In my opinion it is a delusion to attribute the growth of armaments to the "exactions of militarism." The "exactions of industrialism," generated by international commercial competition, may, I believe, claim a much larger share in prompting that growth. Add to this the French thirst for revenge, the most just determination of the German and Italian peoples to assert their national unity; the Russian Panslavonic fanaticism and desire for free access to the western seas; the Papacy steadily fishing in the troubled waters for the means of recovering its lost (I hope for ever lost) temporal possessions and spiritual supremacy; the "sick man," kept alive only because each of his doctors is afraid of the other becoming his heir.
When I think of the intensity of the perturbing agencies which arise out of these and other conditions of modern European society, I confess that the attempt to counteract them by asking Governments to agree to a maximum military expenditure, does not appear to me to be worth making; indeed I think it might do harm by leading people to suppose that the desires of Governments are the chief agents in determining whether peace or war shall obtain in Europe.
I am, yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Later in the year, on August 8, took place the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, noteworthy for the presidential address delivered by Lord Salisbury, Chancellor of the University, in which the doctrine of evolution was "enunciated as a matter of course—disputed by no reasonable man,"—although accompanied by a description of the working of natural selection and variation which appeared to the man of science a mere travesty of these doctrines.
Huxley had been persuaded to attend this meeting, the more willingly, perhaps, since his reception at Oxford the year before suggested that there would be a special piquancy in the contrast between this and the last meeting of the Association at Oxford in 1860. He was not disappointed. Details apart, the cardinal situation was reversed. The genius of the place had indeed altered. The representatives of the party, whose prophet had once contemptuously come here to anathematise the "Origin", returned at length to the same spot to admit—if not altogether ungrudgingly—the greatness of the work accomplished by Darwin.
Once under promise to go, he could not escape without the "few words" which he now found so tiring; but he took the part which assured him greatest freedom, as seconder of the vote of thanks to the president for his address. The study of an advance copy of the address raised an] "almost overwhelming temptation" [to criticise certain statements contained in it; but this would have been out of place in seconding a vote of thanks; and resisting the temptation, he only] "conveyed criticism," [as he writes to Professor Lewis Campbell], "in the form of praise": [going so far as to suggest] "it might be that, in listening to the deeply interesting address of the President, a thought had occasionally entered his mind how rich and profitable might be the discussion of that paper in Section D" (Biology). [It was not exactly an offhand speech. Writing to Sir M. Foster for any good report which might appear in an Oxford paper, he says:—]
I have no notes of it. I wrote something on Tuesday night, but this draft is no good, as it was metamorphosed two or three times over on Wednesday.
[One who was present and aware of the whole situation once described how he marked the eyes of another interested member of the audience, who knew that Huxley was to speak, but not what he meant to say, turning anxiously whenever the president reached a critical phrase in the address, to see how he would take it. But the expression of his face told nothing; only those who knew him well could infer a suppressed impatience from a little twitching of his foot.
Of this occasion Professor Henry F. Osborn, one of his old pupils, writes in his "Memorial Tribute to Thomas H. Huxley" ("Transactions of the N.Y. Acad. Society" volume 15):—