Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3

by Thomas Henry Huxley

Some one had sent me Mr. A.J. Balfour's book on the "Foundations of Belief" early in February 1895. We were very full of it, and it was the theme of discussion on the 17th of February, when two friends were lunching with us. Not long after luncheon, Huxley came in, and seemed in extraordinary spirits, he began talking of Erasmus and Luther, expressing a great preference for Erasmus, who would, he said, have impregnated the Church with culture, and brought it abreast of the thought of the times, while Luther concentrated attention on individual mystical doctrines. "It was very trying for Erasmus to be identified with Luther, from whom he differed absolutely. A man ought to be ready to endure persecution for what he does hold; but it is hard to be persecuted for what you don't hold." I said that I thought his estimate of Erasmus's attitude towards the Papacy coincided with Professor R.C. Jebb's. He asked if I could lend him Jebb's Rede Lecture on the subject. I said that I had not got it at hand, but I added, "I can lend you another book, which I think you ought to read—Balfour's 'Foundations of Belief'."

He at once became extremely animated, and spoke of it as those who have read his criticisms, published in the following month, would expect.] "You need not lend me that. I have exercised my mind with it a good deal already. Mr. Balfour ought to have acquainted himself with the opinions of those he attacks. One has no objection to being abused for what one DOES hold, as I said of Erasmus; at least, one is prepared to put up with it. An attack on us by some one who understood our position would do all of us good—myself included. But Mr. Balfour has acted like the French in 1870: he has gone to war without any ordnance maps, and without having surveyed the scene of the campaign. No human being holds the opinions he speaks of as 'Naturalism.' He is a good debater. He knows the value of a word. The word 'Naturalism' has a bad sound and unpleasant associations. It would tell against us in the House of Commons, and so it will with his readers. 'Naturalism' contrasts with 'supernaturalism.' He has not only attacked us for what we don't hold, but he has been good enough to draw out a catechism for 'us wicked people,' to teach us what we MUST hold."

[It was rather difficult to get him to particulars, but we did so by degrees. He said], "Balfour uses the word phenomena as applying simply to the outer world and not to the inner world. The only people his attack would hold good of would be the Comtists, who deny that psychology is a science. They may be left out of account. They advocate the crudest eighteenth-century materialism. All the empiricists, from Locke onwards, make the observation of the phenomena of the mind itself quite separate from the study of mere sensation. No man in his senses supposes that the sense of beauty, or the religious feelings [this with a courteous bow to a priest who was present], or the sense of moral obligation, are to be accounted for in terms of sensation, or come to us through sensation." [I said that, as I understood it, I did not think Mr. Balfour supposed they would acknowledge the position he ascribed to them, and that one of his complaints was that they did not work out their premises to their logical conclusions. I added that so far as one of Mr. Balfour's chief points was concerned—the existence of the external world—Mill was almost the only man on their side in this century who had faced the problem frankly, and he had been driven to say that all men can know is that there are "permanent possibilities of sensation." He did not seem inclined to pursue the question of an external world, but said that though Mill's "Logic" was very good, empiricists were not bound by all his theories.

He characterised the book as a very good and even brilliant piece of work from a literary point of view; but as a helpful contribution to the great controversy, the most disappointing he had ever read. I said, "There has been no adverse criticism of it yet." He answered with emphasis], "No! BUT THERE SOON WILL BE." ["From you?" I asked.] "I let out no secrets," [was the reply.

He then talked with great admiration and affection of Mr. Balfour's brother, Francis. His early death, and W.K. Clifford's (Huxley said), had been the greatest loss to science—not only in England, but in the world—in our time.] "Half a dozen of us old fogies could have been better spared." [He remembered Frank Balfour as a boy at [Harrow] and saw his unusual talent there.] "Then my friend, Michael Foster, took him up at Cambridge, and found out that he had real genius for biology. I used to say there was science in the blood, but this new book of his brother's," [he added, smiling], "shows I was wrong."

Apropos to his remark about the Comtists, one of the company pointed out that in later life Comte recognised a science of "the individual," equivalent to what Huxley meant by psychology.] "That," [he replied], "was due to the influence of Clotilde de Vaux. You see," [he added, with a kind of Sir Charles Grandison bow to my wife], "what power your sex may have." [As Huxley was going out of the house, I said to him that Father A.B. (the priest who had been present) had not expected to find himself in his company.] "No! I trust he had plenty of holy water with him," [was the reply.

…After he had gone, we were all agreed as to the extraordinary vigour and brilliancy he had shown. Some one said, "He is like a man who is what the Scotch call 'fey.'" We laughed at the idea, but we naturally recalled the remark later on.

The story of how the article was written is told in the following letters. It was suggested by Mr. Knowles, and undertaken after perusal of the review of the book in the "Times". Huxley intended to have the article ready for the March number of the "Nineteenth Century", but it grew longer than he had meant it to be, and partly for this reason, partly for fear lest the influenza, then raging at Eastbourne, might prevent him from revising the whole thing at once, he divided it into two instalments. He writes to one daughter on March 1:—]

I suppose my time will come; so I am "making hay while the sun shines" (in point of fact it is raining and blowing a gale outside) and finishing my counterblast to Balfour before it does come.

Love to all you poor past snivellers from an expectant sniveller.