Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 59

The lively fillip came in the shape of an article in the November "Nineteenth Century," by Mr. Gladstone, in which he attacked the position taken up by Dr. Reville in his "Prolegomena to the History of Religions," and in particular, attempted to show that the order of creation given in Genesis 1, is supported by the evidence of science.

This article, Huxley used humorously to say, so stirred his bile as to set his liver right at once; and though he denied the soft impeachment that the ensuing fight was what had set him up, the marvellous curative effects of a Gladstonian dose, a remedy unknown to the pharmacopoeia, became a household word among family and friends.

His own reply, "The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature," appeared in the December number of the "Nineteenth Century"

("Collected Essays" 4 page 139). In January 1886 Mr. Gladstone responded with his "Proem to Genesis," which was met in February by "Mr. Gladstone and Genesis" ("Collected Essays" 4 page 164). Not only did he show that science offers no support to the "fourfold" or the "fivefold" or any other order obtained from Genesis by Mr. Gladstone, but in a note appended to his second article he gives what he takes to be the proper sense of the "Mosaic" narrative of the Creation (4 page 195), not allowing the succession of phenomena to represent an evolutionary notion, as suggested, of a progress from lower to higher in the scale of being, a notion a.s.suredly not in the mind of the writer, but deducing this order from such ideas as, putting aside our present knowledge of nature, we may reasonably believe him to have held.

A vast subsidiary controversy sprang up in the "Times" on Biblical exegetics; where these touched him at all, as, for instance, when it was put to him whether the difference between the "Rehmes" of Genesis and "Sheh-retz" of Leviticus, both translated "creeping things," did not invalidate his argument as to the ident.i.ty of such "creeping things," he had examined the point already, and surprised his interrogator, who appeared to have raised a very pretty dilemma, by promptly referring him to a well-known Hebrew commentator.

Several letters refer to this pa.s.sage of arms. On December 4, he writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer:--]

Do read my polishing off of the G.O.M. I am proud of it as a work of art, and as evidence that the volcano is not yet exhausted.

To Lord Farrer.

4 Marlborough Place, December 6, 1885.

My dear Farrer,

From a scientific point of view Gladstone's article was undoubtedly not worth powder and shot. But, on personal grounds, the perusal of it sent me blaspheming about the house with the first healthy expression of wrath known for a couple of years--to my wife's great alarm--and I should have "busted up" if I had not given vent to my indignation; and secondly, all orthodoxy was gloating over the slap in the face which the G.O.M. had administered to science in the person of Reville.

The ignorance of the so-called educated cla.s.ses in this country is stupendous, and in the hands of people like Gladstone it is a political force. Since I became an official of the Royal Society, good taste seemed to me to dictate silence about matters on which there is "great division among us." But now I have recovered my freedom, and I am greatly minded to begin stirring the fire afresh.

Within the last month I have picked up wonderfully. If dear old Darwin were alive he would say it is because I have had a fight, but in truth the fight is consequence and not cause. I am infinitely relieved by getting rid of the eternal strain of the past thirty years, and hope to get some good work done yet before I die, so make ready for the part of the judicious bottle-holder which I have always found you.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 13, 1886.

My dear Farrer,

My contribution to the next round was finished and sent to Knowles a week ago. I confess it to have been a work of supererogation; but the extreme shiftiness of my antagonist provoked me, and I was tempted to pin him and dissect him as an anatomico-psychological exercise. May it be accounted unto me for righteousness, though I laughed so much over the operation that I deserve no credit.

I think your notion is a very good one, and I am not sure that I shall not try to carry it out some day. In the meanwhile, however, I am bent upon an enterprise which I think still more important.

After I have done with the reconcilers, I will see whether theology cannot be told her place rather more plainly than she has yet been dealt with.

However, this between ourselves, I am seriously anxious to use what little stuff remains to me well, and I am not sure that I can do better service anywhere than in this line, though I don't mean to have any more controversy if I can help it.

(Don't laugh and repeat Darwin's wickedness.)

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, this] "contribution to the next round" [seemed to the editor rather too pungent in tone. Accordingly Huxley revised it, the letters which follow describing the process:--]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 15, 1886.

My dear Knowles,

I will be with you at 1.30. I spent three mortal hours this morning taming my wild cat. He is now castrated; his teeth are filed, his claws are cut, he is taught to swear like a "mieu"; and to spit like a cough; and when he is turned out of the bag you won't know him from a tame rabbit.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 20, 1886.

My dear Knowles,

Here is the debonnaire animal finally t.i.tivated, and I quite agree, much improved, though I mourn the loss of some of the spice. But it is an awful smash as it stands--worse than the first, I think.

I shall send you the ma.n.u.script of the "Evolution of Theology" to-day or to-morrow. It will not do to divide it, as I want the reader to have an apercu of the whole process from Samuel of Israel to Sammy of Oxford.

I am afraid it will make thirty or thirty-five pages, but it is really very interesting, though I say it as shouldn't.

Please have it set up in slip, though, as it is written after the manner of a judge's charge, the corrections will not be so extensive, nor the strength of language so well calculated to make a judicious editor's hair stand on end, as was the case with the enclosed (in its unregenerate state).

Ever yours very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some time later, on September 14, 1890, writing to Mr. Hyde Clarke, the philologist, who was ten years his senior, he remarks on his object in undertaking this controversy:--]

I am glad to see that you are as active-minded as ever. I have no doubt there is a great deal in what you say about the origin of the myths in Genesis. But my sole point is to get the people who persist in regarding them as statements of fact to understand that they are fools.

The process is laborious, and not yet very fruitful of the desired conviction.

To Sir Joseph Prestwich.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 16, 1886.

My dear Prestwich,

Accept my best thanks for the volume of your Geology, which has just reached me.

I envy the vigour which has led you to tackle such a task, and I have no doubt that when I turn to your book for information I shall find reason for more envy in the thoroughness with which the task is done.

I see Mr. Gladstone has been trying to wrest your scripture to his own purposes, but it is no good. Neither the fourfold nor the fivefold nor the sixfold order will wash.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

To Professor Poulton [Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford.].

4 Marlborough Place, February 19, 1886.