CHAPTER 3.7.
1890-1891.
[Three letters of the first half of the year may conveniently be placed here. The first is to Tyndall, who had just been delivering an anti-Gladstonian speech at Belfast. The opening reference must be to some newspaper paragraph which I have not been able to trace, just as the second is to a paragraph in 1876, not long after Tyndall's marriage, which described Huxley as starting for America with his titled bride.]
3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 24, 1890.
My dear Tyndall,
Put down the three half-pints and the two dozen to the partnership account. Ever since the "titled bride" business I have given up the struggle against the popular belief that you and I constitute a firm.
It's very hard on me in the decline of life to have a lively young partner who thinks nothing of rushing six or seven hundred miles to perform a war-dance on the sainted G.O.M., and takes the scalp of Historicus as an hors d'oeuvre.
All of which doubtless goes down to my account just as my poor innocent articles confer a reputation for long-suffering mildness on you.
Well! well! there is no justice in this world! With our best love to you both.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[(The confusion in the popular mind continued steadily, so that at last, when Tyndall died, Huxley received the doubtful honour of a funeral sermon.)
Dr. Pelseneer, to whom the next letter is addressed, is a Belgian morphologist, and an authority upon the Mollusca. He it was who afterwards completed Huxley's unfinished memoir on Spirula for the "Challenger" report.]
4 Marlborough Place, June 10, 1890.
Dear Dr. Pelseneer,
I gave directions yesterday for the packing up and sending to your address of the specimens of Trigonia, and I trust that they will reach you safely.
I am rejoiced that you are about to take up the subject. I was but a beginner when I worked at Trigonia, and I had always promised myself that I would try to make good the many deficiencies of my little sketch. But three or four years ago my health gave way completely, and though I have recovered (no less to my own astonishment than to that of the doctors) I am compelled to live out of London and to abstain from all work which involves much labour.
Thus science has got so far ahead of me that I hesitate to say much about a difficult morphological question—all the more, as old men like myself should be on their guard against over-much tenderness for their own speculations. And I am conscious of a great tenderness for those contained in my ancient memoir on the "Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca." Certainly I am entirely disposed to agree with you that the Gasteropods and the Lamellibranchs spring from a common root—nearly represented by the Chiton—especially by a hypothetical Chiton with one shell plate.
I always thought Nucula the key to the Lamellibranchs, and I am very glad you have come to that conclusion on such much better evidence.
I am, dear Dr. Pelseneer, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Towards the end of June he went for a week to Salisbury, taking long walks in the neighbourhood, and exploring the town and cathedral, which he confessed himself ashamed never to have seen before.
He characteristically fixes its date in his memory by noting that the main part of it was completed when Dante was a year old.]
The White Hart, Salisbury, June 22, 1890.
My dear Donnelly,
Couldn't stand any more London, so bolted here yesterday morning, and here I shall probably stop for the next few days.
I have been trying any time the last thirty years to see Stonehenge, and this time I mean to do it. I should have gone to-day, but the weather was not promising, so I spent my Sunday morning in Old Sarum—that blessed old tumulus with nine (or was it eleven?) burgesses that used to send two members to Parliament when I was a child. Really you Radicals are of some use after all!
Poor old Smyth's death is just what I expected, though I did not think the catastrophe was so imminent. [Warrington Wilkinson Smyth (1817-1890), the geologist and mineralogist. In 1851 he was appointed Lecturer on Mining and Mineralogy at the Royal School of Mines. After the lectureships were separated in 1881, he retained the former until his death. He was knighted in 1887.]
Peace be with him; he never did justice to his very considerable abilities, but he was a good fellow and a fine old crusted Conservative.
I suppose it will be necessary to declare the vacancy and put somebody in his place before long.
I learned before I started that Smyth was to be buried in Cornwall, so there is no question of attending at his funeral.
I am the last of the original Jermyn Street gang left in the school now—Ultimus Romanorum!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This trip was taken by way of a holiday after the writing of an article, which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for July 1890. It was called "The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science," and may be considered as written in fulfilment of the plan spoken of in the letter to Mr. Clodd (above). Its subject was the necessary dependence of Christian theology upon the historical accuracy of the Old Testament; its occasion, the publication of a sermon in which, as a counterblast to "Lux Mundi", Canon Liddon declared that accuracy to be sanctioned by the use made of the Old Testament by Jesus Christ, and bade his hearers close their ears against any suggestions impairing the credit of those Jewish Scriptures which have received the stamp of His Divine authority.
Pointing out that, as in other branches of history, so here the historical accuracy of early tradition was abandoned even by conservative critics, who at all understood the nature of the problems involved, Huxley proceeded to examine the story of the Flood, and to show that the difficulties were little less in treating it—like the reconcilers—as a partial than as a universal deluge. Then he discussed the origin of the story, and criticised the attempt of the essayist in "Lux Mundi" to treat this and similar stories as "types," which must be valueless if typical of no underlying reality. These things are of moment in speculative thought, for if Adam be not an historical character, if the story of the Fall be but a type, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken; they are of moment practically, for it is the story of the Creation which is referred to in the] "speech (Matt. 19 5) unhappily famous for the legal oppression to which it has been wrongfully forced to lend itself" [in the marriage laws.
In July 1890, Sir J.G.T. Sinclair wrote to him, calling his attention to a statement of Babbage's that after a certain point his famous calculating machine, contrary to all expectation, suddenly introduced a new principle of numeration into a series of numbers (Extract from Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. Babbage shows that a calculating machine can be constructed which, after working in a correct and orderly manner up to 100,000,000, then leaps, and instead of continuing the chain of numbers unbroken, goes at once to 100,010,002. "The law which seemed at first to govern the series failed at the hundred million and second term. This term is larger than we expected by 10,000. The law thus changes:—
100,000,001 100,010,002 100,030,003 100,060,004 100,100,005 100,150,006 100,210,007 100,280,008.
For a hundred or even a thousand terms they continued to follow the new law relating to the triangular numbers, but after watching them for 2761 terms we find that this law fails at the 2762nd term.
If we continue to observe we shall discover another law then coming into action which also is different, dependent, but in a different manner, on triangular numbers because a number of points agreeing with their term may be placed in the form of a triangle, thus:—
(1 dot.) (3 dots in the form of a triangle.) (6 dots in the form of a triangle.) (10 dots in the form of a triangle.) (one, three, six, ten).
This will continue through about 1430 terms, when a new law is again introduced over about 950 terms, and this too, like its predecessors, fails and gives place to other laws which appear at different intervals."), and asking what effect this phenomenon had upon the theory of Induction. Huxley replied as follows:—]
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, July 21, 1890.
Dear Sir,
I knew Mr. Babbage, and am quite sure that he was not the man to say anything on the topic of calculating machines which he could not justify.
I do not see that what he says affects the philosophy of induction as rightly understood. No induction, however broad its basis, can confer certainty—in the strict sense of the word. The experience of the whole human race through innumerable years has shown that stones unsupported fall to the ground, but that does not make it certain that any day next week unsupported stones will not move the other way. All that it does justify is the very strong expectation, which hitherto has been invariably verified, that they will do just the contrary.
Only one absolute certainty is possible to man—namely, that at any given moment the feeling which he has exists.
All other so-called certainties are beliefs of greater or less intensity.
Do not suppose that I am following Abernethy's famous prescription, "take my pills," if I refer you to an essay of mine on "Descartes," and a little book on Hume, for the fuller discussion of these points. Hume's argument against miracles turns altogether on the fallacy that induction can give certainty in the strict sense.
We poor mortals have to be content with hope and belief in all matters past and present—our sole certainty is momentary.
I am yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Sir J.G.T. Sinclair, Bart.
[Except for a last visit to London to pack his books, which proved a heavier undertaking than he had reckoned upon, Huxley did not leave Eastbourne this autumn, refusing Sir J. Donnelly's hospitable invitation to stay with him in Surrey during the move, of which he exclaims:—]
Thank Heaven that is my last move—except to a still smaller residence of a subterranean character!
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, September 19, 1890.
My dear Donnelly,
And my books—and watch-dog business generally?
How is that to be transacted whether as in-patient or out-patient at
Firdale? Much hospitality hath made thee mad.
Seriously, it's not to be done nohow. What between papers that don't come, and profligate bracket manufacturers who keep you waiting for months and then send the wrong things—and a general tendency of everybody to do nothing right or something wrong—it is as much as the two of us will do—to get in, and all in the course of the next three weeks.
Of course my wife has no business to go to London to superintend the packing—but I should like to see anybody stop her. However, she has got the faithful Minnie to do the actual work; and swears by all her Gods and Goddesses she will only direct.
It would only make her unhappy if I did not make pretend to believe, and hope no harm may come of it.
Tout a vous,
T.H. Huxley.
[Another discussion which sprang up in the "Times", upon Medical Education, evoked a letter from him ("Times" August 7), urging that the preliminary training ought to be much more thorough and exact. The student at his first coming is so completely habituated to learn only from books or oral teaching, that the attempt to learn from things and to get his knowledge at first hand is something new and strange. Thus a large proportion of medical students spend much of their first year in learning how to learn, and when they have done that, in acquiring the preliminary scientific knowledge, with which, under any rational system of education, they would have come provided.
He urged, too, that they should have received a proper literary education instead of a sham acquaintance with Latin, and insisted, as he had so often done, on the literary wealth of their own language.
Every one has his own ideas of what a liberal education ought to include, and a correspondent wrote to ask him, among other things, whether he did not think the higher mathematics ought to be included. He replied:—]
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, August 16, 1890.
I think mathematical training highly desirable, but advanced mathematics, I am afraid, would be too great a burden in proportion to its utility, to the ordinary student.
I fully agree with you that the incapacity of teachers is the weak point in the London schools. But what is to be expected when a man accepts a lectureship in a medical school simply as a grappling-iron by which he may hold on until he gets a hospital appointment?
Medical education in London will never be what it ought to be, until the "Institutes of Medicine," as the Scotch call them, are taught in only two or three well-found institutions—while the hospital schools are confined to the teaching of practical medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and so on.
[The following letters illustrate Huxley's keenness to correct any misrepresentation of his opinions from a weighty source, amid the way in which, without abating his just claims, he could make the peace gracefully.
In October Dr. Abbott delivered an address on "Illusions," in which, without, of course, mentioning names, he drew an unmistakable picture of Huxley as a thorough pessimist. A very brief report appeared in the "Times" of October 9, together with a leading article upon the subject. Huxley thereupon wrote to the "Times" a letter which throws light both upon his early days and his later opinions:—]
The article on "Illusions" in the "Times" of to-day induces me to notice the remarkable exemplification of them to which you have drawn public attention. The Reverend Dr. Abbott has pointed the moral of his discourse by a reference to a living man, the delicacy of which will be widely and justly appreciated. I have reason to believe that I am acquainted with this person, somewhat intimately, though I can by no means call myself his best friend—far from it.
If I am right, I can affirm that this poor fellow did not escape from the "narrow school in which he was brought up" at nineteen, but more than two years later; and, as he pursued his studies in London, perhaps he had as many opportunities for "fruitful converse with friends and equals," to say nothing of superiors, as he would have enjoyed elsewhere.
Moreover, whether the naval officers with whom he consorted were book-learned or not, they were emphatically men, trained to face realities and to have a wholesome contempt for mere talkers. Any one of them was worth a wilderness of phrase-crammed undergraduates. Indeed, I have heard my misguided acquaintance declare that he regards his four years' training under the hard conditions and the sharp discipline of his cruise as an education of inestimable value.
As to being a "keen-witted pessimist out and out," the Reverend Dr. Abbott's "horrid example" has shown me the following sentence:—"Pessimism is as little consonant with the facts of sentient existence as optimism." He says he published it in 1888, in an article on "Industrial Development," to be seen in the "Nineteenth Century". But no doubt this is another illusion. No superior person, brought up "in the Universities," to boot, could possibly have invented a myth so circumstantial.
[The end of the correspondence was quite amicable. Dr. Abbott explained that he had taken his facts from the recently published "Autobiography," and that the reporters had wonderfully altered what he really said by large omissions. In a second letter ("Times" October 11) Huxley says:—]
I am much obliged to Dr. Abbott for his courteous explanation. I myself have suffered so many things at the hands of so many reporters—of whom it may too often be said that their "faith, unfaithful, makes them falsely true"—that I can fully enter into what his feelings must have been when he contemplated the picture of his discourse, in which the lights on "raw midshipmen," "pessimist out and out," "devil take the hindmost," and "Heine's dragoon," were so high, while the "good things" he was kind enough to say about me lay in the deep shadow of the invisible. And I can assure Dr. Abbott that I should not have dreamed of noticing the report of his interesting lecture, which I read when it appeared, had it not been made the subject of the leading article which drew the attention of all the world to it on the following day.
I was well aware that Dr. Abbott must have founded his remarks on the brief notice of my life which (without my knowledge) has been thrust into its present ridiculous position among biographies of eminent musicians; and most undoubtedly anything I have said there is public property. But erroneous suppositions imaginatively connected with what I have said appear to me to stand upon a different footing, especially when they are interspersed with remarks injurious to my early friends. Some of the "raw midshipmen and unlearned naval officers" of whom Dr. Abbott speaks, in terms which he certainly did not find in my "autobiography," are, I am glad to say, still alive, and are performing, or have performed, valuable services to their country. I wonder what Dr. Abbott would think, and perhaps say, if his youthful University friends were spoken of as "raw curates and unlearned country squires."
When David Hume's housemaid was wroth because somebody chalked up "St David's" on his house, the philosopher is said to have remarked,—" Never mind, lassie, better men than I have been made saints of before now." And, perhaps, if I had recollected that "better men than I have been made texts of before now," a slight flavour of wrath which may be perceptible would have vanished from my first letter. If Dr. Abbott has found any phrase of mine too strong, I beg him to set it against "out and out pessimist" and "Heine's dragoon," and let us cry quits. He is the last person with whom I should wish to quarrel.
[Two interesting criticisms of books follow; one "The First Three
Gospels", by the Reverend Estlin Carpenter; the other on "Use and
Disuse", directed against the doctrine of use-inheritance, by Mr. Platt
Ball, who not only sent the book but appealed to him for advice as to
his future course in undertaking a larger work on the evolution of man.]
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, October 11, 1890.
My dear Mr. Carpenter,
Accept my best thanks for "The First Three Gospels", which strikes me as an admirable exposition of the case, full, clear, and calm. Indeed the latter quality gives it here and there a touch of humour. You say the most damaging things in a way so gentle that the orthodox reader must feel like the eels who were skinned by the fair Molly—lost between pain and admiration.
I am certainly glad to see that the book has reached a second edition; it will do yeoman's service to the cause of right reason.
A friend of mine was in the habit of sending me his proofs, and I sometimes wrote on them "no objection except to the whole"; and I am afraid that you will think what I am about to say comes to pretty much the same thing—at least if I am right in the supposition that a passage in your first preface (page 7) states your fundamental position, and that you conceive that when criticism has done its uttermost there still remains evidence that the personality of Jesus was the leading cause—the conditio sine qua non—of the evolution of Christianity from Judaism.
I long thought so, and having a strong dislike to belittle the heroic figures of history, I held by the notion as long as I could, but I find it melting away.
I cannot see that the moral and religious ideal of early Christianity is new—on the other hand, it seems to me to be implicitly and explicitly contained in the early prophetic Judaism and the later Hellenised Judaism; and though it is quite true that the new vitality of the old ideal manifested in early Christianity demands "an adequate historic cause," I would suggest that the word "cause" may mislead if it is not carefully defined.
Medical philosophy draws a most useful and necessary distinction between "exciting" and "predisposing" causes—and nowhere is it more needful to keep this distinction in mind than in history—and especially in estimating the action of individuals on the course of human affairs. Platonic and Stoical philosophy—prophetic liberalism—the strong democratic socialism of the Jewish political system—the existence of innumerable sodalities for religious and social purposes—had thrown the ancient world into a state of unstable equilibrium. With such predisposing causes at work, the exciting cause of enormous changes might be relatively insignificant. The powder was there—a child might throw the match which should blow up the whole concern.
I do not want to seem irreverent, still less depreciatory, of noble men, but it strikes me that in the present case the Nazarenes were the match and Paul the child.
An ingrained habit of trying to explain the unknown by the known leads me to find the key to Nazarenism in Quakerism. It is impossible to read the early history of the Friends without seeing that George Fox was a person who exerted extraordinary influence over the men with whom he came in contact; and it is equally impossible (at least for me) to discover in his copious remains an original thought.
Yet what with the corruption of the Stuarts, the Phariseeism of the Puritans, and the Sadduceeism of the Church, England was in such a state, that before his death he had gathered about him a vast body of devoted followers, whose patient endurance of persecution is a marvel. Moreover, the Quakers have exercised a prodigious influence on later English life.
But I have scribbled a great deal too much already. You will see what I mean.
To Mr. W. Platt Ball.
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, October 27, 1890.
Dear Sir,
I have been through your book, which has greatly interested me, at a hand-gallop; and I have by no means given it the attention it deserves. But the day after to-morrow I shall be going into a new house here, and it may be some time before I settle down to work in it—so that I prefer to seem hasty, rather than indifferent to your book and still more to your letter.
As to the book, in the first place. The only criticism I have to offer—in the ordinary depreciatory sense of the word—is that pages 128 to 137 seem to me to require reconsideration, partly from a substantial and partly from a tactical point of view. There is much that is disputable on the one hand, and not necessary to your argument on the other.
Otherwise it seems to me that the case could hardly be better stated.
Here are a few notes and queries that have occurred to me.
Page 41. Extinction of Tasmanians—rather due to the British colonist, who was the main agent of their extirpation, I fancy.
Page 67. Birds' sternums are a great deal more than surfaces of origin for the pectoral muscles—e.g. movable lid of respiratory bellows. This not taken into account by Darwin.
Page 85. "Inferiority of senses of Europeans" is, I believe, a pure delusion. Professor Marsh told me of feats of American trappers equal to any savage doings. It is a question of attention. Consider wool-sorters, tea-tasters, shepherds who know every sheep personally, etc. etc.
Page 85. I do not understand about the infant's sole; since all men become bipeds, all must exert pressure on sole. There is no disuse.
Page 88. Has not "muscardine" been substituted for "pebrine"? I have always considered this a very striking case. Here is apparent inheritance of a diseased state through the mother only, quite inexplicable till Pasteur discovered the rationale.
Page 155. Have you considered that State Socialism (for which I have little enough love) may be a product of Natural Selection? The societies of Bees and Ants exhibit socialism in excelsis.
The unlucky substitution of "survival of fittest" for "natural selection" has done much harm in consequence of the ambiguity of "fittest"—which many take to mean "best" or "highest"—whereas natural selection may work towards degradation: vide epizoa.
You do not refer to the male mamma—which becomes functional once in many million cases, see the curious records of Gynaecomasty. Here practical disuse in the male ever since the origin of the mammalia has not abolished the mamma or destroyed its functional potentiality in extremely rare cases.
I absolutely disbelieve in use-inheritance as the evidence stands. Spencer is bound to it a priori—his psychology goes to pieces without it.
Now as to the letter. I am no pessimist—but also no optimist. The world might be much worse, and it might be much better. Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture—and very much to our credit.
If you will accept the results of the experience of an old man who has had a very chequered existence—and has nothing to hope for except a few years of quiet downhill—there is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human affections), nothing that satisfies quiet reflection—except the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and light, to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of all sorts. That was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books when I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life.
Therefore, my advice to you is go ahead. You may make more of failing to get money, and of succeeding in getting abuse—until such time in your life as (if you are teachable) you have ceased to care much about either. The job you propose to undertake is a big one, and will tax all your energies and all your patience.
But, if it were my case, I should take my chance of failing in a worthy task rather than of succeeding in lower things.
And if at any time I can be of use to you (even to the answering of letters) let me know. But in truth I am getting rusty in science—from disuse.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—Yes—Mr. Gladstone has dug up the hatchet. We shall see who gets the scalps.
By the way, you have not referred to plants, which are a stronghold for you. What is the good of use-inheritance, say, in orchids?
[The interests which had formerly been divided between biology and other branches of science and philosophy, were diverted from the one channel only to run stronger in the rest. Stagnation was the one thing impossible to him; his rest was mental activity without excessive physical fatigue; and he felt he still had a useful purpose to serve, as a friend put it, in patrolling his beat with a vigilant eye to the loose characters of thought. Thus he writes on September 29 to Sir J. Hooker:—]
I wish quietude of mind were possible to me. But without something to do that amuses me and does not involve too much labour, I become quite unendurable—to myself and everybody else.
Providence has, I believe, specially devolved on Gladstone, Gore, and
Co. the function of keeping "'ome 'appy" for me.
I really can't give up tormenting ces droles.
However, I have been toiling at a tremendously scientific article about the "Aryan question" absolutely devoid of blasphemy.
[This article appeared in the November number of the "Nineteenth Century" ("Collected Essays" 7 271) and treats the question from a biological point of view, with the warning to readers that it is essentially a speculation based upon facts, but not assuredly proved. It starts from the racial characteristics of skull and stature, not from simply philological considerations, and arrives at a form of the "Sarmatian" theory of Aryan origins. And for fear lest he should be supposed to take sides in the question of race and language, or race and civilisation, he remarks:—]
The combination of swarthiness with stature above the average and a long skull, confer upon me the serene impartiality of a mongrel.
The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, August 12, 1890.
My dear Evans,
I have read your address returned herewith with a great deal of interest, as I happen to have been amusing myself lately with reviewing the "Aryan" question according to the new lights (or darknesses).
I have only two or three remarks to offer on the places I have marked A and B.
As to A, I would not state the case so strongly against the probabilities of finding pliocene man. A pliocene Homo skeleton might analogically be expected to differ no more from that of modern men than the Oeningen Canis from modern Canes, or pliocene horses from modern horses. If so, he would most undoubtedly be a man—genus Homo—even if you made him a distinct species. For my part I should by no means be astonished to find the genus Homo represented in the Miocene, say the Neanderthal man with rather smaller brain capacity, longer arms and more movable great toe, but at most specifically different.
As to B, I rather think there were people who fought the fallacy of language being a test of race before Broca—among them thy servant—who got into considerable hot water on that subject for a lecture on the forefathers and forerunners of the English people, delivered in 1870. Taylor says that Cuno was the first to insist upon the proposition that race is not co-extensive with language in 1871. That is all stuff. The same thesis had been maintained before I took it up, but I cannot remember by whom. [Cp. letter to Max Muller of June 15, 1865 volume 1.]
Won't you refer to the Blackmore Museum? I was very much struck with it when at Salisbury the other day.
Hope they gave you a better lunch at Gloucester than we did here. We'll treat you better next time in our own den. With the wife's kindest regards.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The remark in a preceding letter about "Gladstone, Gore, and Co." turned out to be prophetic as well as retrospective. Mr. Gladstone published this autumn in "Good Words" his "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture," containing an attack upon Huxley's position as taken up in their previous controversy of 1889.
The debate now turned upon the story of the Gadarene swine. The question at issue was not, at first sight, one of vital importance, and one critic at least remarked that at their age Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley might be better occupied than in fighting over the Gadarene pigs:—]
If these too famous swine were the only parties to the suit, I for my part (writes Huxley, "Collected Essays" 5 414) should fully admit the justice of the rebuke. But the real issue (he contends) is whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed truth, or to reject it as degrading falsity.
[A lively encounter followed:—]
The G.O.M. is not murdered [he writes on November 20], only "fillipped with a three-man beetle," as the fat knight has it.
[This refers to the forthcoming article in the December "Nineteenth
Century", "The Keepers of the Herd of Swine," which was followed in
March 1891 by "Mr. Gladstone's Controversial Methods" (see "Collected
Essays" 5 366 sqq.), the rejoinder to Mr. Gladstone's reply in February.
The scope of this controversy was enlarged by the intervention in the January "Nineteenth Century" of the Duke of Argyll, to whom he devoted the concluding paragraphs of his March article. But it was scarcely well under way when another, accompanied by much greater effusion of ink and passion, sprang up in the columns of the "Times". His share in it, published in 1891 as a pamphlet under the title of "Social Diseases and Worse Remedies," is to be found in "Collected Essays" 9 237.]
I have a new row on hand in re Salvation Army! [he writes on December 2]. It's all Mrs. —'s fault; she offered the money.
[In fact, a lady who was preparing to subscribe 1000 pounds to "General" Booth's "Darkest England" scheme, begged Huxley first to give her his opinion of the scheme and the likelihood of its being properly carried out. A careful examination of "Darkest England" and other authorities on the subject, convinced him that it was most unwise to create an organisation whose absolute obedience to an irresponsible leader might some day become a serious danger to the State; that the reforms proposed were already being undertaken by other bodies, which would be crippled if this scheme were floated; and that the financial arrangements of the Army were not such as provide guarantees for the proper administration of the funds subscribed:—]
And if the thing goes on much longer, if Booth establishes his Bank, you will have a crash some of these fine days, comparable only to Law's Mississippi business, but unfortunately ruining only the poor.
[On the same day he writes to his eldest son:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 8, 1890.
Attacking the Salvation Army may look like the advance of a forlorn hope, but this old dog has never yet let go after fixing his teeth into anything or anybody, and he is not going to begin now. And it is only a question of holding on. Look at Plumptre's letter exposing the Bank swindle.
The "Times", too, is behaving like a brick. This world is not a very lovely place, but down at the bottom, as old Carlyle preached, veracity does really lie, and will show itself if people won't be impatient.
[No sooner had he begun to express these opinions in the columns of the "Times" than additional information of all kinds poured in upon him, especially from within the Army, much of it private for fear of injury to the writers if it were discovered that they had written to expose abuses; indeed in one case the writer had thought better of even appending his signature to his letter, and had cut off his name from the foot of it, alleging that correspondence was not inviolable. So far were these persons from feeling hostility to the organisation to which they belonged, that one at least hailed the Professor as the divinely-appointed redeemer of the Army, whose criticism was to bring it back to its pristine purity.
To his elder son:—]
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 8, 1891.
Dear Lens,
It is very jolly to think of J. and you paying us a visit. It is proper, also, the eldest son should hansel the house.
Is the Mr. Sidgwick who took up the cudgels for me so gallantly in the "St. James'" one of your Sidgwicks? If so, I wish you would thank him on my account. (The letter was capital.) [Mr. William C. Sidgwick had written (January 4) an indignant letter to protest against the heading of an article in the "Speaker", Professor Huxley as Titus Oates." "To this monster of iniquity the "Speaker" compares an honourable English gentleman, because he has ventured to dissuade his countrymen from giving money to Mr. William Booth…Mr. Huxley's views on theology may be wrong, but nobody doubts that he honestly holds them; they do not bring Mr. Huxley wealth and honours, nor do they cause the murder of the innocent. To insinuate a resemblance which you dare not state openly is an outrage on common decency…] Generally people like me to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them, but don't care to take any share in the burning of the fingers.
But the Boothites are hard hit, and may be allowed to cry out.
I begin to think that they must be right in saying that the Devil is at work to destroy them. No other theory sufficiently accounts for the way they play into my hands. Poor Clibborn-Booth has a long—columns long—letter in the "Times" to-day, in which, all unbeknownst to himself, he proves my case.
I do believe it is a veritable case of the herd of swine, and I shall have to admit the probability of that miracle.
Love to J. and Co. from us all.
Ever your affectionate Pater.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 11, 1891.
My dear Mr. Clodd,
I am very much obliged to you for the number of the "St. James's Gazette", which I had not seen. The leading article expresses exactly the same conclusions as those at which I had myself arrived from the study of the deed of 1878. But of course I was not going to entangle myself in a legal discussion. However, I have reason to know that the question will be dealt with by a highly qualified legal expert before long. The more I see of the operations of headquarters the worse they look. I get some of my most valuable information and heartiest encouragement from officers of the Salvation Army; and I knew, in this way, of Smith's resignation a couple of days before it was announced! But the poor fellows are so afraid of spies and consequent persecution, that some implore me not to notice their letters, and all pledge me to secrecy. So that I am Vice-Fontanelle with my hand full of truth, while I can only open my little finger.
It is a case of one down and t'other come on, just now. "—" will get his deserts in due time. But, oh dear, what a waste of time for a man who has not much to look to. No; "waste" is the wrong word; it's useful, but I wish that somebody else would do it and leave me to my books.
My wife desires her kind regards. I am happy to say she is now remarkably well. If you are this way, pray look in at our Hermitage.
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 30, 1891.
My dear Hooker,
I trust I have done with Booth and Co. at last. What an ass a man is to try to prevent his fellow-creatures from being humbugged! Surely I am old enough to know better. I have not been so well abused for an age. It's quite like old times.
And now I have to settle accounts with the Duke and the G.O.M. I wonder when the wicked will let me be at peace.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
[Other letters touch upon the politics of the hour, especially upon the sudden and dramatic fall of Parnell. He could not but admire the power and determination of the man, and his political methods, an admiration rashly interpreted by some journalist as admiration of the objects to which these political methods were applied. (See Volume 2.)]
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, November 26, 1890.
My dear Lecky,
Very many thanks for your two volumes, which I rejoice to have, especially as a present from you. I was only waiting until we were settled in our new house—as I hope we shall be this time next week—to add them to the set which already adorn my shelves, and I promise myself soon to enjoy the reading of them.
The Unionist cause is looking up. What a strange thing it is that the Irish malcontents are always sold, one way or the other, by their leaders.
I wonder if the G.O.M. ever swears! Pity if he can't have that relief just now.
With our united kind regards to Mrs. Lecky and yourself.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, November 29, 1890.
My dear Hooker,
I have filled up and sent your and my copies of entry for Athenaeum.
Carpenter has written the best popular statement I know of, of the results of criticism, in a little book called "The First Three Gospels", which is well worth reading. [See above.]
I have promised to go to the Royal Society dinner and propose Stokes' health on Monday, but if the weather holds out as Arctic as it is now, I shall not dare to venture. The driving east wind, blowing the snow before it here, has been awful; for ten years they have had nothing like it. I am glad to say that my little house turns out to be warm. We go in next Wednesday, and I fear I cannot be in town on Thursday even if the weather permits.
I have had pleurisy that was dangerous and not painful, then pleurisy that was painful and not dangerous; there is only one further combination, and I don't want that.
Politics now are immensely interesting. There must be a depth of blackguardism in me, for I cannot help admiring Parnell. I prophesy that it is Gladstone who will retire for a while, and then come back to Parnell's heel like a whipped hound. His letter was carefully full of loopholes.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 2, 1890.
My dear Hooker,
The question of questions now is whether the Unionists will have the sense to carry a measure settling the land question at once. If they do that, I do not believe it will be in the power of man to stir them further. And my belief is that Parnell will be quite content with that solution. He does not want to be made a nonentity by Davitt or the Irish Americans.
But what ingrained liars they all are! That is the bottom of all Irish trouble. Fancy Healy and Sexton going to Dublin to swear eternal fidelity to their leader, and now openly declaring that they only did so because they believed he would resign.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, January 10, 1891.
My dear Foster,
I am trying to bring the Booth business to an end so far as I am concerned, but it's like getting a wolf by the ears; you can't let him go exactly when you like.
But the result is quite worth the trouble. Booth, Stead, Tillett,
Manning and Co. have their little game spoilt for the present.
You cannot imagine the quantity of letters I get from the Salvation Army subordinates, thanking me and telling me all sorts of stories in strict confidence. The poor devils are frightened out of their lives by headquarter spies. Some beg me not to reply, as their letters are opened.
I knew that saints were not bad hands at lying before; but these Booth people beat Banagher.
Then there is — awaits skinning, and I believe the G.O.M. is to be upon me! Oh for a quiet life.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[But by February 17 the Booth business was over, the final rejoinder to
Mr. Gladstone sent to press; and he writes to Sir J. Hooker:—]
Please the pigs, I have now done with them—wiped my month, and am going to be good—till next time.
But in truth I am as sick of controversy as a confectioner's boy of tarts.
I rather think I shall set up as a political prophet. Gladstone and all the rest are coming to heel to their master.
Years ago one of the present leaders of the anti-Parnellites said to me: "Gladstone is always in the hands of somebody stronger than himself; formerly it was Bright, now it is Parnell."