In describing briefly and generally this new school of English science, and some of its leading scholars, I should say that I do so merely from the outside. I am not a scientific man professionally; and, even as an amateur, can only pretend to very slight attainment. But I have been on the scene of controversy, have looked over the field, and studied the bearing of the leading combatants. When Cressida had seen the chiefs of the Trojan army pass before her and had each pointed out to her and described, she could probably have told a stranger something worth his listening to, although she knew nothing of the great art of war. Only on something of the same ground do I venture to ask for any attention from American readers, when I say something about the class of scientific men who have recently sprung up in England, and of whom one of the most distinguished and one of the most aggressive has just been elected President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
This school is peculiarly English. So far as I know, it owes nothing directly and distinctly to the intellectual initiative of any other country. Both in metaphysical and in practical science there has been a sudden and powerful awakening, or perhaps I should say renaissance, in England lately. Three or four years ago Stuart Mill wrote that the sceptre of psychology had again passed over to England; and it seems to me not too much to say that England now likewise holds the sceptre of natural science. It is evident to every one that the leaders of this new school stand in antagonism which is decided, if not direct, to the teachings of orthodox theology.
The recent election of Professor Huxley as President of the British Association was accepted universally as a triumph over the orthodox party. Professor Owen, who undoubtedly possesses one of the broadest and keenest scientific intellects of the age, has lately been pushed aside and has fallen into something like comparative obscurity because he could not, or would not, see his way into the dangerous fields opened up by his younger and bolder rivals. Professor Owen held on as long as ever he could to orthodoxy. He made heavy intellectual sacrifices at its altar. I do not quite know whether in the end it was he who first gave the cold shoulder to orthodoxy, or orthodoxy which first repudiated him. But it is certain that he no longer stands out conspicuous and ardent as the great opponent of Darwin and Huxley. He has, in fact, receded so much from his old ground that one finds it difficult now to know where to place him; and perhaps it will be better to regard him as out of the controversy altogether. If he had done less for orthodoxy, where his labors were vain, he might have done much more for science, where his toil would always have been fruitful. Undoubtedly, he is one of the greatest naturalists since Cuvier; his contributions toward the facts and data of science have been valuable beyond all estimation; his practical labors in the British Museum would alone earn for him the gratitude of all students. Owen is, or was, to my mind, the very perfection of a scientific lecturer. The easy flow of simple, expressive language, the luminous arrangement and style which made the profoundest exposition intelligible, the captivating variety of illustration, the clear, well-modulated voice, the self-possessed and graceful manner—all these were attributes which made Owen a delightful lecturer, although he put forward no pretensions to rhetorical skill or to eloquence of any very high order. But while there can hardly have been any recent falling off in Owen's intellectual powers, yet it is certain that he was more thought of, that he occupied a higher place in the public esteem, some half dozen years ago than he now does. I think there has been a general impression of late years that in the controversy between theology and science, Owen was not to be relied upon implicitly. People thought that he was trying to sit on the two stools; to run with the theological hare, and hold with the scientific hounds. Indeed, Owen is eminently a respectable, a courtly savant. He does not love to run tilt against the prevailing opinion of the influential classes, or to forfeit the confidence and esteem of "society." He loves—so people say—the company of the titled and the great, and prefers, perhaps, to walk with Sir Duke than with humble Sir Scholar. All things considered, we may regard him as out of the present controversy, and, perhaps, as left behind by it and by the opinions which have created it. The orthodox do not seem much beholden to him. Only two or three years ago an orthodox association for which Owen had delivered a scientific lecture, refused on theological grounds to print the discourse in their regular volume. On the other hand, the younger and more ardent savans and scholars sneer at him, and refuse to give him credit for sincerity at the expense of his intelligence. They believe that if he chose to speak out, if he had the courage of his opinions, he would say as they do. He has ceased to be their opponent, but he is not upon their side; he is no longer the champion of pure orthodoxy, but he has never pronounced openly against it. Flippant people allude to him as an old fogy; let us say more decently that Richard Owen already belongs to the past.
"Free-thinking" has never been in England a very formidable rival of orthodox theology. Perhaps there is something in the practical nature of the average English mind which makes it indifferent and apathetic to mere speculation. The ordinary Englishmen understands being a Churchman or a Dissenter, a Roman Catholic or a no-Popery man; but he hardly understands how people can be got to concern themselves with mere sceptical speculation. Writings like those of Rousseau, for example, never could have produced in England anything like the effect they wrought in France. Of late years the effects of "free-thinking" (I am using the phrase merely in the vulgar sense) have been poor, feeble and uninfluential—wholly indeed without influence over the educated classes of society. A certain limited and transient influence was once maintained over a small surface of society by the speeches and the writings of George Jacob Holyoake. Holyoake avowed himself an Atheist, conducted a paper called (I think) "The Reasoner," was prosecuted under the terms of a foolish and discreditable act of Parliament, and had for a time something of notoriety and popular power. But Holyoake, a man of pure character and gentle manners, is devoid of anything like commanding ability, has no gleam of oratorical power, and is intellectually unreliable and vacillating. Under no conceivable circumstances could he exercise any strong or permanent control over the mind or the heart of an age: and he has of late somewhat modified his opinions, and has greatly altered his sphere of action, preferring to be a political and social reformer in a small and modest way to the barren task of endeavoring to uproot religious belief by arguments evolved from the depth of the moral consciousness. Holyoake, the Atheist, may therefore be said to have faded away.
His old place has lately been taken by a noisier, more egotistic and robust sort of person, a young man named Bradlaugh, who at one time dubbed himself "Iconoclast," and, bearing that ambitious title, used to harangue knots of working men in the North of England with the most audacious of free-thinking rhetoric. Bradlaugh has a certain kind of brassy, stentorian eloquence and a degree of reckless self conceit which almost amount to a conquering quality. But he has no intellectual capacity sufficient to make a deep mark on the mind of any section of society and he never attempts, so far as I know, any other than the old, time-worn arguments against orthodoxy with which the world has been wearily familiar since the days of Voltaire. Indeed, a man who gravely undertakes to prove by argument that there is no God, places himself at once in so anomalous, paradoxical and ridiculous a position that it is a marvel the absurdity of the situation does not strike his own mind. A man who starts with the reasonable assumption that belief is a matter of evidence and then goes on to argue that a Being does not exist of whose non-existence he can upon his own ground and pleading know absolutely nothing, is not likely to be very formidable to any of his antagonists. Orthodox theologians, therefore, are little concerned about men like Bradlaugh—very often perhaps are ignorant of the existence of any such.
I only mention Holyoake and Bradlaugh at all because they are the only prominent agitators of this kind who have appeared in England during my time. I do not mean to speak disparagingly of either man. Both have considerable abilities; both are, I am sure, sincere and honest. I have never heard anything to the disparagement of Bradlaugh's character. Holyoake I know personally, and esteem highly. But their influence has been insignificant, and cannot have any long duration. I only speak of it here to show how feeble has been the head made against orthodoxy in England by professed infidelity in our time. There was, indeed, a book written some years ago by a man of higher culture than Holyoake or Bradlaugh, and which made a bubble or two of sensation at the time. I mean "The Creed of Christendom," by William Rathbone Greg, a well-known political and philosophical essayist, who wrote largely for the "Edinburgh Review" and the "Westminster Review" and more lately for the "Pall Mall Gazette," and has now a comfortable place under government. But the "Creed of Christendom," though a clever book in its way, made no abiding mark. It was read and liked by those whose opinions it expressed, but I question if it ever made one single convert or suggested a doubt to a truly orthodox mind. I mention it because it was the only work of what is called a directly infidel character, not pretending to a scientific basis, which was contributed to the literature of English philosophy by a man of high culture and literary reputation during my memory. It will be understood that I am speaking now of works modeled after the old fashion of sceptical controversy, in which the authors make it their avowed and main purpose to assail the logical coherence and reasonableness of the Christian faith by arguments which, sound or unsound, can be brought to no practical test and settled by no possible decision. Such works may be influential among nations which are addicted to or tolerant of mere religious speculation; it is only a calling aloud to solitude to address them to the English public. Even books of a very high intellectual class, such for example as Strauss's "Life of Jesus," are translated into English in vain. They are read and admired by those already prepared to admire and eager to read them—the general public takes no heed of them.
I have ventured into this digression in order to show the more clearly how important must be the influence of that new school of science which has aroused such a commotion among the devotees of English orthodoxy. There is not, so far as I know, among the leading scientific men of the new school one single professed infidel in the old fashioned sense. The fundamental difference between them and the orthodox is that they insist upon regarding all subjects coming within the scope of human knowledge as open to inquiry and to be settled only upon evidence. I suppose a day will come when people will wonder that a scientific man, living in the England of the nineteenth century, could have been denounced from pulpits because he claimed the right and the duty to follow out his scientific investigations whithersoever they should lead him. Yet I am not aware that anything more desperately infidel than this has ever been urged by our modern English savans.
Michel Chevalier tells a story of a French iconoclast of our own time who devoted himself to a perpetual war against what he considered the two worst superstitions of the age—belief in God and dislike of spiders. This aggressive sage always carried about with him a golden box filled with the pretty and favorite insects I have mentioned; and whenever he happened to be introduced to any new acquaintance he invariably plunged at once into the questions—"Do you believe in a God, and are you afraid of spiders?"—and without waiting for an answer, he instantly demonstrated his own superiority to at least one conventional weakness by opening his box, taking out a spider, and swallowing it. I think a good deal of the old-fashioned warfare against orthodoxy had something of this spider-bolting aggressiveness about it. It assailed men's dearest beliefs in the coarsest manner, and it had commonly only horror and disgust for its reward. There is nothing of this spirit among the leaders of English scientific philosophy to-day. Not merely are the practically scientific men free from it, but even the men who are called in a sort of a contemptuous tone "philosophers" are not to be accused of it. Mill and Herbert Spencer have as little of it as Huxley and Grove. Indeed the scientific men are nothing more or less than earnest, patient, devoted inquirers, seeking out the truth fearlessly, and resolute to follow wherever she invites. Whenever they have come into open conflict with orthodoxy, it may be safely assumed that orthodoxy threw the first stone. For orthodoxy, with a keen and just instinct, detests these scientific men. The Low Church party, the great mass of the Dissenting body (excluding, of course, Unitarians) have been their uncompromising opponents. The High Church party, which, with all its mediæval weaknesses and its spiritual reaction, does assuredly boast among its leaders some high and noble intellects, and among all its classes earnest, courageous minds, has, on the contrary, given, for the most part, its confidence and its attention to the teachings of the savans. We have the testimony of Professor Huxley himself to the fact that the leading minds of the Roman Catholic Church do at least take care that the teachings of the savans shall be understood, and that they shall be combated, if at all, on scientific and not on theological grounds.
No man is more disliked and dreaded by the orthodox than Thomas Huxley. Darwin, who is really the fons et origo of the present agitation, is hardly more than a name to the outer world. He has written a book, and that is all the public know about him. He never descends into the arena of open controversy; we never read of him in the newspapers. I know of no instance of a book so famous with an author so little known. Even curiosity does not seem to concern itself about the individuality of Darwin, whose book opened up a new era of controversy, spreading all over the world, and was the sensation in England of many successive seasons. Herbert Spencer, indeed, has lived for a long time hardly noticed or known by the average English public. But then none of Spencer's books ever created the slightest sensation among that public, and three out of every four Englishmen never heard of the man or the books. Herbert Spencer is infinitely better known in the United States than he is in England, although I am far from admitting that he is better appreciated even here than by those of his countrymen who are at all acquainted with his masterly, his unsurpassed, contributions to the philosophy of the world. The singular fact about Darwin is that his book was absolutely the rage in England; everybody was bound to read it or at least to talk about it and pretend to have understood it. More excitement was aroused by it than even by Buckle's "History of Civilization;" it fluttered the petticoats in the drawing-room as much as the surplices in the pulpit; it occupied alike the attention of the scholar and the fribble, the divine and the schoolgirl. Yet the author kept himself in complete seclusion, and, for some mysterious reason or other, public curiosity never seemed disposed to persecute him. Therefore the theologians seem to have regarded him as the poet does the cuckoo, rather as a voice in the air than as a living creature; and they have not poured out much of their anger upon him personally. But Huxley comes down into the arena of public controversy and is a familiar and formidable figure there. Wherever there is strife there is Huxley. Years ago he came into the field almost unknown like the Disinherited Knight in Scott's immortal romance; and, while the good-natured spectators were urging him to turn the blunt end of the lance against the shield of the least formidable opponent, he dashed with splendid recklessness, and with spearpoint forward, against the buckler of Richard Owen himself, the most renowned of the naturalists of England. Indeed Huxley has the soul and spirit of a gallant controversialist. He has many times warned the orthodox champions that if they play at bowls they must expect rubbers; and once in the fight he never spares. He has a happy gift of shrewd sense and sarcasm combined; and, indeed, I know no man who can exhibit a sophism as a sophism and hold it up to contempt and laughter more clearly and effectively in a single sentence of exhaustive satire.
It would be wrong to regard Huxley merely as a scientific man. He is likewise a literary man, a writer. What he writes would be worth reading for its style and its expression alone, were it of no scientific authority; whereas we all know perfectly well that scientific men generally are read only for the sake of what they teach, and not at all because of their manner of teaching it—rather indeed despite of their manner of teaching it. Huxley is a fascinating writer, and has a happy way of pressing continually into the service of strictly scientific exposition illustrations caught from literature and art—even from popular and light literature. He has a gift in this way which somewhat resembles that possessed by a very different man belonging to a very different class—I mean Robert Lowe, the present English Chancellor of the Exchequer, who owes the greater part of his rhetorical success to the prodigality of varied illustration with which he illumines his speeches, and which catches, at this point or that, the attention of every kind of listener. Huxley seems to understand clearly that you can never make scientific doctrines really powerful while you are content with the ear of strictly scientific men. He cultivates, therefore, sedulously and successfully, the literary art of expression. A London friend of mine, who has had long experience in the editing of high-class periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write. Every literary man, especially every editor, will cordially agree with me that at the heart of this humorous extravagance is a solid kernel of truth. Now, scientific men very often belong to the class of those who know something, but cannot write. No one, however, could possibly confound Thomas Huxley with the band of those to whom the gift of expression is denied. He is a vivid, forcible, fascinating writer. His style as a lecturer is one which, for me at least, has a special charm. It is, indeed, devoid of any effort at rhetorical eloquence; but it has all the eloquence which is born of the union of profound thought with simple expression and luminous diction. There is not much of the poetic, certainly, about him; only the occasional dramatic vividness of his illustrations suggests the existence in him of any of the higher imaginative qualities. I think there was something like a gleam of the poetic in the half melancholy half humorous introduction of Balzac's famous "Peau de Chagrin," into the Protoplasm lecture. But Huxley as a rule treads only the firm earth, and deliberately, perhaps scornfully, rejects any attempts and aspirings after the clouds. His mind is in this way far more rigidly practical than that even of Richard Owen. He is never eloquent in the sense in which Humboldt for example was so often eloquent. Being a politician, I may be excused for borrowing an illustration from the political arena, and saying that Huxley's eloquence is like that of Cobden; it is eloquence only because it is so simply and tersely truthful. The whole tone of his mind, the whole tendency of his philosophy, may be observed to have this character of quiet, fearless, and practical truthfulness. No seeker after truth could be more earnest, more patient, more disinterested. "Dry light," as Bacon calls it—light uncolored by prejudice, undimmed by illusion, undistorted by interposing obstacle—is all that Huxley desires to have. He puts no bound to the range of human inquiry. Wherever man may look, there let him look earnestly and without fear. Truth is always naked and not ashamed. The modest, self-denying profession of Lessing that he wanted not the whole truth, and only asked to be allowed the pleasing toil of investigation, must be almost unintelligible to a student like Huxley; and indeed is only to be understood by any active inquirer, on condition that he bears in mind the healthy and racy delight which the mere labor of intellectual research gave to Lessing's vigorous and elastic mind. No subject is sacred to Huxley; because with him truth is more sacred than any sphere of inquiry. I suppose the true and pure knight would have fearlessly penetrated any shrine in his quest of the Holy Grail.