Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 11

There is a great stir in the scientific world at present about who is to occupy Konig's place at the British Museum, and whether the whole establishment had better not, quoad Zoology, be remodelled and placed under Owen's superintendence. The heart-burnings and jealousies about this matter are beyond all conception. Owen is both feared and hated, and it is predicted that if Gray and he come to be officers of the same inst.i.tution, in a year or two the total result will be a caudal vertebra of each remaining after the manner of the Kilkenny cats.

However, I heard yesterday, upon what professed to be very good authority, that Owen would not leave the College under any circ.u.mstances.

It is astonishing with what an intense feeling of hatred Owen is regarded by the majority of his contemporaries, with Mantell as arch-hater. The truth is, he is the superior of most, and does not conceal that he knows it, and it must be confessed that he does some very ill-natured tricks now and then. A striking specimen of one is to be found in his article on Lyell in the last Quarterly, where he pillories poor Quekett--a most inoffensive man and his own immediate subordinate--in a manner not more remarkable for its severity than for its bad taste. That review has done him much harm in the estimation of thinking men--and curiously enough, since it was written, reptiles have been found in the old red sandstone, and insectivorous mammals in the Trias! Owen is an able man, but to my mind not so great as he thinks himself. He can only work in the concrete from bone to bone, in abstract reasoning he becomes lost--witness "Parthenogenesis" which he told me he considered one of the best things he had done!

He has, however, been very civil to me, and I am as grateful as it is possible to be towards a man with whom I feel it necessary to be always on my guard.

Quite another being is the other leader of Zoological Science in this country--I mean Edward Forbes, Paleontologist to the Geological Survey.

More especially a Zoologist and a Geologist than a Comparative Anatomist, he has more claims to the t.i.tle of a Philosophic Naturalist than any man I know of in England. A man of letters and an artist, he has not merged the MAN in the man of science--he has sympathies for all, and an earnest, truth-seeking, thoroughly genial disposition which win for him your affection as well as your respect. Forbes has more influence by his personal weight and example upon the rising generation of scientific naturalists than Owen will have if he write from now till Doomsday.

Personally I am greatly indebted to him (though the opinion I have just expressed is that of the world in general). During my absence he superintended the publication of my paper, and from the moment of my arrival until now he has given me all the help one man can give another.

Why he should have done so I do not know, as when I left England I had only spoken to him once.

The rest of the naturalists stand far below these two in learning, originality, and grasp of mind. Goodsir of Edinburgh should I suppose come next, but he can't write intelligibly. Darwin might be anything if he had good health. Bell is a good man in all the senses of the word, but wants qualities 2 and 3. Newport is a laborious man, but wants 1 and 3. Grant and Rymer Jones--arcades ambo--have mistaken their vocation.

My old chief Richardson is a man of men, but troubles himself little with anything but detail zoology. What think you of his getting married for the third time just before his last expedition? I hardly know by which step he approved himself the bolder man.

I think I have now fulfilled my promise of supplying you with a little scientific scandal--and if this long epistle has repaid your trouble in getting through it, I am content.

Believe me, I have not forgotten, nor ever shall forget, your kindness to me at a time when a little appreciation and encouragement were more grateful to me and of more service than they will perhaps ever be again.

I have done my best to justify you.

I send copies of all the papers I have published with one exception, of which I have none separate. Of the Royal Society papers I send a double set. Will you be kind enough to give one with my kind regards and remembrances to Dr. Nicholson? I feel I ought to have written to him before leaving Sydney, but I trust he will excuse my not having done so.

I shall be very glad if you can find time to write.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

W. Macleay, Esq.

P.S.--Muller has just made a most extraordinary discovery, no less than the generation of Molluscs from Holothuriae!!! You will find a translation of his paper by me in the "Annals" for January 1852.

December 13, 1851.

[To his sister.]

May 20, 1851.

...Owen has been amazingly civil to me, and it was through his writing to the First Lord that I got my present appointment. He is a queer fish, more odd in appearance than ever...and more bland in manner. He is so frightfully polite that I never feel thoroughly at home with him. He got me to furnish him with some notes for the second edition of the "Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry," and I find that in it Darwin and I (comparisons are odious) figure as joint authorities on some microscopic matters!!

Professor Forbes, however, is my great ally, a first-rate man, thoroughly in earnest and disinterested, and ready to give his time and influence--which is great--to help any man who is working for the cause.

To him I am indebted for the supervision of papers that were published in my absence, for many introductions, and most valuable information and a.s.sistance, and all done in such a way as not to oppress one or give one any feeling of patronage, which you know (so much do I retain of my old self) would not suit me. My notions are diametrically opposed to his in some matters, and he helps me to oppose him. The other night, or rather nights, for it took three, I had a long paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such a man and yet respect myself.

I have been aspiring to great honours since I wrote to you last, to wit the F.R.S., and found no little to my astonishment that I had a chance of it, and so went in. I must tell you that they have made the admission more difficult than it used to be. Candidates are not elected by the Society alone, but fifteen only a year are selected by a committee, and then elected as a matter of course by the Society. This year there were thirty-eight candidates. I did not expect to come in till next year, but I find I am one of the selected. I fancy I shall be the junior Fellow by some years. Singularly enough, among the non-selected candidates were Ward, the man who conducted the Botanical Honours Examination of Apothecaries' Hall nine years ago, and Bryson, the surgeon of the "Fisguard," i.e. nominally my immediate superior, and who, as he frequently acts as Sir William Burnett's deputy, WILL VERY LIKELY EXAMINE ME WHEN I Pa.s.s FOR SURGEON R.N.!! That is awkward and must be annoying to him, but it is not my fault. I did not ask for a single name that appeared upon my certificate. Owen's name and Carpenter's, which were to have been appended, were not added. Forbes, my recommender, told me beforehand not to expect to get in this year, and did not use his influence, and so I have no intriguing to reproach myself with or to be reproached with. The only drawback is that it will cost me 14 pounds sterling, which is more than I can very well afford.

By the way, I have not told you that after staying for about five months with George, I found that if I meant to work in earnest his home was not the place, so, much to my regret,--for they made me very happy there,--I summoned resolution and "The Boy's Own Book" and took a den of my own, whence I write at present. You had better, anyhow, direct to George, as I am going to move and don't know how long I may remain at my next habitation. At present I am living in the Park Road, but I find it too noisy and am going to St. Anne's Gardens, St. John's Wood, close to my mother's, against whose forays I shall have to fortify myself.

[It was a minor addition to his many troubles that after a time Huxley found a grudging and jealous spirit exhibited in some quarters towards his success, and influence used to prevent any further advance that might endanger the existing balance of power in the scientific world.

But this could be battled with directly; indeed it was rather a relief to have an opportunity for action instead of sitting still to wait the results of uncertain elections. The qualities requisite for such a contest he possessed, in a high ideal of the dignity of science as an instrument of truth; a standard of veracity in scientific workers to which all should subordinate their personal ambitions; a disregard of authority as such unless its claims were verified by indisputable fact; and as a beginning, the will to subject himself to his own most rigid canons of accuracy, thoroughness, and honesty; then to maintain his principle and defend his position against all attempts at browbeating.]

March 5, 1852

I told you I was very busy, and I must tell you what I am about and you will believe me. I have just finished a Memoir for the Royal Society ["On the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca" "Scientific Memoirs"

volume 1 page 152.], which has taken me a world of time, thought, and reading, and is, perhaps, the best thing I have done yet. It will not be read till May, and I do not know whether they will print it or not afterwards; that will require care and a little manoeuvring on my part.

You have no notion of the intrigues that go on in this blessed world of science. Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be. Merit alone is very little good; it must be backed by tact and knowledge of the world to do very much.

For instance, I know that the paper I have just sent in is very original and of some importance, and I am equally sure that if it is referred to the judgment of my "particular friend" -- that it will not be published.

He won't be able to say a word against it, but he will pooh-pooh it to a dead certainty.

You will ask with some wonderment, Why? Because for the last twenty years -- has been regarded as the great authority on these matters, and has had no one to tread on his heels, until at last, I think, he has come to look upon the Natural World as his special preserve, and "no poachers allowed." So I must manoeuvre a little to get my poor memoir kept out of his hands.

The necessity for these little stratagems utterly disgusts me. I would so willingly reverence and trust any man of high standing and ability. I am so utterly unable to comprehend this petty greediness. And yet withal you will smile at my perversity. I have a certain pleasure in overcoming these obstacles, and fighting these folks with their own weapons. I do so long to be able to trust men implicitly. I have such a horror of all this literary pettifogging. I could be so content myself, if the necessity of making a position would allow it, to work on anonymously, but -- I see is determined not to let either me or any one else rise if he can help it. Let him beware. On my own subjects I am his master, and am quite ready to fight half a dozen dragons. And although he has a bitter pen, I flatter myself that on occasions I can match him in that department also.

But I was telling you how busy I am. I am getting a memoir ready for the Zoological Society, and working at my lecture for the Royal Inst.i.tution, which I want to make striking and original, as it is a good opportunity, besides doing a translation now and then for one of the Journals.

Besides this, I am working at the British Museum to make a catalogue of some creatures there. All these things take a world of time and labour; and yield next to no direct profit; but they bring me into contact with all sorts of men, in a very independent position, and I am told, and indeed hope, that something must arise from it. So fair a prospect opens out before me if I can only wait. I am beginning to know what WORK means, and see how much more may be done by steady, unceasing, and well-directed efforts. I thrive upon it too. I am as well as ever I was in my life, and the more I work the better my temper seems to be.

April 30, 1852, 11.30 P.M.

I have just returned from giving my lecture at the Royal Inst.i.tution, of which I told you in my last letter. ["On Animal Individuality"

"Scientific Memoirs" volume 1 page 146 cp. supra.]

I had got very nervous about it, and my poor mother's death had greatly upset my plans for working it out.

It was the first lecture I had ever given in my life, and to what is considered the best audience in London. As nothing ever works up my energies but a high flight, I had chosen a very difficult abstract point, in my view of which I stand almost alone. When I took a glimpse into the theatre and saw it full of faces, I did feel most amazingly uncomfortable. I can now quite understand what it is to be going to be hanged, and nothing but the necessity of the case prevented me from running away.

However, when the hour struck, in I marched, and began to deliver my discourse. For ten minutes I did not quite know where I was, but by degrees I got used to it, and gradually gained perfect command of myself and of my subject. I believe I contrived to interest my audience, and upon the whole I think I may say that this essay was successful.

Thank Heaven I can say so, for though it is no great matter succeeding, failing would have been a bitter annoyance to me. It has put me comfortably at my ease with regard to all future lecturings. After the Royal Inst.i.tution there is no audience I shall ever fear.

May 9.

The foolish state of excitement into which I allowed myself to get the other day completely did for me, and I have hardly done anything since except sleep a great deal. It is a strange thing that with all my will I cannot control my physical organisation.

[To his sister.]

April 17, 1852.

...I fear nothing will have prepared you to hear that one so active in body and mind as our poor mother was has been taken from us. But so it is...

It was very strange that before leaving London my mother, possessed by a strange whim, as I thought, distributed to many of us little things belonging to her. I laughed at her for what I called her "testamentary disposition," little dreaming that the words were prophetic.

[The summons to those of the family in London reached them late, and their arrival was made still later by inconvenient trains and a midnight drive, so that all had long been over when they came to Barning in Kent, where the elder Huxleys had just settled near their son James.]

Our mother had died at half-past four, falling gradually into a more and more profound insensibility. She was thus happily spared the pain of fruitlessly wishing us round her, in her last moments; and as the hand of Death was upon her, I know not that it could have fallen more lightly.

I offer you no consolation, my dearest sister; for I know of none. There are things which each must bear as he best may with the strength that has been allotted to him. Would that I were near you to soften the blow by the sympathy which we should have in common...