Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

Among the many problems which came under my consideration, the position of the human species in zoological classification was one of the most serious. Indeed, at that time it was a burning question in the sense that those who touched it were almost certain to burn their fingers severely. It was not so very long since my kind friend, Sir William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom I have known, had been well-nigh ostracised for his book "On Man," which now might be read in a Sunday school without surprising anybody; it was only a few years since the electors to the chair of Natural History in a famous northern university had refused to invite a very distinguished man to occupy it because he advocated the doctrine of the diversity of species of mankind, or what was called "polygeny." Even among those who considered man from the point of view, not of vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles asunder. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier another; and among my senior contemporaries, men like Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of the deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything which tended to break down the barrier between man and the rest of the animal world.

My own mind was by no means definitely made up about this matter when, in the year 1857, a paper was read before the Linnean Society "On the Characters, Principles of Division and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia," in which certain anatomical features of the brain were said to be "peculiar to the genus 'Homo,'" and were made the chief ground for separating that genus from all other mammals and placing him in a division, "Archencephala," apart from, and superior to, all the rest. As these statements did not agree with the opinions I had formed, I set to work to reinvestigate the subject; and soon satisfied myself that the structures in question were not peculiar to Man, but were shared by him with all the higher and many of the lower apes. I embarked in no public discussion of these matters, but my attention being thus drawn to them, I studied the whole question of the structural relations of Man to the next lower existing forms, with much care. And, of course, I embodied my conclusions in my teaching.

Matters were at this point when the "Origin of Species" appeared. The weighty sentence, "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history" (1st edition page 488), was not only in full harmony with the conclusions at which I had arrived respecting the structural relations of apes and men, but was strongly supported by them. And inasmuch as Development and Vertebrate Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin's many specialities, it appeared to me that I should not be intruding on the ground he had made his own, if I discussed this part of the general question. In fact, I thought that I might probably serve the cause of Evolution by doing so.

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things clear to uninstructed people was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind. So, in 1860, I took the Relation of Man to the lower Animals for the subject of the six lectures to working men which it was my duty to deliver. It was also in 1860 that this topic was discussed before a jury of experts at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, and from that time a sort of running fight on the same subject was carried on, until it culminated at the Cambridge Meeting of the Association in 1862, by my friend Sir W. Flower's public demonstration of the existence in the apes of those cerebral characters which had been said to be peculiar to man.

[The famous Oxford Meeting of 1860 was of no small importance in Huxley's career. It was not merely that he helped to save a great cause from being stifled under misrepresentation and ridicule—that he helped to extort for it a fair hearing; it was now that he first made himself known in popular estimation as a dangerous adversary in debate—a personal force in the world of science which could not be neglected. From this moment he entered the front fighting line in the most exposed quarter of the field.

Most unluckily, no contemporary account of his own exists of the encounter. Indeed, the same cause which prevented his writing home the story of the day's work nearly led to his absence from the scene. It was known that Bishop Wilberforce, whose first class in mathematics gave him, in popular estimation, a right to treat on scientific matters, intended to "smash Darwin"; and, Huxley, expecting that the promised debate would be merely an appeal to prejudice in a mixed audience, before which the scientific arguments of the Bishop's opponents would be at the utmost disadvantage, intended to leave Oxford that very morning and join his wife at Hardwicke, near Reading, where she was staying with her sister. But in a letter, quoted below, he tells how, on the Friday afternoon, he chanced to meet Robert chambers, the reputed author of the "Vestiges of Creation," who begged him "not to desert them." Accordingly he postponed his departure; but seeing his wife next morning, had no occasion to write a letter.

Several accounts of the scene are already in existence: one in the "Life of Darwin" (volume 2 page 320), another in the 1892 "Life," page 236 sq.; a third that of "Lyell" (volume 2 page 335), the slight differences between them representing the difference between individual recollections of eye-witnesses. In addition to these I have been fortunate enough to secure further reminiscences from several other eye-witnesses.

Two papers in Section D, of no great importance in themselves, became historical as affording the opponents of Darwin their opportunity of making an attack upon his theory which should tell with the public. The first was on Thursday, June 28. Dr. Daubeny of Oxford made a communication to the Section, "On the final causes of the sexuality of plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of Species." (My best thanks are due to Mr. F. Darwin for permission to quote his accounts of the meeting; other citations are from the "Athenaeum" reports of July 14, 1860.) Huxley was called upon to speak by the President, but tried to avoid a discussion, on the ground "that a general audience, in which sentiment would unduly interfere with intellect, was not the public before which such a discussion should be carried on."

This consideration, however, did not stop the discussion; it was continued by Owen. He said he "wished to approach the subject in the spirit of the philosopher," and declared his "conviction that there were facts by which the public could come to some conclusion with regard to the probabilities of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory." As one of these facts, he stated that the brain of the gorilla "presented more differences, as compared with the brain of man, than it did when compared with the brains of the very lowest and most problematical of the Quadrumana."

Now this was the very point, as said above, upon which Huxley had made special investigations during the last two years, with precisely opposite results, such as, indeed, had been arrived at by previous investigators. Hereupon he replied, giving these assertions a "direct and unqualified contradiction," and pledging himself to "justify that unusual procedure elsewhere,"—a pledge which was amply fulfilled in the pages of the "Natural History Review" for 1861.