[CHAPTER IV]
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON
Scientific Work as Unattached Ship-Surgeon—Introduction to London Scientific Society—Translating, Reviewing, and Lecturing—Ascidians—Molluscs and the Archetype—Criticism of Pre-Darwinian Evolution—Appointment to Geological Survey.
The Rattlesnake was paid off at Chatham on November 9, 1850. In the natural course of events Huxley would have been appointed before long to active service upon another ship. But he had no intention of relapsing into the position of a mere navy doctor; he had accumulated sufficient scientific material to keep him employed on scientific investigation for years, and so he applied to the Admiralty to "be borne on the books" of H.M.S. Fisgard at Woolwich,—that is to say, to be appointed assistant-surgeon to the ship "for particular service," so that he should not be compelled to live on board, but might remain in town, and, with free access to libraries and museums, work up the observations he had made on the Rattlesnake into serious and substantial contributions to science. His request was granted, largely by the aid of his old chief, Sir W. Burnett, who continued to take the most useful interest in the young man he had originally nominated to the service. In a letter to him Huxley described the investigations which he desired to continue as being chiefly those on "the anatomy of certain Gasteropod and Pteropod Mollusca, of Firola and Atlantis, of Salpa and Pyrosoma, of two new Ascidians, namely, Appendicularia and Doliolum, of Sagitta and certain Annelids, of the auditory and circulatory organs of certain transparent Crustacea, and of the Medusæ and Polyps." His request was granted, and for the next three years Huxley lived in London with his brother, on the exiguous income of an assistant-surgeon, and devoted himself to research. He became almost at once of the first rank among English anatomists. The result of the paper on Medusæ in the Transactions of the Royal Society was that he was elected a Fellow of the Society on June 5, 1851, and a year later received a Royal Medal of the Society. He made many warm friendships both among the older and the younger generations of scientific men. In his obituary notice of Huxley, Sir Michael Foster wrote:
"By Edward Forbes, in whose nature there was much that was akin to his own, and with whom he had some acquaintance before his voyage, he was at once greeted as a comrade, and with Joseph Dalton Hooker, to whom he was drawn at the very first by their common experience as navy surgeons, he began an attachment which, strengthened by like biological aspirations, grew closer as their lives went on. In the first year after his return, in the autumn of 1851, he made the acquaintance of John Tyndall at the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich, and the three, Hooker, Huxley, and Tyndall, finding how much in common were all their scientific views and desires, formed then and there a triple scientific alliance."
Repeated efforts were made by these three, and by more influential friends, to induce the Admiralty to contribute to the expense of publishing Huxley's scientific results, as they had given a pledge to encourage officers who had done scientific work. These efforts lasted unavailingly for nearly three years, and then, as Huxley says: "The Admiralty, getting tired, I suppose, cut short the discussion by ordering me to join a ship, which thing I declined to do, and, as Rastignac, in the Père Goriot, says to Paris, I said to London, à nous deux." This light phrase conceals a courageous and momentous decision. He was absolutely without private resources, and having abandoned his professional work he had no salary of any kind. For a year or so he supported himself by writing reviews and popular scientific articles, striving all the time not only to gain his bread but to continue his scientific work and make it known to the public. He desired to get a professorship of physiology or of comparative anatomy, and as vacancies occurred he applied, but unsuccessfully. At the same time, he tells us, he and his friend, John Tyndall, were
"candidates, he for the Chair of Physics, and I for that of Natural History in the University of Toronto, which, fortunately, as it turned out, would not look at either of us. I say fortunately, not from any lack of respect for the University of Toronto; but because I soon made up my mind that London was the place for me, and hence I have steadily declined the inducements to leave it which have at various times been offered."