I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about "Natural Selection," that I am at all weak of faith on that article. On the contrary, I live in hope that as paleontologists work more and more in the manner of that "second Daniel come to judgment," that wise young man M. Filhal, we shall arrive at a crushing accumulation of evidence in that direction also. But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into people's heads; when that is once safe, the rest will come easy.
I hear that ce cher X. is yelping about again; but in spite of your provocative messages (which Rachel retailed with great glee), I am not going to attack him nor anybody else.
[Another popular lecture on a zoological subject was that of July 1 on "Cuttlefish and Squids," the last of the "Davis" lectures given by him at the Zoological Gardens.
More important were two other essays delivered this year. The "Method of Zadig" ("Collected Essays" 4 1), an address at the Working Men's College, takes for its text Voltaire's story of the philosopher at the Oriental court, who, by taking note of trivial indications, obtains a perilous knowledge of things which his neighbours ascribe either to thievery or magic. This introduces a discourse on the identity of the methods of science and of the judgments of common life, a fact which, twenty-six years before, he had briefly stated in the words,] "Science is nothing but trained and organised common sense" [("Collected Essays" 3 45).
The other is "Science and Culture" ("Collected Essays" 3 134), which was delivered on October 1, as the opening address of the Josiah Mason College at Birmingham, and gave its name to a volume of essays published in the following year. Here was a great school founded by a successful manufacturer, which was designed to give an education at once practical and liberal, such as the experience of its founder approved, to young men who meant to embark upon practical life. A "mere" literary training—i.e. in the classical languages—was excluded, but not so the study of English literature and modern languages. The greatest stress was laid on training in the scientific theory and practice on which depend the future of the great manufactures of the north.
The question dealt with in this address is whether such an education can give the culture demanded of an educated man to-day. The answer is emphatically Yes. English literature is a field of culture second to none, and for solely literary purposes, a thorough knowledge of it, backed by some other modern language, will amply suffice. Combined with this, a knowledge of modern science, its principles and results, which have so profoundly modified society and have created modern civilisation, will give a "criticism of life," as Matthew Arnold defined "the end and aim of all literature," that is to say culture, unattainable by any form of education which neglects it. In short, although the "culture" of former periods might be purely literary, that of to-day must be based, to a great extent, upon natural science.
This autumn several letters passed between him and Darwin. The latter, contrary to his usual custom, wrote a letter to "Nature," in reply to an unfair attack which had been made upon evolution by Sir Wyville Thomson in his Introduction to "The Voyage of the Challenger" (see Darwin "Life and Letters" 3 242), and asked Huxley to look over the concluding sentences of the letter, and to decide whether they should go with the rest to the printer or not. "My request," he writes (November 5), "will not cost you much trouble—i.e. to read two pages—for I know that you can decide at once." Huxley struck them out, replying on the 14th,] "Your pinned-on paragraph was so good that, if I had written it myself, I should have been unable to refrain from sending it on to the printer. But it is much easier to be virtuous on other people's account; and though Thomson deserved it and more, I thought it would be better to refrain. If I say a savage thing, it is only 'Pretty Fanny's way'; but if you do, it is not likely to be forgotten."
[The rest of this correspondence has to do with a plan of Darwin's, generous as ever, to obtain a Civil List pension for the veteran naturalist, Wallace, whose magnificent work for science had brought him but little material return. He wrote to consult Huxley as to what steps had best be taken; the latter replied in the letter of November 14:—]
The papers in re Wallace have arrived, and I lose no time in assuring you that all my "might, amity, and authority," as Essex said when that sneak Bacon asked him for a favour, shall be exercised as you wish.
On December 11 he sends Darwin the draft of a memorial on the subject, and on the 28th suggests that the best way of moving the official world would be for Darwin himself to send the memorial, with a note of his own, to Mr. Gladstone, who was then Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury:—]