Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

CHAPTER 2.11.

1879.

[Much of the work noted down for 1878 reappears in my father's list for 1879. He was still at work upon, or meditating his Crayfish, his Introduction to Psychology, the Spirula Memoir, and a new edition of the Elementary Physiology. Professor H.N. Martin writes about the changes necessary for adapting the "Practical Biology" to American needs; the article on Harvey was waiting to be put into permanent form. Besides giving an address at the Working Men's College, he lectured on Sensation and the Uniformity of the Sensiferous Organs ("Collected Essays" 6.), at the Royal Institution, Friday evening, March 7; and on Snakes, both at the Zoological Gardens, June 5, and at the London Institution, December 1. On February 3 he read a paper at the Royal Society on "The Characters of the Pelvis in the Mammalia, and the Conclusions respecting the Origin of Mammals which may be based on them"; and published in "Nature" for November 6 a paper on "Certain Errors Respecting the Structure of the Heart, attributed to Aristotle."

Great interest attaches to this paper. He had always wondered how Aristotle, in dissecting a heart, had come to assert that it contained only three chambers; and the desire to see for himself what stood in the original, uncommented on by translators who were not themselves anatomists, was one of the chief reasons (I think the wish to read the Greek Testament in the original was another) which operated in making him take up the study of Greek late in middle life. His practice was to read in his book until he had come to ten new words; these he looked out, parsed, and wrote down together with their chief derivatives. This was his daily portion.

When at last he grappled with the passage in question, he found that Aristotle had correctly described what he saw under the special conditions of his dissection, when the right auricle actually appears as he described it, an enlargement of the "great vein." So that this, at least, ought to be removed from the list of Aristotle's errors. The same is shown to be the case with his statements about respiration. His own estimate of Aristotle as a physiologist is between the panegyric of Cuvier and the depreciation of Lewes: "he carried science a step beyond the point at which he found it; a meritorious, but not a miraculous, achievement." And it will interest scholars to know that from his own experience as a lecturer, Huxley was inclined to favour the theory that the original manuscripts of the "Historia Animalium," with their mingled accuracy and absurdity, were notes taken by some of his students. This essay was reprinted in "Science and Culture" page 180.

This year he brought out his second volume of essays on various subjects, written from 1870 to 1878, under the title of "Critiques and Addresses," and later in the year, his long-delayed and now entirely recast "Introductory Primer" in the Science Primer Series.]

6 Barnepark Terrace, Teignmouth, September 12, 1879.

My dear Roscoe,

I send you by this post my long-promised Primer, and a like set of sheets goes to Stewart. [Balfour Stewart, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Owens College, Manchester.]

You will see that it is quite different from my first sketch, Geikie's primer having cut me out of that line—but I think it much better.

You will see that the idea is to develop Science out of common observation, and to lead up to Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Psychology.

I want the thing to be good as far as it goes, so don't spare criticism.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Best remembrances from us all, which we are jolly.

[To his other duties he now added that of a Governor of Eton College, a post which he held till 1888, when, after doing what he could to advance progressive ideas of education, and in particular, getting a scheme adopted for making drawing part of the regular curriculum, ill-health compelled him to resign.]

As for other pressure of work [he writes to Dr. Dohrn, February 16], with the exception of the Zoological Society, I never have anything to do with the affairs of any society but the Royal now—I find the latter takes up all my disposable time…Take comfort from me. I find 53 to be a very youthful period of existence. I have been better physically, and worked harder mentally, this last twelve month than in any year of my life. So a mere boy, not yet 40 like you, may look to the future hopefully.

[From about this time dates the inception of a short-lived society, to be called the Association of Liberal Thinkers. It had first taken shape in the course of a conversation at Professor W.K. Clifford's house; the chief promoter and organiser being a well-known Theistic preacher, while on the council were men of science, critics, and scholars in various branches of learning. Huxley was chosen President, and the first meeting of officers and council took place at his house on January 25.

Professor G.J. Romanes was asked to join, but refused on the ground that even if the negations which he supposed the society would promulgate, were true, it was not expedient to offer them to the multitude. To this Huxley wrote the following reply (January 2, 1879):—]

Many thanks for your letter. I think it is desirable to explain that our Society is by no means intended to constitute a propaganda of negations, but rather to serve as a centre of free thought.

Of course I have not a word to say in respect of your decision. I quite appreciate your view of the matter, though it is diametrically opposed to my own conviction that the more rapidly truth is spread among mankind the better it will be for them.

Only let us be sure that it is truth.

[However, a course of action was proposed which by no means commended itself to several members of the council. Tyndall begs Huxley "not to commit us to a venture of the kind unless you see clearly that it meets a public need, and that it will be worked by able men," and on February 6 the latter writes:—]

After careful consideration of the whole circumstances of the case, I have definitely arrived at the conclusion that it is not expedient to go on with the undertaking.

I therefore resign my Presidency, and I will ask you to be so good as to intimate my withdrawal from the association to my colleagues.

[In spite of having long ago "burned his ships" with regard to both the great Universities, Huxley was agreeably surprised by a new sign of the times from Cambridge. The University now followed up its recognition of Darwin two years before, by offering Huxley an honorary degree, an event of which he wrote to Professor Baynes on June 9:—]

I shall be glorious in a red gown at Cambridge to-morrow, and hereafter look to be treated as a PERSON OF RESPECTABILITY.

I have done my best to avoid that misfortune, but it's of no use.

[A curious coincidence occurred here. Mr. Sandys, the public orator, in his speech presenting him for the degree, picked out one of his characteristics for description in the Horatian phrase, "Propositi tenax." Now this was the family motto; and Huxley wrote to point out the coincidence. (The speech delivered by the public orator on this occasion (June 10, 1879) ran as follows:—Academi inter silvas qui verum quaerunt, non modo ipsi veritatis lumine vitam hanc umbratilem illustrare conantur, sed illustrissimum quemque veritatis investigatorem aliunde delatum ea qua par est comitate excipiunt. Adest vir cui in veritate exploranda ampla sane provincia contigit, qui sive in animantium sive in arborum et herbarum genere quicquid vivit investigat, ipsum illud vivere quid sit, quali ex origine natum sit; qui exquirit quae cognationis necessitudo inter priores illas viventium species et has quae etiam nunc supersunt, intercedat. Olim in Oceano Australi, ubi rectis "oculis monstra natantia" vidit, victoriam prope primam, velut alter Perseus, a Medusa reportavit; varias deinceps animantium formas quasi ab ipsa Gorgone in saxum versas sagacitate singulari explicavit; vitae denique universae explorandae vitam suam totam dedicavit. Physicorum inter principes diu honoratus, idem (ut verbum mutuemur a Cartesio illo cujus laudes ipse in hac urbe quondam praedicavit) etiam "metaphysica" honore debito prosecutus est. Illum demum liberaliter educatum esse existimat qui cum ceteris animi et corporis dotibus instructus sit, tum praesertim quicquid turpe sit oderit, quicquid sive in arte sive in rerum natura pulchrum sit diligat; neque tamen ipse (ut ait Aristotles) "animalium parum pulchorum contemplationem fastidio puerili reformidat"; sed in perpetua animantium serie hominis vestigia perscrutari conatus, satis ampla liberalitate in universa rerum natura "humani nihil a se alienum putat." Duco ad vos virum intrepidum, facundum, propositi tenacem, Thomam Henricum Huxley.)]

Science and Art Department, South Kensington, June 11, 1879.

My dear Mr. Sandys,

I beg your acceptance of the inclosed photograph, which is certainly the best ever executed of me.

And by way of a memento of the claim which you established not only to the eloquence but also the insight of a prophet, I have added an impression of the seal with "Tenax propositi" writ plain, if not large. As I mentioned to you, it belonged to my eldest brother, who has been dead for many years. I trust that the Heralds' College may be as well satisfied as he was about his right to the coat of arms and crest.

My own genealogical inquiries have taken me so far back that I confess the later stages do not interest me.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The British Association met at Sheffield in 1879, and Huxley took this occasion to "eat the leek" in the matter of Bathybius (see volume 1). It must be remembered that his original interpretation of the phenomenon did not involve any new theory of the origin of life, and was not put forward because of its supposed harmony with Darwin's speculations.] ("That which interested me in the matter was the apparent analogy of Bathybius with other well-known forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia of the Myxomycetes and the Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the matter; and if Bathybius were brought up alive from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the slightest bearing, that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or upon any of the disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one elementary organism the more added to the thousands already known.") [("Collected Essays 5 154.)

In supporting a vote of thanks to Dr. Allman, the President, for his address, he said (see "Nature" August 28, 1879):—]

I will ask you to allow me to say one word rather upon my own account, in order to prevent a misconception which, I think, might arise, and which I should regret if it did arise. I daresay that no one in this room, who has attained middle life, has been so fortunate as to reach that age without being obliged, now and then, to look back upon some acquaintance, or, it may be, intimate ally of his youth, who has not quite verified the promises of that youth. Nay, let us suppose he has done quite the reverse, and has become a very questionable sort of character, and a person whose acquaintance does not seem quite so desirable as it was in those young days; his way and yours have separated; you have not heard much about him; but eminently trustworthy persons have assured you he has done this, that, or the other; and is more or less of a black sheep, in fact. The President, in an early part of his address, alluded to a certain thing—I hardly know whether I ought to call it a thing or not—of which he gave you the name Bathybius, and he stated, with perfect justice, that I had brought that thing into notice; at any rate, indeed, I christened it, and I am, in a certain sense, its earliest friend. For some time after that interesting Bathybius was launched into the world, a number of admirable persons took the little thing by the hand, and made very much of it, and as the President was good enough to tell you, I am glad to be able to repeat and verify all the statements, as a matter of fact, which I had ventured to make about it. And so things went on, and I thought my young friend Bathybius would turn out a credit to me. But I am sorry to say, as time has gone on, he has not altogether verified the promise of his youth.

In the first place, as the President told you, he could not be found when he was wanted; and in the second place, when he was found, all sorts of things were said about him. Indeed, I regret to be obliged to tell you that some persons of severe minds went so far as to say that he was nothing but simply a gelatinous precipitate of slime, which had carried down organic matter. If that is so, I am very sorry for it, for whoever may have joined in this error, I am undoubtedly primarily responsible for it. But I do not know at the present time of my own knowledge how the matter stands. Nothing would please me more than to investigate the matter afresh in the way it ought to be investigated, but that would require a voyage of some time, and the investigation of this thing in its native haunts is a kind of work for which, for many years past, I have had no opportunity, and which I do not think I am very likely to enjoy again. Therefore my own judgment is in an absolute state of suspension about it. I can only assure you what has been said about this friend of mine, but I cannot say whether what is said is justified or not. But I feel very happy about the matter. There is one thing about us men of science, and that is, no one who has the greatest prejudice against science can venture to say that we ever endeavour to conceal each other's mistakes. And, therefore, I rest in the most entire and complete confidence that if this should happen to be a blunder of mine, some day or other it will be carefully exposed by somebody. But pray let me remind you whether all this story about Bathybius be right or wrong, makes not the slightest difference to the general argument of the remarkable address put before you to-night. All the statements your President has made are just as true, as profoundly true, as if this little eccentric Bathybius did not exist at all.

[Several letters of miscellaneous interest may be quoted.

The following acknowledges the receipt of "Essays in Romance":—]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., January 1879.

My dear Skelton,

Being the most procrastinating letter-writer in existence, I thought, or pretended to think, when I received your "Essays in Romance" that it would not be decent to thank you until I had read the book. And when I had done myself that pleasure, I further pretended to think that it would be much better to wait till I could send you my Hume book, which as it contains a biography, is the nearest approach to a work of fiction of which I have yet been guilty.

The "Hume" was sent, and I hope reached you a week ago; and as my conscience just now inquired in a very sneering and unpleasant tone whether I had any further pretence for not writing on hand, I thought I might as well stop her mouth at once.

You will see oddly enough that I have answered your question about dreams in a sort of way on page 96. [Cp. "Essays in Romance" page 329; Huxley's "Hume" page 96.]

You will get nothing but praise for your book, and I shall be vilipended for mine. Is that fact, or is it not, an evidence of a special Providence and Divine Government?

Pray remember me very kindly to Mrs. Skelton. I hope your interrupted visit will yet become a fact. We have a clean bill of health now.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Scottish University Commission, 31 Queen Street, Edinburgh, April 2, 1879.

My dear Skelton,

I shall be delighted to dine with you on Wednesday, and take part in any discussion either moral or immoral that may be started.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

March 15, 1879.

My dear Mrs. Tyndall,

Your hearty letter is as good as a bottle of the best sunshine. Yes, I will lunch with you on Friday with pleasure, and Jess proposes to attend on the occasion…Her husband is in Gloucester, and so doesn't count. The absurd creature declares she must go back to him on Saturday—stuff and sentiment. She has only been here six or seven weeks. There is nothing said in scripture about a wife cleaving to her husband!

With all our loves, ever yours very sincerely,

T.H. Huxley.

[The next is to his son, then at St. Andrews University, on winning a scholarship tenable at Oxford.]

South Kensington, April 21, 1879.

My dear Boy,

I was very glad to get your good news this morning, and I need not tell you whether M— was pleased or not.

But the light of nature doth not inform us of the value and duration of the "Guthrie"—and from a low and material point of view I should like to be informed on that subject. However, this is "mere matter of detail" as the Irishman said when he was asked HOW he had killed his landlord. The pleasure to us is that you have made good use of your opportunities, and finished this first stage of your journey so creditably.

I am about to write to the Master of Balliol for advice as to your future proceedings. In the meanwhile, go in for the enjoyment of your holiday with a light heart. You have earned it.

Ever your loving father,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following, to Mrs. Clifford, was called forth by a hitch in respect to the grant to her of a Civil List pension after the death of her husband:—]

4 Marlborough Place, July 19, 1879.

My dear Lucy,

I am just off to Gloucester to fetch M— back, and I shall have a long talk with that sage little woman over your letter.

In the meanwhile keep quiet and do nothing. I feel the force of what you say very strongly—so strongly, in fact, that I must morally ice myself and get my judgment clear and cool before I advise you what is to be done.

I am very sorry to hear you have been so ill. For the present dismiss the matter from your thoughts and give your mind to getting better. Leave it all to be turned over in the mind of that cold-blooded, worldly, cynical old fellow, who signs himself,

Your affectionate Pater.

[The last is to Mr. Edward Clodd, on receiving his book "Jesus of
Nazareth.">[

4 Marlborough Place, Abbey Road, N.W., December 21, 1879.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

I have been spending all this Sunday afternoon over the book you have been kind enough to send me, and being a swift reader, I have travelled honestly from cover to cover.

It is the book I have been longing to see; in spirit, matter and form it appears to me to be exactly what people like myself have been wanting. For though for the last quarter of a century I have done all that lay in my power to oppose and destroy the idolatrous accretions of Judaism and Christianity, I have never had the slightest sympathy with those who, as the Germans say, would "throw the child away along with the bath"—and when I was a member of the London School Board I fought for the retention of the Bible, to the great scandal of some of my Liberal friends—who can't make out to this day whether I was a hypocrite, or simply a fool on that occasion.

But my meaning was that the mass of the people should not be deprived of the one great literature which is open to them—not shut out from the perception of their relations with the whole past history of civilised mankind—not excluded from such a view of Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth as that which at last you have given us.

I cannot doubt that your work will have a great success not only in the grosser, but the better sense of the word.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The winter of 1879-80 was memorable for its prolonged spell of cold weather. One result of this may be traced in a New Year's letter from Huxley to his eldest daughter.] "I have had a capital holiday—mostly in bed—but I don't feel so grateful for it as I might do." [To be forced to avoid the many interruptions and distractions of his life in London, which claimed the greatest part of his time, he would regard as an unmixed blessing; as he once said feelingly to Professor Marsh,] "If I could only break my leg, what a lot of scientific work I could do!" [But he was less grateful for having entire inaction forced upon him.

However, he was soon about again, and wrote as follows in answer to a letter from Sir Thomas (afterwards Lord) Farrer, which called his attention, as an old Fishery Commissioner, to a recent report on the sea-fisheries.]

4 Marlborough Place, January 9, 1880.

My dear Farrer,

I shall be delighted to take a dive into the unfathomable depths of official folly; but your promised document has not reached me.

Your astonishment at the tenacity of life of fallacies, permit me to say, is shockingly unphysiological. They, like other low organisms, are independent of brains, and only wriggle the more, the more they are smitten on the place where the brains ought to be—I don't know B., but I am convinced that A. has nothing but a spinal cord, devoid of any cerebral development. Would Mr. Cross give him up for purposes of experiment? Lingen and you might perhaps be got to join in a memorial to that effect.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A fresh chapter of research, the results of which he now began to give to the public, was the history of the Dog. On April 6 and 13 he lectured at the Royal Institution "On Dogs and the Problems connected with them"—their relation to other animals, and the problem of the origin of the domestic dog, and the dog-like animals in general. As so often before, these lectures were the outcome of the careful preparation of a course of instruction for his students. The dog had been selected as one of the types of mammalian structure upon which laboratory work was to be done. Huxley's own dissections had led him on to a complete survey of the genus, both wild and domestic. As he writes to Darwin on May 10:—]

I wish it were not such a long story that I could tell you all about the dogs. They will make out such a case for "Darwinismus" as never was. From the South American dogs at the bottom (C. vetulus, cancrivorus, etc.) to the wolves at the top, there is a regular gradual progression the range of variation of each "species" overlapping the ranges of those below and above. Moreover, as to the domestic dogs, I think I can prove that the small dogs are modified jackals, and the big dogs ditto wolves. I have been getting capital material from India, and working the whole affair out on the basis of measurements of skulls and teeth.

However, my paper for the Zoological Society is finished, and I hope soon to send you a copy of it…

[Unfortunately he never found time to complete his work for final publication in book form, and the rough, unfinished notes are all that remain of his work, beyond two monographs "On the Epipubis in the Dog and Fox" ("Proceedings of the Royal Society" 30 162-63), and "On the Cranial and Dental Characters of the Canidae" ("Proceedings of the Zoological Society" 1880 pages 238-288).

The following letters deal with the collection of specimens for examination:—]

4 Marlborough Place, January 17, 1880.

My dear Flower,

I happened to get hold of two foxes this week—a fine dog fox and his vixen wife; and among other things, I have been looking up Cowper's glands, the supposed absence of which in the dogs has always "gone agin' me." Moreover, I have found them (or their representatives) in the shape of two small sacs, which open by conspicuous apertures into the urethra immediately behind the bulb. If your Icticyon was a male, I commend this point to your notice.

ITEM.

If you have not already begun to macerate him, do look for the "marsupial" fibro-cartilages, which I have mentioned in my "Manual," but the existence of which blasphemers have denied. I found them again at once in both Mr. and Mrs. Vulpes. You spot them immediately by the pectineus which is attached to them.

The dog-fox's caecum is so different from the vixen's that Gray would have made distinct genera of them.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., May 2, 1880.

My dear Fayrer,

I am greatly obliged for the skulls, and I hope you will offer my best thanks to your son for the trouble he has taken in getting them.

The "fox" is especially interesting because it is not a fox, by any manner of means, but a big jackal with some interesting points of approximation towards the cuons.

I do not see any locality given along with the specimens. Can you supply it?

I have got together some very curious evidence of the wider range of variability of the Indian jackal, and the "fox" which your son has sent is the most extreme form in one direction I have met with.

I wish I could get some examples from the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and from Ceylon, as well as from Central India. Almost all I have seen yet are from Bengal.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Between the two lectures on the Dog, mentioned above, on April 9, Huxley delivered a Friday evening discourse, at the same place, "On the Coming of Age of the Origin of Species" ("Collected Essays" 2 227). Reviewing the history of the theory of evolution in the twenty-one years that had elapsed since the "Origin of Species" first saw the light in 1859, he did not merely dwell on the immense influence the "Origin" had exercised upon every field of biological inquiry.] "Mere insanities and inanities have before now swollen to portentous size in the course of twenty years." "History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies, and to end as superstitions." [There was actual danger lest a new generation should] "accept the main doctrines of the "Origin of Species" with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, years ago, rejected them."

[So dire a consummation, he declared, must be prevented by unflinching criticism, the essence of the scientific spirit,] "for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors."

[What, then, were the facts which justified so great a change as had taken place, which had removed some of the most important qualifications under which he himself had accepted the theory? He proceeded to enumerate the] "crushing accumulation of evidence" [during this period, which had proved the imperfection of the geological record; had filled up enormous gaps, such as those between birds and reptiles, vertebrates and invertebrates, flowering and flowerless plants, or the lowest forms of animal and plant life. More: paleontology alone has effected so much—the fact that evolution has taken place is so irresistibly forced upon the mind by the study of the Tertiary mammalia brought to light since 1859, that] "if the doctrine of evolution had not existed, paleontologists must have invented it." [He further developed the subject by reading before the Zoological Society a paper "On the Application of the Laws of Evolution to the Arrangement of the Vertebrata, and more particularly of the Mammalia" ("Proceedings of the Zoological Society" 1880 pages 649-662). In reply to Darwin's letter thanking him for the "Coming of Age" ("Life and Letters" 3 24), he wrote on May 10:—]

My dear Darwin,

You are the cheeriest letter-writer I know, and always help a man to think the best of his doings.

I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about "Natural Selection," that I am at all weak of faith on that article. On the contrary, I live in hope that as paleontologists work more and more in the manner of that "second Daniel come to judgment," that wise young man M. Filhal, we shall arrive at a crushing accumulation of evidence in that direction also. But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into people's heads; when that is once safe, the rest will come easy.

I hear that ce cher X. is yelping about again; but in spite of your provocative messages (which Rachel retailed with great glee), I am not going to attack him nor anybody else.

[Another popular lecture on a zoological subject was that of July 1 on "Cuttlefish and Squids," the last of the "Davis" lectures given by him at the Zoological Gardens.

More important were two other essays delivered this year. The "Method of Zadig" ("Collected Essays" 4 1), an address at the Working Men's College, takes for its text Voltaire's story of the philosopher at the Oriental court, who, by taking note of trivial indications, obtains a perilous knowledge of things which his neighbours ascribe either to thievery or magic. This introduces a discourse on the identity of the methods of science and of the judgments of common life, a fact which, twenty-six years before, he had briefly stated in the words,] "Science is nothing but trained and organised common sense" [("Collected Essays" 3 45).

The other is "Science and Culture" ("Collected Essays" 3 134), which was delivered on October 1, as the opening address of the Josiah Mason College at Birmingham, and gave its name to a volume of essays published in the following year. Here was a great school founded by a successful manufacturer, which was designed to give an education at once practical and liberal, such as the experience of its founder approved, to young men who meant to embark upon practical life. A "mere" literary training—i.e. in the classical languages—was excluded, but not so the study of English literature and modern languages. The greatest stress was laid on training in the scientific theory and practice on which depend the future of the great manufactures of the north.

The question dealt with in this address is whether such an education can give the culture demanded of an educated man to-day. The answer is emphatically Yes. English literature is a field of culture second to none, and for solely literary purposes, a thorough knowledge of it, backed by some other modern language, will amply suffice. Combined with this, a knowledge of modern science, its principles and results, which have so profoundly modified society and have created modern civilisation, will give a "criticism of life," as Matthew Arnold defined "the end and aim of all literature," that is to say culture, unattainable by any form of education which neglects it. In short, although the "culture" of former periods might be purely literary, that of to-day must be based, to a great extent, upon natural science.

This autumn several letters passed between him and Darwin. The latter, contrary to his usual custom, wrote a letter to "Nature," in reply to an unfair attack which had been made upon evolution by Sir Wyville Thomson in his Introduction to "The Voyage of the Challenger" (see Darwin "Life and Letters" 3 242), and asked Huxley to look over the concluding sentences of the letter, and to decide whether they should go with the rest to the printer or not. "My request," he writes (November 5), "will not cost you much trouble—i.e. to read two pages—for I know that you can decide at once." Huxley struck them out, replying on the 14th,] "Your pinned-on paragraph was so good that, if I had written it myself, I should have been unable to refrain from sending it on to the printer. But it is much easier to be virtuous on other people's account; and though Thomson deserved it and more, I thought it would be better to refrain. If I say a savage thing, it is only 'Pretty Fanny's way'; but if you do, it is not likely to be forgotten."

[The rest of this correspondence has to do with a plan of Darwin's, generous as ever, to obtain a Civil List pension for the veteran naturalist, Wallace, whose magnificent work for science had brought him but little material return. He wrote to consult Huxley as to what steps had best be taken; the latter replied in the letter of November 14:—]

The papers in re Wallace have arrived, and I lose no time in assuring you that all my "might, amity, and authority," as Essex said when that sneak Bacon asked him for a favour, shall be exercised as you wish.

On December 11 he sends Darwin the draft of a memorial on the subject, and on the 28th suggests that the best way of moving the official world would be for Darwin himself to send the memorial, with a note of his own, to Mr. Gladstone, who was then Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury:—]

Mr. G. can do a thing gracefully when he is so minded, and unless I greatly mistake, he will be so minded if you write to him.

[The result was all that could be hoped. On January 7 Darwin writes:—"Hurrah! hurrah! read the enclosed. Was it not extraordinarily kind of Mr. Gladstone to write himself at the present time?…I have written to Wallace. He owes much to you. Had it not been for your advice and assistance, I should never have had courage to go on."

The rest of the letter to Darwin of December 28 is characteristic of his own view of life. As he wrote four years before (see above), he was no pessimist any more than he was a professed optimist. If the vast amount of inevitable suffering precluded the one view, the gratuitous pleasures, so to speak, of life preclude the other. Life properly lived is worth living, and would be even if a malevolent fate had decreed that one should suffer, say, the pangs of toothache two hours out of every twenty-four. So he writes:—]

We have had all the chicks (and the husbands of such as are therewith provided) round the Christmas table once more, and a pleasant sight they were, though I say it that shouldn't. Only the grand-daughter left out, the young woman not having reached the age when change and society are valuable.

I don't know what you think about anniversaries. I like them, being always minded to drink my cup of life to the bottom, and take my chance of the sweets and bitters.

[The following is to his Edinburgh friend Dr. Skelton, whose appreciation of his frequent companionship had found outspoken expression in the pages of "The Crookit Meg.">[

4 Marlborough Place, November 14, 1880.

My dear Skelton,

When the "Crooked Meg" reached me I made up my mind that it would be a shame to send the empty acknowledgment which I give (or don't give) for most books that reach me.

But I am over head and ears in work—time utterly wasted in mere knowledge getting and giving—and for six weeks not an hour for real edification with a wholesome story.

But this Sunday afternoon being, by the blessing of God, as beastly a November day as you shall see, I have attended to my spiritual side and been visited by a blessing in the shape of some very pretty and unexpected words anent mysel'. [The passage referred to stands on page 72 of "The Crookit Meg," and describes the village naturalist and philosopher, Adam Meldrum, "who in his working hours cobbled old boats, and knew by heart the plays of Shakespeare and the 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica' of Sir Thomas Browne."

"For the rest it will be enough to add that this long, gaunt, bony cobbler of old boats was—was—(May I take the liberty, Mr. Professor?) a village Huxley of the year One. The colourless brilliancy of the great teacher's style, the easy facility with which the drop of light forms itself into a perfect sphere as it falls from his pen, belong indeed to a consummate master of the art of expression, which Adam of course was not; but the mental lucidity, justice, and balance, as well as the reserve of power, and the Shakespearean gaiety of touch, which made the old man one of the most delightful companions in the world, were essentially Huxleian.">[

In truth, it is a right excellent story, though, distinctly in love with Eppie, I can only wonder how you had the heart to treat her so ill. A girl like that should have had two husbands—one "wisely ranged for show" and t'other de par amours.

Don't ruin me with Mrs. Skelton by repeating this, but please remember me very kindly to her.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter to Tyndall was called forth by an incident in connection with the starting of the "Nineteenth Century." Huxley had promised to help the editor by looking over the proofs of a monthly article on contemporary science. But his advertised position as merely adviser in this to the editor was overlooked by some who resented what they supposed to be his assumption of the role of critic in general to his fellow-workers in science. At a meeting of the x Club, Tyndall made a jesting allusion to this; Huxley, however, thought the mere suggestion too grave for a joke, and replied with all seriousness to clear himself from the possibility of such misconception. And the same evening he wrote to Tyndall:—]

Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, S.W., December 2, 1880.

My dear Tyndall,

I must tell you the ins and outs of this "Nineteenth Century" business. I was anxious to help Knowles when he started the journal, and at his earnest and pressing request I agreed to do what I have done. But being quite aware of the misinterpretation to which I should be liable if my name "sans phrase" were attached to the article, I insisted upon the exact words which you will find at the head of it; and which seemed, and still seem to me, to define my position as a mere adviser of the editor.

Moreover, by diligently excluding any expression of opinion on the part of the writers of the compilation, I thought that nobody could possibly suspect me of assuming the position of an authority even on the subjects with which I may be supposed to be acquainted, let alone those such as physics and chemistry, of which I know no more than any one of the public may know.

Therefore your remarks came upon me to-night with the sort of painful surprise which a man feels who is accused of the particular sin of which he flatters himself he is especially NOT GUILTY, and "roused my corruption" as the Scotch have it. But there is no need to say anything about that, for you were generous and good as I have always found you. Only I pray you, if hereafter it strikes you that any doing of mine should be altered or amended, tell me yourself and privately, and I promise you a very patient listener, and what is more a very thankful one.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Tyndall replied with no less frankness, thanking him for the friendly promptitude of his letter, and explaining that he had meant to speak privately on the matter, but had been forestalled by the subject coming up when it did. And he wound up by declaring that it would be too absurd to admit the power of such an occasion "to put even a momentary strain upon the cable which has held us together for nine and twenty years."

At the very end of the year, George Eliot died. A proposal was immediately set on foot to inter her remains in Westminster Abbey, and various men of letters pressed the matter on the Dean, who was unwilling to stir without a very strong and general expression of opinion. To Mr. Herbert Spencer, who had urged him to join in memorialising the Dean, Huxley replied as follows:—]

4 Marlborough Place, December 27, 1880.

My dear Spencer,

Your telegram which reached me on Friday evening caused me great perplexity, inasmuch as I had just been talking with Morley, and agreeing with him that the proposal for a funeral in Westminster Abbey had a very questionable look to us, who desired nothing so much as that peace and honour should attend George Eliot to her grave.

It can hardly be doubted that the proposal will be bitterly opposed, possibly (as happened in Mill's case with less provocation), with the raking up of past histories, about which the opinion even of those who have least the desire or the right to be pharisaical is strongly divided, and which had better be forgotten.

With respect to putting pressure on the Dean of Westminster, I have to consider that he has some confidence in me, and before asking him to do something for which he is pretty sure to be violently assailed, I have to ask myself whether I really think it a right thing for a man in his position to do.

Now I cannot say I do. However much I may lament the circumstance, Westminster Abbey is a Christian Church and not a Pantheon, and the Dean thereof is officially a Christian priest, and we ask him to bestow exceptional Christian honours by this burial in the Abbey. George Eliot is known not only as a great writer, but as a person whose life and opinions were in notorious antagonism to Christian practice in regard to marriage, and Christian theory in regard to dogma. How am I to tell the Dean that I think he ought to read over the body of a person who did not repent of what the Church considers mortal sin, a service not one solitary proposition in which she would have accepted for truth while she was alive? How am I to urge him to do that which, if I were in his place, I should most emphatically refuse to do?

You tell me that Mrs. Cross wished for the funeral in the Abbey. While I desire to entertain the greatest respect for her wishes, I am very sorry to hear it. I do not understand the feeling which could create such a desire on any personal grounds, save those of affection, and the natural yearning to be near even in death to those whom we have loved. And on public grounds the wish is still less intelligible to me. One cannot eat one's cake and have it too. Those who elect to be free in thought and deed must not hanker after the rewards, if they are to be so called, which the world offers to those who put up with its fetters.

Thus, however I look at the proposal it seems to me to be a profound mistake, and I can have nothing to do with it.

I shall be deeply grieved if this resolution is ascribed to any other motives than those which I have set forth at more length than I intended.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.