Another witness says: “I never saw such a display of fierce party spirit,” and speaks of “the looks of bitter hatred” cast upon those who were on Huxley’s side.
Perhaps it is not trying to shape great complexities too definitely, to say that the conflict of which that was one episode, was the third of the civilized world’s greatest intellectual struggles—the establishment of the Christian church, the reformation of it, and the determination of its true relation to the progress of knowledge.
The last conflict, however, was a most hopeful illustration of the progress made since the first two, in that it involved no exposure of victims to the lions of the arena, no Nero’s torches, no Inquisition, no Thirty-Years’ War, no destruction of venerable and beautiful monuments, or of institutions for charity or education.
But of course that conflict of the last century, like all others, had its pains; yet as it did not directly touch the person or the pocket of the average man, he cared very little about it. Nevertheless it has filtered down into his very language, and when he is the sort of average man who likes to use big words, his share of the victors’ spoils includes the pleasure of frequently uttering, without quite understanding, such terms as environment, differentiation, and even integration, while the word evolution has become such a matter-of-course term that he and everybody else use it unconsciously—unconscious not only of most of what it implies, but even of their indebtedness to the men from whom they got it.* * In this connection there was something said about Herbert Spencer in our Number 16.
Of those men, one of the most important, and far the most important in America, was John Fiske. The recent publication of his Life and Letters, by John S. Clarke, (Houghton-Mifflin Co.) gives occasion to say something about him and his part in the great conflict.
But first a word regarding the book. It is certainly a remarkable production for a man well over eighty. Though not entirely free from the diffuseness and repetition of age, it is nearer free than many respectable books of much younger men, while in faithfulness, patience and, on the whole, discrimination, it surpasses most. The author really understands the implications of Evolution, so far as yet worked out, and that is something that surprisingly few people do; and there are not a few places where he states them with a clearness and vigor which would do credit to anybody, and in a man of his years are no less than astonishing. Whatever imperfections the book may have, as a guide for the layman to the great revolution in thought which brought thought for the first time into stable equilibrium, the book is probably surpassed by no writing except Fiske’s own.
But while the author’s work is not to be estimated lightly, he would be the first to say that the charm and value of the book are mainly in Fiske’s letters, especially those to his wife and mother, which in naturalness, vividness, beauty of expression and humor are unsurpassed, and in wealth and ease of illustrative learning are unequaled, by any letters of which we know. For readers fond of books of travel, many of them will be of the very highest interest. Moreover they include a fine portrait gallery of the greatest men who won the fight for Evolution, at play as well as at work; and the letters to and from Darwin, Spencer, and a few others are rich in discussion of the profoundest topics that have engaged the human mind. In short, we know of no other book which admits the reader to as much intimacy with as high society. Jenkins would not agree with our terms, but if high society means the men who made the greatest intellectual epoch in human history, our assertion is safe. Fiske himself had no small part in that great feat, and this book admits us into his intimate friendship with Lyell, Lewes, George Eliot, Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Spencer and not a few others among the leaders of the race. It seems quite probable that this life of Fiske may give a clearer idea of Spencer than is given in Mr. Duncan’s Life, or even in the Autobiography. Perhaps best of all, Fiske’s letters set before us as example a character of rare simplicity, sincerity and tenderness.
Lest all this praise lead some to disappointment, we hasten to add the obvious fact that the attractions of cotemporary history or even of portable epigram, which have made most of the immortal letters in literature, are hardly to be expected from a writer whose mind was generally absorbed in the widest generalizations of Philosophy and the History of the past.
And now as to the life itself: