Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 60

Dear Mr. Poulton,

I return herewith the number of the "Expositor" with many thanks.

Canon Driver's article contains as clear and candid a statement as I could wish of the position of the Pentateuchal cosmogony from his point of view. If he more thoroughly understood the actual nature of paleontological succession--I mean the species by species replacement of old forms by new,--and if he more fully appreciated the great gulf fixed between the ideas of "creation" and of "evolution," I think he would see (1) that the Pentateuch and science are more hopelessly at variance than even he imagines, and (2) that the Pentateuchal cosmogony does not come so near the facts of the case as some other ancient cosmogonies, notably those of the old Greek philosophers.

Practically, Canon Driver, as a theologian and Hebrew scholar, gives up the physical truth of the Pentateuchal cosmogony altogether. All the more wonderful to me, therefore, is the way in which he holds on to it as embodying theological truth. So far as this question is concerned, on all points which can be tested, the Pentateuchal writer states that which is not true. What, therefore, is his authority on the matter--creation by a Deity--which cannot be tested? What sort of "inspiration" is that which leads to the promulgation of a fable as divine truth, which forces those who believe in that inspiration to hold on, like grim death, to the literal truth of the fable, which demoralises them in seeking for all sorts of sophistical shifts to bolster up the fable, and which finally is discredited and repudiated when the fable is finally proved to be a fable? If Satan had wished to devise the best means of discrediting "Revelation" he could not have done better.

Have you not forgotten to mention the leg of Archaeopteryx as a characteristically bird-like structure? It is so, and it is to be recollected that at present we know nothing of the greater part of the skeletons of the older Mesozoic mammals--only teeth and jaws. What the shoulder-girdle of Stereognathus might be like is uncertain.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letters have a curious interest as showing what, in the eyes of a supporter of educational progress, might and might not be done at Oxford to help on scientific education:--]

To the Master of Balliol.

4 Marlborough Place, December 21, 1885.

My dear Master [This is from the first draft of the letter. Huxley's letters to Jowett were destroyed by Jowett's orders, together with the rest of his correspondence.],

I have been talking to some of my friends about stimulating the Royal Society to address the Universities on the subject of giving greater weight to scientific acquirements, and I find that there is a better prospect than I had hoped for of getting President and Council to move. But I am not quite sure about the course which it will be wisest for us to adopt, and I beg a little counsel on that matter.

I presume that we had better state our wishes in the form of a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and that we may prudently ask for the subst.i.tution of modern languages (especially German) and elementary science for some of the subjects at present required in the literary part of the examinations of the scientific and medical faculties. If we could gain this much it would be a great step, not only in itself, but in its reaction on the schools.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, December 26, 1885.

My dear Foster,

Please read the enclosed letter from Jowett (confidentially). I had suggested the possibility of diminishing the Greek and Latin for the science and medical people, but that, you see, he won't have. But he is prepared to load the cla.s.sical people with science by way of making things fair.

It may be worth our while to go in for this, and trust to time for the other. What say you?

Merry Christmas to you. The G.O.M. is going to reply, so I am likely to have a happy New Year! I expect some fun, and I mean to make it an occasion for some good earnest.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[So ends 1885, and with it closes another definite period of Huxley's life. Free from official burdens and official restraints, he was at liberty to speak out on any subject; his strength for work was less indeed, but his time was his own; there was hope that he might still recover his health for a few more years. And though the ranks of his friends were beginning to thin, though he writes (May 20, to Professor Bartholomew Price):--]

The "gaps" are terrible accompaniments of advancing life. It is only with age that one realises the full truth of Goethe's quatrain:--

Eine Bruche ist ein jeder Tag, etc.

[and again:--]

The x Club is going to smithereens, as if a charge of dynamite had been exploded in the midst of it. Busk is slowly fading away. Tyndall is, I fear, in a bad way, and I am very anxious about Hooker:--

[Still the club hung together for many years, and outside it were other devoted friends, who would have echoed Dr. Foster's good wishes on the last day of the year:--

A Happy New Year! and many of them, and may you more and more demonstrate the folly of strangling men at sixty.

CHAPTER 2.18.

1886.

[The controversy with Mr. Gladstone indicates the nature of the subject that Huxley took up for the employment of his newly obtained leisure. Chequered as this leisure was all through the year by constant illness, which drove him again and again to the warmth of Bournemouth or the brisk airs of the Yorkshire moors in default of the sovereign medicine of the Alps, he managed to write two more controversial articles this year, besides a long account of the "Progress of Science," for Mr. T. Humphry Ward's book on "The Reign of Queen Victoria," which was to celebrate the Jubilee year 1887.

Examinations--for the last time, however--the meetings of the Eton Governing Body, the business of the Science Schools, the Senate of the London University, the Marine Biological a.s.sociation, the Council of the Royal Society, and a round dozen of subsidiary committees, all claimed his attention. Even when driven out of town by his bad health, he would come up for a few days at a time to attend necessary meetings.

One of the few references of this period to biological research is contained in a letter to Professor Pelseneer of Ghent, a student of the Mollusca, who afterwards completed for Huxley the long unfinished monograph on "Spirula" for the "Challenger" Report.]

4 Marlborough Place, January 8, 1886.

Dear Sir,

Accept my best thanks for the present of your publications. As you may imagine, I find that on the cretaceous crustaceans very interesting.

It was a rare chance to find the branchiae preserved.

I am glad to be able to send you a copy of my memoir on the morphology of the Mollusca. It shows signs of age outside, but I beg you to remember that it is 33 years old.

I am rejoiced to think you find it still worth consulting. It has always been my intention to return to the subject some day, and to try to justify my old conclusions--as I think they may be justified.

But it is very doubtful whether my intention will now ever be carried into effect.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Mr. Gladstone's second article appeared in the January number of the "Nineteenth Century," to this the following letter refers:--]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 21, 1886.

My dear Skelton,

Thanks for your capital bit of chaff. I took a thought and began to mend (as Burns' friend and MY prototype (G.O.M.) is not yet recorded to have done) about a couple of months ago, and then Gladstone's first article caused such a flow of bile that I have been the better for it ever since.

I need not tell you I am entirely crushed by his reply--still the worm will turn and there is a faint squeak (as of a rat in the mouth of a terrier) about to be heard in the next "Nineteenth."

But seriously, it is to me a grave thing that the destinies of this country should at present be seriously influenced by a man, who, whatever he may be in the affairs of which I am no judge--is nothing but a copious shuffler, in those which I do understand.

With best wishes to Mrs. Skelton and yourself, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.