Poor old Smyth's death is just what I expected, though I did not think the catastrophe was so imminent. [Warrington Wilkinson Smyth (1817-1890), the geologist and mineralogist. In 1851 he was appointed Lecturer on Mining and Mineralogy at the Royal School of Mines. After the lectureships were separated in 1881, he retained the former until his death. He was knighted in 1887.]
Peace be with him; he never did justice to his very considerable abilities, but he was a good fellow and a fine old crusted Conservative.
I suppose it will be necessary to declare the vacancy and put somebody in his place before long.
I learned before I started that Smyth was to be buried in Cornwall, so there is no question of attending at his funeral.
I am the last of the original Jermyn Street gang left in the school now—Ultimus Romanorum!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This trip was taken by way of a holiday after the writing of an article, which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for July 1890. It was called "The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science," and may be considered as written in fulfilment of the plan spoken of in the letter to Mr. Clodd (above). Its subject was the necessary dependence of Christian theology upon the historical accuracy of the Old Testament; its occasion, the publication of a sermon in which, as a counterblast to "Lux Mundi", Canon Liddon declared that accuracy to be sanctioned by the use made of the Old Testament by Jesus Christ, and bade his hearers close their ears against any suggestions impairing the credit of those Jewish Scriptures which have received the stamp of His Divine authority.
Pointing out that, as in other branches of history, so here the historical accuracy of early tradition was abandoned even by conservative critics, who at all understood the nature of the problems involved, Huxley proceeded to examine the story of the Flood, and to show that the difficulties were little less in treating it—like the reconcilers—as a partial than as a universal deluge. Then he discussed the origin of the story, and criticised the attempt of the essayist in "Lux Mundi" to treat this and similar stories as "types," which must be valueless if typical of no underlying reality. These things are of moment in speculative thought, for if Adam be not an historical character, if the story of the Fall be but a type, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken; they are of moment practically, for it is the story of the Creation which is referred to in the] "speech (Matt. 19 5) unhappily famous for the legal oppression to which it has been wrongfully forced to lend itself" [in the marriage laws.
In July 1890, Sir J.G.T. Sinclair wrote to him, calling his attention to a statement of Babbage's that after a certain point his famous calculating machine, contrary to all expectation, suddenly introduced a new principle of numeration into a series of numbers (Extract from Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. Babbage shows that a calculating machine can be constructed which, after working in a correct and orderly manner up to 100,000,000, then leaps, and instead of continuing the chain of numbers unbroken, goes at once to 100,010,002. "The law which seemed at first to govern the series failed at the hundred million and second term. This term is larger than we expected by 10,000. The law thus changes:—