Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work

by Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell

THE BATTLE FOR EVOLUTION

Huxley's Prevision of the Battle—The Causes of the Battle—The Times Review—Sir Richard Owen attacks Darwinism in the Edinburgh Review—Bishop Wilberforce attacks in the Quarterly Review—Huxley's Scathing Replies—The British Association Debates at Oxford—Huxley and Wilberforce—Résumé of Huxley's Exact Position with Regard to Evolution and to Natural Selection.

When Huxley wrote thanking Darwin for the first copy of the Origin, he warned him of the annoyance and abuse he might expect from those whose opinions were too suddenly disturbed by the new exposition of evolution, and assured him of the strongest personal support:

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

"I am sharpening my claws and beak in readiness."

Huxley was absolutely right in his prediction as to the magnitude of the prejudices to be overcome before evolution became accepted, and for the next thirty years of his life he was the leader in the battle for Darwinism. It was natural that the new views, especially in their extension to man himself, should arouse the keenest opposition. To those of the present generation, who have grown up in an atmosphere impregnated by the doctrine of descent, the position of the world in 1860 seems "older than a tale written in any book." As we have tried to shew in the preceding chapter, biological science was partially prepared; the mutability of species and the orderly succession of organic life were in the air. But the application of the doctrine to man came as a greater shock to civilised sentiment than would have occurred a century earlier. It came as a disaster even to the clearest and calmest intellects, for it seemed to drag down to the dirt the nobility of man. Out of the fierce flame of the French Revolution, there had come purged and clean the conception of man as an individual and soul. As this century advanced, the conception of the dignity and worth of each individual man, rich or poor, bond or free, had spread more and more widely, bearing as its fruit the emancipation of slaves, the spread of political freedom, the amelioration of the conditions of the dregs of humanity, the right of all to education, the possibility of universal peace based on the brotherhood of man; and all that was best in philosophy and in political practice seemed bound up with a lofty view of the unit of mankind. Carlyle himself, to whom many of the freest and noblest spirits in Europe were beginning to look as to an inspired prophet, could see in it nothing but a "monkey damnification of mankind." The dogmatic world saw in it nothing but a deliberate and malicious assault upon religion. The Church of England in particular was beginning to recover from a long period of almost incredible supineness, and there was arising a large body of clergy full of faith and zeal and good works, but quite unacquainted with science, who frankly regarded Darwin as Antichrist, and Huxley and Tyndall as emissaries of the devil. Against evolutionists there was left unused no weapon that ignorant prejudice could find, whether that prejudice was inspired by a lofty zeal for what it conceived to be the highest interests of humanity, or by a crafty policy which saw in the new doctrine a blow to the coming renewed supremacy of the Church. To us, now, it may seem that Huxley had "sharpened his beak and claws" with the spirit of a gladiator rather than with that of the mere defender of a scientific doctrine; but a very short study of contemporary literature will convince anyone that for a time the defenders of evolution had to defend not only what they knew to be scientific truth, but their personal and private reputation. The new doctrine, like perhaps all the great doctrines that have come into the world, brought not peace but a sword, and had to be defended by the sword. Darwin had not the kind of disposition nor the particular faculties necessary for a deadly contest of this kind; he was interested indeed above all things in convincing a few leading naturalists of the truth of his opinions; but, that done, he would have been contented to continue his own work quietly, in absolute carelessness as to what the world in general thought of him. Huxley, on the other hand, was incapable of restraining himself from propagating what he knew to be the truth; his reforming missionary spirit was not content simply with self-defence; it drove him to be a bishop in partibus infidelium.

By a curious and interesting accident, Huxley had the opportunity of beginning his propagandism by writing the first great review of The Origin of Species in the Times, at that period without question the leading journal in the world. Huxley's own account of this happy chance is given in Darwin's Life and Letters, vol. ii.

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

"I was too anxious to seize on the opportunity thus offered of giving the book a fair chance with the multitudinous readers of the Times to make any difficulty about conditions; and being then very full of the subject, I wrote the article faster, I think, than I ever wrote anything in my life, and sent it to Mr. Lucas, who duly prefixed his opening sentences. When the article appeared, there was much speculation as to its authorship. The secret leaked out in time, as all secrets will, but not by my aid; and then I used to derive a good deal of innocent amusement from the vehement assertions of some of my more acute friends, that they knew it was mine from the first paragraph." "As the Times some years since referred to my connection with the review, I suppose there will be no breach of confidence in the publication of this little history."