University of Oxford, writes to me:—

The Bishop had rallied your father as to the descent from a monkey, asking as a sort of joke how recent this had been, whether it was his grandfather or further back. Your father, in replying on this point, first explained that the suggestion was of descent through thousands of generations from a common ancestor, and then went on to this effect—"But if this question is treated, not as a matter for the calm investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if I am asked whether I 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" (here, as the point became clear, there was a great outburst of applause, which mostly drowned the end of the sentence) "to discredit and crush humble seekers after truth, I hesitate what answer to make."

No doubt your father's words were better than these, and they gained effect from his clear, deliberate utterance, but in outline and in SCALE this represents truly what was said.

After the commotion was over, "some voices called for Hooker, and his name having been handed up, the President invited him to give his view of the theory from the Botanical side. This he did, demonstrating that the Bishop, by his own showing, had never grasped the principles of the 'Origin,' and that he was absolutely ignorant of the elements of botanical science. The Bishop made no reply, and the meeting broke up." ("Life of Darwin," l.c.)

ACCOUNT OF THE OXFORD MEETING BY THE REVEREND W.H. FREEMANTLE (in
"Charles Darwin, his Life Told" etc. 1892 page 238.)

The Bishop of Oxford attacked Darwin, at first playfully, but at last in grim earnest. It was known that the Bishop had written an article against Darwin in the last "Quarterly Review" (It appeared in the ensuing number for July.); it was also rumoured that Professor Owen had been staying in Cuddesdon and had primed the Bishop, who was to act as mouthpiece to the great Paleontologist, who did not himself dare to enter the lists. The Bishop, however, did not show himself master of the facts, and made one serious blunder. A fact which had been much dwelt on as confirmatory of Darwin's idea of variation, was that a sheep had been born shortly before in a flock in the North of England, having an addition of one to the vertebrae of the spine. The Bishop was declaring with rhetorical exaggeration that there was hardly any evidence on Darwin's side. "What have they to bring forward?" he exclaimed. "Some rumoured statement about a long-legged sheep." But he passed on to banter: "I should like to ask Professor Huxley, who is sitting by me, and is about to tear me to pieces when I have sat down, as to his belief in being descended from an ape. Is it on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side that the ape ancestry comes in?" And then taking a graver tone, he asserted, in a solemn peroration, that Darwin's views were contrary to the revelation of God in the Scriptures. Professor Huxley was unwilling to respond: but he was called for, and spoke with his usual incisiveness and with some scorn:] "I am here only in the interests of science," [he said,] "and I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august client." [Then after showing how little competent the Bishop was to enter upon the discussion, he touched on the question of 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." [Lastly as to the descent from a monkey, he said:] "I should feel it no shame to have risen from such an origin; but I should feel it a shame to have sprung from one who prostituted the gifts of culture and eloquence to the service of prejudice and of falsehood."

[Many others spoke. Mr. Gresley, an old Oxford don, pointed out that in human nature at least orderly development was not the necessary rule: Homer was the greatest of poets, but he lived 3000 years ago, and has not produced his like.

Admiral FitzRoy was present, and said he had often expostulated with his old comrade of the "Beagle" for entertaining views which were contradictory to the First Chapter of Genesis.

Sir John Lubbock declared that many of the arguments by which the permanence of species was supported came to nothing, and instanced some wheat which was said to have come off an Egyptian mummy, and was sent to him to prove that wheat had not changed since the time of the Pharaohs; but which proved to be made of French chocolate. Sir Joseph (then Dr.) Hooker spoke shortly, saying that he had found the hypothesis of Natural Selection so helpful in explaining the phenomena of his own subject of Botany, that he had been constrained to accept it. After a few words from Darwin's old friend, Professor Henslow, who occupied the chair, the meeting broke up, leaving the impression that those most capable of estimating the arguments of Darwin in detail saw their way to accept his conclusions.

Note.—Sir John Lubbock also insisted on the embryological evidence for evolution. F.D.]

[T.H. Huxley To Francis Darwin (ibid.).]

June 27, 1891.

I should say that Freemantle's account is substantially correct, but that Green has the substance of my speech more accurately. However, I am certain I did not use the word, "equivocal."

The odd part of the business is, that I should not have been present except for Robert Chambers. I had heard of the Bishop's intention to utilise the occasion. I knew he had the reputation of being a first-class controversialist, and I was quite aware that if he played his cards properly, we should have little chance, with such an audience, of making an efficient defence. Moreover, I was very tired, and wanted to join my wife at her brother-in-law's country house near Reading, on the Saturday. On the Friday I met Chambers in the street, and in reply to some remark of his, about his going to the meeting, I said that I did not mean to attend it—did not see the good of giving up peace and quietness to be episcopally pounded. Chambers broke out into vehement remonstrances, and talked about my deserting them. So I said, "Oh! if you are going to take it that way, I'll come and have my share of what is going on."

So I came, and chanced to sit near old Sir Benjamin Brodie. The Bishop began his speech, and to my astonishment very soon showed that he was so ignorant that he did not know how to manage his own case. My spirits rose proportionately, and when he turned to me with his insolent question, I said to Sir Benjamin, in an undertone, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands."

That sagacious old gentleman stared at me as if I had lost my senses. But, in fact, the Bishop had justified the severest retort I could devise, and I made up my mind to let him have it. I was careful, however, not to rise to reply, until the meeting called for me—then I let myself go.

In justice to the Bishop, I am bound to say he bore no malice, but was always courtesy itself when we occasionally met in after years. Hooker and I walked away from the meeting together, and I remember saying to him that this experience had changed my opinion as to the practical value of the art of public speaking, and that from that time forth I should carefully cultivate it, and try to leave off hating it. I did the former, but never quite succeeded in the latter effort.

I did not mean to trouble you with such a long scrawl when I began about this piece of ancient history.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[In the evening there was a crowded conversazione in Dr. Daubney's rooms, and here, continues the writer in "Macmillan's," "everyone was eager to congratulate the hero of the day. I remember that some naive person wished 'it could come over again'; Mr. Huxley, with the look on his face of the victor who feels the cost of victory, put us aside saying,] 'Once in a lifetime is enough, if not too much.'"

[In a letter to me the same writer remarks—

I gathered from Mr. Huxley's look when I spoke to him at Dr. Daubeny's that he was not quite satisfied to have been forced to take so personal a tone—it a little jarred upon his fine taste. But it was the Bishop who first struck the insolent note of personal attack.

Again, with reference to the state of feeling at the meeting:—

I never saw such a display of fierce party spirit, the looks of bitter hatred which the audience bestowed—(I mean the majority) on us who were on your father's side—as we passed through the crowd we felt that we were expected to say "how abominably the Bishop was treated"—or to be considered outcasts and detestable.

It was very different, however, at Dr. Daubeny's, "where," says the writer of the account in "Darwin's Life," "the almost sole topic was the battle of the 'Origin,' and I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed the question, and the frankness with which they offered their congratulations to the winners in the combat."

The result of this encounter, though a check to the other side, cannot, of course, be represented as an immediate and complete triumph for evolutionary doctrine. This was precluded by the character and temper of the audience, most of whom were less capable of being convinced by the arguments than shocked by the boldness of the retort, although, being gentlefolk, as Professor Farrar remarks, they were disposed to admit on reflection that the Bishop had erred on the score of taste and good manners. Nevertheless, it was a noticeable feature of the occasion, Sir M. Foster tells me, that when Huxley rose he was received coldly, just a cheer of encouragement from his friends, the audience as a whole not joining in it. But as he made his points the applause grew and widened, until, when he sat down, the cheering was not very much less than that given to the Bishop. To that extent he carried an unwilling audience with him by the force of his speech. The debate on the ape question, however, was continued elsewhere during the next two years, and the evidence was completed by the unanswerable demonstrations of Sir W.H. Flower at the Cambridge meeting of the Association in 1862.

The importance of the Oxford meeting lay in the open resistance that was made to authority, at a moment when even a drawn battle was hardly less effectual than acknowledged victory. Instead of being crushed under ridicule, the new theories secured a hearing, all the wider, indeed, for the startling nature of their defence.]

CHAPTER 1.15.

1860-1863.

[In the autumn he set to work to make good his promise of demonstrating the existence in the simian brain of the structures alleged to be exclusively human. The result was seen in his papers "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals" ("Natural History Review" 1861 pages 67-68); "On the Brain of Ateles Paniscus," which appeared in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" for 1861, and on "Nyctipithecus" in 1862, while similar work was undertaken by his friends Rolleston and Flower. But the brain was only one point among many, as, for example, the hand and the foot in man and the apes; and he already had in mind the discussion of the whole question comprehensively. On January 6 he writes to Sir J. Hooker:—]

Some of these days I shall look up the ape question again and go over the rest of the organisation in the same way. But in order to get a thorough grip of the question I must examine into a good many points for myself. The results, when they do come out, will, I foresee, astonish the natives.

[Full of interest in this theme, he made it the subject of his popular lectures in the spring of 1861.

Thus from February to May he lectured weekly to working men on "The Relation of Man to the rest of the Animal Kingdom," and on March 22 writes to his wife:—]

My working men stick by me wonderfully, the house being fuller than ever last night. By next Friday evening they will all be convinced that they are monkeys…Said lecture, let me inform you, was very good. Lyell came and was rather astonished at the magnitude and attentiveness of the audience.

[These lectures to working men were published in the "Natural History
Review," as was a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution
(February 8) on "The Nature of the Earliest Stages of Development of
Animals."

Meanwhile the publication of these researches led to another pitched battle, in which public interest was profoundly engaged. The controversy which raged had some resemblance to a duel over a point of honour and credit. Scientific technicalities became the catchwords of society, and the echoes of the great Hippocampus question linger in the delightful pages of the "Water-Babies." Of this fight Huxley writes to Sir J. Hooker on April 18, 1861:—]

A controversy between Owen and myself, which I can only call absurd (as there is no doubt whatever about the facts), has been going on in the "Athenaeum," and I wound it up in disgust last week.

[And again on April 27:—]

Owen occupied an entirely untenable position—but I am nevertheless surprised he did not try "abusing plaintiff's attorney." The fact is he made a prodigious blunder in commencing the attack, and now his only chance is to be silent and let people forget the exposure. I do not believe that in the whole history of science there is a case of any man of reputation getting himself into such a contemptible position. He will be the laughing-stock of all the continental anatomists.

Rolleston has a great deal of Oxford slough to shed, but on that very ground his testimony has been of most especial service. Fancy that man — telling Maskelyne that Rolleston's observations were entirely confirmatory of Owen.

[About the same time he writes to his wife:—]

April 16.

People are talking a good deal about the "Man and the Apes" question, and I hear that somebody, I suspect Monckton-Milnes, has set afloat a poetical squib on the subject…

[The squib in question, dated "the Zoological Gardens," and signed "Gorilla," appeared in "Punch" for May 15, 1861, under a picture of that animal, bearing the sign, "Am I a Man and a Brother?"

The concluding verses run as follows:

Next HUXLEY replies
That OWEN he lies
And garbles his Latin quotation;
That his facts are not new,
His mistakes not a few,
Detrimental to his reputation.

"To twice slay the slain"
By dint of the Brain
(Thus Huxley concludes his review),
Is but labour in vain,
Unproductive of gain,
And so I shall bid you "Adieu!">[

Some think my winding-up too strong, but I trust the day will never come when I shall abstain from expressing my contempt for those who prostitute Science to the Service of Error. At any rate I am not old enough for that yet. Darwin came in just now. I get no scoldings for pitching into the common enemy now!!

I would give you fifty guesses [he writes to Hooker on April 30], and you should not find out the author of the "Punch" poem. I saw it in MS. three weeks ago, and was told the author was a friend of mine. But I remained hopelessly in the dark till yesterday. What do you say to Sir Philip Egerton coming out in that line? I am told he is the author, and the fact speaks volumes for Owen's perfect success in damning himself.

[In the midst of the fight came a surprising invitation. On April 10 he writes to his wife:—]

They have written to me from the Philosophical Institute of Edinburgh to ask me to give two lectures on the "Relation of Man to the Lower Animals" next session. I have replied that if they can give me January 3 and 7 for lecture days I will do it—if not, not. Fancy unco guid Edinburgh requiring illumination on the subject! They know my views, so if they did not like what I have to tell them, it is their own fault.

[These lectures were eventually delivered on January 4 and 7, 1862, and were well reported in the Edinburgh papers. The substance of them appears as Part 2 in "Man's Place in Nature," the first lecture describing the general nature of the process of development among vertebrate animals, and the modifications of the skeleton in the mammalia; the second dealing with the crucial points of comparison between the higher apes and man, namely the hand, foot, and brain. He showed that the differences between man and the higher apes were no greater than those between the higher and lower apes. If the Darwinian hypothesis explained the common ancestry of the latter, the anatomist would have no difficulty with the origin of man, so far as regards the gap between him and the higher apes.

Yet, though convinced that] "that hypothesis is as near an approximation to the truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true theory of the planetary motions," [he steadfastly refused to be an advocate of the theory,] "if by an advocate is meant one whose business it is to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade when he cannot convince."

[In common fairness he warned his audience of the one missing link in the chain of evidence—the fact that selective breeding has not yet produced species sterile to one another. But it is to be adopted as a working hypothesis like other scientific generalisations,] "subject to the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount of prima facie probability; that it is the only means at present within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument of investigation which has been presented to naturalists since the invention of the natural system of classification, and the commencement of the systematic study of embryology."

[As for the repugnance of most men to admitting kinship with the apes,] "thoughtful men," [he says,] once escaped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudices, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discern, in his long progress through the past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future."

[A simile, with which he enforced this elevating point of view, which has since eased the passage of many minds to the acceptance of evolution, seems to have been much appreciated by his audience. It was a comparison of man to the Alps, which turn out to be] "of one substance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory."

[The lectures were met at first with astonishing quiet, but it was not long before the stones began to fly. The "Witness" of January 11 lashed itself into a fury over the fact that the audience applauded this "anti-scriptural and most debasing theory…standing in blasphemous contradiction to biblical narrative and doctrine," instead of expressing their resentment at this "foul outrage committed upon them individually, and upon the whole species as 'made in the likeness of God,'" by deserting the hall in a body, or using some more emphatic form of protest against the corruption of youth by "the vilest and beastliest paradox ever vented in ancient or modern times amongst Pagans or Christians." In his finest vein of sarcasm, the writer expresses his surprise that the meeting did not instantly resolve itself into a "Gorilla Emancipation Society," or propose to hear a lecture from an apostle of Mormonism; "even this would be a less offensive, mischievous, and inexcusable exhibition than was made in the recent two lectures by Professor Huxley," etc.]

Jermyn Street, January 13, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

In the first place a new year's greeting to you and yours. In the next, I enclose this slip (please return it when you have read it) to show you what I have been doing in the north.

Everybody prophesied I should be stoned and cast out of the city gate, but, on the contrary, I met with unmitigated applause!! Three cheers for the progress of liberal opinion!!

The report is as good as any, but they have not put quite rightly what I said about your views, respecting which I took my old line about the infertility difficulty.

Furthermore, they have not reported my statement that whether you were right or wrong, some form of the progressive development theory is certainly true. Nor have they reported here my distinct statement that I believe man and the apes to have come from one stock.

Having got thus far, I find the lecture better reported in the
"Courant," so I send you that instead.

I mean to publish the lecture in full by and by (about the time the orchids come out).

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I deserved the greatest credit for not having made an onslaught on Brewster for his foolish impertinence about your views in "Good Words," but declined to stir nationality, which you know (in him) is rather more than his Bible.

Jermyn Street, January 16, 1862.

My dear Hooker,

I wonder if we are ever to meet again in this world! At any rate I send to the remote province of Kew, Greeting, and my best wishes for the new year to you and yours. I also inclose a slip from an Edinburgh paper containing a report of my lecture on the "Relation of Man," etc. As you will see, I went in for the entire animal more strongly, in fact, than they have reported me. I told them in so many words that I entertained no doubt of the origin of man from the same stock as the apes.

And to my great delight, in saintly Edinburgh itself the announcement met with nothing but applause. For myself I can't say that the praise or blame of my audience was much matter, but it is a grand indication of the general disintegration of old prejudices which is going on.

I shall see if I cannot make something more of the lectures by delivering them again in London, and then I shall publish them.

The report does not put nearly strongly enough what I said in favour of Darwin's views. I affirmed it to be the only scientific hypothesis of the origin of species in existence, and expressed my belief that one gap in the evidence would be filled up, as I always do.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, January 20, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

The inclosed article, which has been followed up by another more violent, more scurrilously personal, and more foolish, will prove to you that my labour has not been in vain, and that your views and mine are likely to be better ventilated in Scotland than they have been.

I was quite uneasy at getting no attack from the "Witness," thinking I must have overestimated the impression that I had made, and the favourableness of the reception of what I said. But the raving of the "Witness" is clear testimony that my notion was correct.

I shall send a short reply to the "Scotsman" for the purpose of further advertising the question.

With regard to what are especially your doctrines, I spoke much more favourably than I am reported to have done. I expressed no doubt as to their ultimate establishment, but as I particularly wished not to be misrepresented as an advocate trying to soften or explain away real difficulties, I did not in speaking enter into the details of what is to be said in diminishing the weight of the hybrid difficulty. All this will be put fully when I print the Lecture.

The arguments put in your letter are those which I have urged to other people—of the opposite side—over and over again. I have told my students that I entertain no doubt that twenty years' experiments on pigeons conducted by a skilled physiologist, instead of by a mere breeder, would give us physiological species sterile inter se, from a common stock (and in this, if I mistake not, I go further than you do yourself), and I have told them that when these experiments have been performed I shall consider your views to have a complete physical basis, and to stand on as firm ground as any physiological theory whatever.

It was impossible for me, in the time I had, to lay all this down to my Edinburgh audience, and in default of full explanation it was far better to seem to do scanty justice to you. I am constitutionally slow of adopting any theory that I must needs stick by when I have gone in for it; but for these two years I have been gravitating towards your doctrines, and since the publication of your primula paper with accelerated velocity. By about this time next year I expect to have shot past you, and to find you pitching into me for being more Darwinian than yourself. However, you have set me going, and must just take the consequences, for I warn you I will stop at no point so long as clear reasoning will carry me further.

My wife and I were very grieved to hear you had had such a sick house, but I hope the change in the weather has done you all good. Anything is better than the damp warmth we had.

I will take great care of the three "Barriers." [A pamphlet called "The Three Barriers" by G.R., being notes on Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species" 1861, 8vo." Habitat, structure, and procreative power are given as these three barriers to Darwinism, against which natural theology takes its stand on Final Causes.] I wanted to cut it up in the "Saturday," but how I am to fulfil my benevolent intentions—with five lectures a week—a lecture at the Royal Institution and heaps of other things on my hands, I don't know.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I am very glad to hear about Brown Sequard; he is a thoroughly good man, and told me it was worth while to come all the way to Oxford to hear the Bishop pummelled.

[In the above-mentioned letter to the "Scotsman" of January 24 he expresses his unfeigned satisfaction at the fulfilment of the three objects of his address, namely, to state fully and fairly his conclusions, to avoid giving unnecessary offence, and thirdly,] "while feeling assured of the just and reasonable dealing of the respectable part of the Scottish press, I naturally hoped for noisy injustice and unreason from the rest, seeing, as I did, the best security for the dissemination of my views through regions which they might not otherwise reach, in the certainty of a violent attack by [the 'Witness'."

The applause of the audience, he says, afforded him genuine satisfaction,] "because it bids me continue in the faith on which I acted, that a man who speaks out honestly and fearlessly that which he knows, and that which he believes, will always enlist the good-will and the respect, however much he may fail in winning the assent, of his fellow-men."

[About this time a new field of interest was opened out to him, closely connected with, indeed, and completing, the ape question. Sir Charles Lyell was engaged in writing his "Antiquity of Man," and asked Huxley to supply him with various anatomical data touching the ape question, and later to draw him a diagram illustrating the peculiarities of the newly discovered Neanderthal skull as compared with other skulls. He points out in his letters to Lyell that the range of cranial capacity between the highest and the lowest German—"one of the mediatised princes, I suppose" [The minor princes of Germany, whose territories were annexed to larger states, and who thus exchanged a direct for a mediate share in the imperial government.—or the Himalayan or Peruvian, is almost 100 per cent; in absolute amount twice as much as the difference between that of the largest simian and the smallest human capacity, so that in seeking an ordinal difference between man and the apes, "it would certainly be well to let go the head, though I am afraid it does not mend matters much to lay hold of the foot."

And on January 25, 1862:—]

I have been skull-measuring all day at the College of Surgeons. The NEANDERTHAL SKULL may be described as a slightly exaggerated modification of one of the two types (and the lower) of Australian skulls.

After the fashion of accounting for the elephant of old, I suppose it will be said that it was imported. But luckily the differences, though only of degree, are rather too marked for this hypothesis.

I only wish I had a clear six months to work at the subject. Little did I dream what the undertaking to arrange your three woodcuts would lead to. It will come in the long-run, I believe, to a new ethnological method, new modes of measurement, a new datum line, and new methods of registration.

If one had but two heads and neither required sleep!

[One immediate result of his investigations, which appeared in a lecture at the Royal Institution (February 7, 1862), "On the Fossil Remains of Man," was incorporated in "Man's Place in Nature." But a more important consequence of this impulse was that he went seriously into the study of Ethnology. Of his work in this branch of natural science, Professor Virchow, speaking at the dinner given him by the English medical profession on October 5, 1898, declared that in the eyes of German savants it alone would suffice to secure immortal reverence for his name.

The concluding stage in the long controversy raised first at Oxford, was the British Association meeting at Cambridge in 1862. It was here that Professor (afterwards Sir W.H.) Flower made his public demonstration of the existence in apes of the cerebral characters said to be peculiar to man.

From the 1st to the 9th of October Huxley stayed at Cambridge as the guest of Professor Fawcett at Trinity Hall, running over to Felixstow on the 5th to see his wife, whose health did not allow her to accompany him.

As President of Section D he had a good deal to do, and he describes the course of events in a letter to Darwin:—]

26 Abbey Place, October 9, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

It is a source of sincere pleasure to me to learn that anything I can say or do is a pleasure to you, and I was therefore very glad to get your letter at that whirligig of an association meeting the other day. We all missed you, but I think it was as well you did not come, for though I am pretty tough, as you know, I found the pace rather killing. Nothing could exceed the hospitality and kindness of the University people—and that, together with a great deal of speaking on the top of a very bad cold, which I contrived to catch just before going down, has somewhat used me up.

Owen came down with the obvious intention of attacking me on all points. Each of his papers was an attack, and he went so far as to offer stupid and unnecessary opposition to proposals of mine in my own committee. However, he got himself sold at all points…The Polypterus paper and the Aye-Aye paper fell flat. The latter was meant to raise a discussion on your views, but it was all a stale hash, and I only made some half sarcastic remarks which stopped any further attempts at discussion…

I took my book to Scotland but did nothing. I shall ask leave to send you a bit or two as I get on.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

A "Society for the propagation of common honesty in all parts of the world" was established at Cambridge. I want you to belong to it, but I will say more about it by and by.

[This admirable society, which was also to "search for scientific truth, especially in biology," seems to have been but short lived. At all events, I can find only two references to subsequent meetings, on October 7 and December 19 in this year.

A few days later a final blow was struck in the battle over the ape question. He writes on October 15 how he has written a letter to the "Medical Times"—his last word on the subject, summing up in most emphatic terms:—]

I have written the letter with the greatest care, and there is nothing coarse or violent in it. But it shall put an end to all the humbug that has been going on…Rolleston will come out with his letter in the same number, and the smash will be awful, but most thoroughly merited.

[These several pieces of work, struck out at different times in response to various impulses, were now combined and re-shaped into "Man's Place in Nature," the first book which was published by him. Thus he writes to Sir Charles Lyell on May 5, 1862:—]

Of course I shall be delighted to discuss anything with you [Referring to the address on "Geological Contemporaneity" delivered in 1862 at the Geological Society.], and the more so as I mean to put the whole question before the world in another shape in my little book, whose title is announced as "Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature." I have written the first two essays, the second containing the substance of my Edinburgh Lecture. I recollect you once asked me for something to quote on the Man question, so if you want anything in that way the MS. is at your service.

[Lyell looked over the proofs, and the following letters are in reply to his criticisms:—]

Ardrishaig, Loch Fyne, August 17, 1862.

My dear Sir Charles,

I take advantage of my first quiet day to reply to your letter of the 9th; and in the first place let me thank you very much for your critical remarks, as I shall find them of great service.

With regard to such matters as verbal mistakes, you must recollect that the greater part of the proof was wholly uncorrected. But the reader might certainly do his work better. I do not think you will find room to complain of any want of distinctness in my definition of Owen's position touching the Hippocampus question. I mean to give the whole history of the business in a note, so that the paraphrase of Sir Philip Egerton's line "To which Huxley replies that Owen he lies," shall be unmistakable.

I will take care about the Cheiroptera, and I will look at Lamarck again. But I doubt if I shall improve my estimate of the latter. The notion of common descent was not his—still less that of modification by variation—and he was as far as De Maillet from seeing his way to any vera causa by which varieties might be intensified into species.

If Darwin is right about natural selection—the discovery of this vera causa sets him to my mind in a different region altogether from all his predecessors—and I should no more call his doctrine a modification of Lamarck's than I should call the Newtonian theory of the celestial motions a modification of the Ptolemaic system. Ptolemy imagined a mode of explaining those motions. Newton proved their necessity from the laws and a force demonstrably in operation. If he is only right Darwin will, I think, take his place with such men as Harvey, and even if he is wrong his sobriety and accuracy of thought will put him on a far different level from Lamarck. I want to make this clear to people.

I am disposed to agree with you about the "emasculate" and "uncircumcised"-partly for your reasons, partly because I believe it is an excellent rule always to erase anything that strikes one as particularly smart when writing it. But it is a great piece of self-denial to abstain from expressing my peculiar antipathy to the people indicated, and I hope I shall be rewarded for the virtue.

As to the secondary causes I only wished to guard myself from being understood to imply that I had any comprehension of the meaning of the term. If my phrase looks naughty I will alter it. What I want is to be read, and therefore to give no unnecessary handle to the enemy. There will be row enough whatever I do.

Our Commission here [The Fishery Commission] implicates us in an inquiry of some difficulty, and which involves the interests of a great many poor people. I am afraid it will not leave me very much leisure. But we are in the midst of a charming country, and the work is not unpleasant or uninteresting. If the sun would only shine more than once a week it would be perfect.

With kind remembrances to Lady Lyell, believe me, faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

We shall be here for the next ten days at least. But my wife will always know my whereabouts.

Jermyn Street, March 23, 1863.

My dear Sir Charles,

I suspect that the passage to which you refer must have been taken from my unrevised proofs, for it corresponds very nearly with what is written at page 97 of my book.

Flower has recently discovered that the Siamang's brain affords an even more curious exception to the general rule than that of Mycetes, as the cerebral hemispheres leave part not only of the sides but of the hinder end of the cerebellum uncovered.

As it is one of the Anthropoid apes and yet differs in this respect far more widely from the gorilla than the gorilla differs from man, it offers a charming example of the value of cerebral characters.

Flower publishes a paper on the subject in the forthcoming number of the
"N. H. Review."

Might it not be well to allude to the fact that the existence of the posterior lobe, posterior cornu, and hippocampus in the Orang has been publicly demonstrated to an audience of experts at the College of Surgeons?

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The success of "Man's Place" was immediate, despite such criticisms as that of the "Athenaeum" that "Lyell's object is to make man old, Huxley's to degrade him." By the middle of February it reached its second thousand; in July it is heard of as republished in America; at the same time L. Buchner writes that he wished to translate it into German, but finds himself forestalled by Victor Carus. From another aspect, Lord Enniskillen, thanking him for the book, says (March 3), "I believe you are already excommunicated by book, bell, and candle," while in an undated note, Bollaert writes, "The Bishop of Oxford the other day spoke about 'the church having been in danger of late, by such books as Colenso's, but that it (the church) was now restored.' And this at a time, he might have added, when the works of Darwin, Lyell, and Huxley are torn from the hands of Mudie's shopmen, as if they were novels—(see "Daily Telegraph," April 10)."

At the same time, the impression left by his work upon the minds of the leading men of science may be judged from a few words of Sir Charles Lyell, who writes to a friend on March 15, 1863 ("Life and Letters" 2 366):—

Huxley's second thousand is going off well. If he had leisure like you and me, and the vigour and logic of the lectures, and his address to the Geological Society, and half a dozen other recent works (letters to the "Times" on Darwin, etc.), had been all in one book, what a position he would occupy! I entreated him not to undertake the "Natural History Review" before it began. The responsibility all falls on the man of chief energy and talent; it is a quarterly mischief, and will end in knocking him up.

A similar estimate appears from an earlier letter of March 11, 1859
("Life and Letters" 2 321), when he quotes Huxley's opinion of Mansel's
Bampton Lectures on the "Limits of Religious Thought":—

A friend of mine, Huxley, who will soon take rank as one of the first naturalists we have ever produced, begged me to read these sermons as first rate,] "although, regarding the author as a churchman, you will probably compare him, as I did, to the drunken fellow in Hogarth's contested election, who is sawing through the signpost at the other party's public-house, forgetting he is sitting at the other end of it. But read them as a piece of clear and unanswerable reasoning."

[In the 1894 preface to the re-issue of "Man's Place" in the Collected Essays, Huxley speaks as follows of the warnings he received against publishing on so dangerous a topic, of the storm which broke upon his head, and the small result which, in the long run, it produced (In September 1887 he wrote to Mr. Edward Clodd—]"All the propositions laid down in the wicked book, which was so well anathematised a quarter of a century ago, are now taught in the text-books. What a droll world it is!"):—

Magna est veritas et praevalebit! Truth is great, certainly, but considering her greatness, it is curious what a long time she is apt to take about prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I had finished writing "Man's Place in Nature," I could say with a good conscience that my conclusions "had not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely." I thought I had earned the right to publish them, and even fancied I might be thanked rather than reproved for doing so. However, in my anxiety to publish nothing erroneous, I asked a highly competent anatomist and very good friend of mine to look through my proofs, and, if he could, point out any errors of fact. I was well pleased when he returned them without criticism on that score; but my satisfaction was speedily dashed by the very earnest warning as to the consequences of publication, which my friend's interest in my welfare led him to give. But, as I have confessed elsewhere, when I was a young man, there was just a little—a mere soupcon—in my composition of that tenacity of purpose which has another name; and I felt sure that all the evil things prophesied would not be so painful to me as the giving up that which I had resolved to do, upon grounds which I conceived to be right. [(As to this advice not to publish "Man's Place" for fear of misrepresentation on the score of morals, he said, in criticising an attack of this sort made upon Darwin in the "Quarterly" for July 1876:—] "It seemed to me, however, that a man of science has no raison d'etre at all, unless he is willing to face much greater risks than these for the sake of that which he believes to be true; and further, that to a man of science such risks do not count for much—that they are by no means so serious as they are to a man of letters, for example.") So the book came out; and I must do my friend the justice to say that his forecast was completely justified. The Boreas of criticism blew his hardest blasts of misrepresentation and ridicule for some years, and I was even as one of the wicked. Indeed, it surprises me at times to think how anyone who had sunk so low could since have emerged into, at any rate, relative respectability. Personally, like the non-corvine personages in the Ingoldsby legend, I did not feel "one penny the worse." Translated into several languages, the book reached a wider public than I had ever hoped for; being largely helped, I imagine, by the Ernulphine advertisements to which I referred. It has had the honour of being freely utilised without acknowledgment by writers of repute; and finally it achieved the fate, which is the euthanasia of a scientific work, of being inclosed among the rubble of the foundations of later knowledge, and forgotten.

To my observation, human nature has not sensibly changed during the last thirty years. I doubt not that there are truths as plainly obvious and as generally denied as those contained in "Man's Place in Nature," now awaiting enunciation. If there is a young man of the present generation who has taken as much trouble as I did to assure himself that they are truths, let him come out with them, without troubling his head about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. Veritas praevalebit—some day; and even if she does not prevail in his time, he himself will be all the better and wiser for having tried to help her. And let him recollect that such great reward is full payment for all his labour and pains.

[The following letter refers to the newly published "Man's Place in
Nature." Miss H. Darwin had suggested a couple of corrections:—]

Jermyn Street, February 25, 1863.

My dear Darwin,

Please to say to Miss Henrietta Minos Rhadamanthus Darwin that I plead guilty to the justice of both criticisms, and throw myself on the mercy of the court.

As extenuating circumstances with respect to indictment Number 1, see prefatory notice. Extenuating circumstance Number 2—that I picked up "Atavism" in Pritchard years ago, and as it is a much more convenient word than "Hereditary transmission of variations," it slipped into equivalence in my mind, and I forgot all about the original limitation.

But if these excuses should in your judgment tend to aggravate my offences, suppress 'em like a friend. One may always hope more from a lady's tender-heartedness than from her sense of justice.

Publisher has just sent to say that I must give him any corrections for second thousand of my booklet immediately.

Why did not Miss Etty send any critical remarks on that subject by the same post? I should be most immensely obliged for them.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[During this period of special work at the anthropological side of the Evolution theory, Huxley made two important contributions to the general question.

As secretary of the Geological Society, the duty of delivering the anniversary address in 1862 fell to him in the absence of the president, Leonard Horner, who had been driven by ill-health to winter in Italy.

The object at which he aimed appears from the postscript of a brief note of February 19, 1862, to Hooker:—]

I am writing the body of the address, and I am going to criticise Paleontological doctrines in general in a way that will flutter their nerves considerable.

Darwin is met everywhere with—Oh this is opposed to paleontology, or that is opposed to paleontology—and I mean to turn round and ask, "Now, messieurs les Paleontologues, what the devil DO you really know?"

I have not changed sex, although the postscript is longer than the letter.

[The delivery of the address itself on February 21 (On "Geological
Contemporaneity" ("Collected Essays" 8 292).) is thus described by Sir
Charles Lyell (To a note of whose, proposing a talk over the subject,
Huxley replies on May 5], "I am very glad you find something to think
about in my address. That is the best of all praise.") [("Life and
Letters" 2 356):—

Huxley delivered a brilliant critical discourse on what paleontology has and has not done, and proved the value of negative evidence, how much the progressive development system has been pushed too far, how little can be said in favour of Owen's more generalised types when we go back to the vertebrata and in vertebrata of remote ages, the persistency of many forms high and low throughout time, how little we know of the beginning of life upon the earth, how often events called contemporaneous in Geology are applied to things which, instead of coinciding in time, may have happened ten millions of years apart, etc.; and a masterly sketch comparing the past and present in almost every class in zoology, and sometimes of botany cited from Hooker, which he said he had done because it was useful to look into the cellars and see how much gold there was there, and whether the quantity of bullion justified such an enormous circulation of paper. I never remember an address listened to with such applause, though there were many private protests against some of his bold opinions.

The dinner at Willis's was well attended; I should think eighty or more present…and late in the evening Huxley made them merry by a sort of mock-modest speech.]

Jermyn Street, May 6, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

I was very glad to get your note about my address. I profess to be a great stoic, you know, but there are some people from whom I am glad to get a pat on the back. Still I am not quite content with that, and I want to know what you think of the argument—whether you agree with what I say about contemporaneity or not, and whether you are prepared to admit—as I think your views compel you to do—that the whole Geological Record is only the skimmings of the pot of life.

Furthermore, I want you to chuckle with me over the notion I find a great many people entertain—that the address is dead against your views. The fact being, as they will by and by wake up [to] see that yours is the only hypothesis which is not negatived by the facts,—one of its great merits being that it allows not only of indefinite standing still, but of indefinite retrogression.

I am going to try to work the whole argument into an intelligible form for the general public as a chapter in my forthcoming "Evidence" (one half of which I am happy to say is now written) ["Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.">[, so I shall be very glad of any criticisms or hints.

Since I saw you—indeed, from the following Tuesday onwards—I have amused myself by spending ten days or so in bed. I had an unaccountable prostration of strength which they called influenza, but which, I believe, was nothing but some obstruction in the liver.

Of course I can't persuade people of this, and they will have it that it is overwork. I have come to the conviction, however, that steady work hurts nobody, the real destroyer of hardworking men being not their work, but dinners, late hours, and the universal humbug and excitement of society.

I mean to get out of all that and keep out of it.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The other contribution to the general question was his Working Men's Lectures for 1862. As he writes to Darwin on October 10—] "I can't find anything to talk to the working men about this year but your book. I mean to give them a commentary a la Coke upon Lyttleton."

[The lectures to working men here referred to, six in number, were duly delivered once a week from November 10 onwards, and published in the form of as many little pamphlets. Appearing under the general title, "On our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature," they wound up with a critical examination of the portion of Mr. Darwin's work "On the Origin of Species," in relation to the complete theory of the causes of organic nature.

Jermyn Street, December 2, 1862.

My dear Darwin,

I send you by this post three of my working men's lectures now in course of delivery. As you will see by the prefatory notice, I was asked to allow them to be taken down in shorthand for the use of the audience, but I have no interest in them, and do not desire or intend that they should be widely circulated.

Sometime hence, may be, I may revise and illustrate them, and make them into a book as a sort of popular exposition of your views, or at any rate of my version of your views.

There really is nothing new in them nor anything worth your attention, but if in glancing over them at any time you should see anything to object to, I should like to know.

I am very hard worked just now—six lectures a week, and no end of other things—but as vigorous as a three-year old. Somebody told me you had been ill, but I hope it was fiction, and that you and Mrs. Darwin and all your belongings are flourishing.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[In reply, Darwin writes on December 10:—

I agree entirely with all your reservations about accepting the doctrine, and you might have gone further with perfect safety and truth…

Touching the "Natural History Review," "Do inaugurate a great improvement, and have pages cut, like the Yankees do; I will heap blessings on your head."

And again, December 18:—

I have read Numbers 4 and 5. They are simply perfect. They ought to be largely advertised; but it is very good in me to say so, for I threw down Number 4 with this reflection, "What is the good of my writing a thundering big book, when everything is in this green little book so despicable for its size?" In the name of all that is good and bad I may as well shut up shop altogether.

These lectures met with an annoying amount of success. They were not cast into permanent form, for he grudged the time necessary to prepare them for the press. However, he gave a Mr. Hardwicke permission to take them down in shorthand as delivered for the use of the audience. But no sooner were they printed, than they had a large sale. Writing to Sir J.D. Hooker early in the following month, he says:]

I fully meant to have sent you all the successive lectures as they came out, and I forward a set with all manner of apologies for my delinquency. I am such a 'umble-minded party that I never imagined the lectures as delivered would be worth bringing out at all, and I knew I had no time to work them out. Now, I lament I did not publish them myself and turn an honest penny by them as I suspect Hardwicke is doing. He is advertising them everywhere, confound him.

I wish when you have read them you would tell me whether you think it would be worthwhile for me to re-edit, enlarge, and illustrate them by and by.

[And on January 28 Sir Charles Lyell writes to him:—

I do grudge Hardwicke very much having not only the publisher's but the author's profits. It so often happens that popular lectures designed for a class and inspired by an attentive audience's sympathy are better than any writing in the closet for the purpose of educating the many as readers, and of remunerating the publisher and author. I would lose no time in considering well what steps to take to rescue the copyright of the third thousand.

As for the value of the work thus done in support of Darwin's theory, it is worth while quoting the words of Lord Kelvin, when, as President of the Royal Society in 1894, it fell to him to award Huxley the Darwin Medal:—

To the world at large, perhaps, Mr. Huxley's share in moulding the thesis of NATURAL SELECTION is less well-known than is his bold unwearied exposition and defence of it after it had been made public. And, indeed, a speculative trifler, revelling in the problems of the "might have been," would find a congenial theme in the inquiry how soon what we now call "Darwinism" would have met with the acceptance with which it has met, and gained the power which it has gained, had it not been for the brilliant advocacy with which in its early days it was expounded to all classes of men.

That advocacy had one striking mark: while it made or strove to make clear how deep the new view went down, and how far it reached, it never shrank from trying to make equally clear the limit beyond which it could not go.]