Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 20

My dear Knowles,

I sent back my proof last evening. I shall be in town Friday afternoon to Monday morning next, having a lot of things to do. So you may as well let me see a revise of the whole. Did you not say to me, "sitting by a sea-coal fire" (I say nothing about a "parcel gilt goblet"), that this screed was to be the "last word"? I don't mind how long it goes on so long as I have the last word. But you must expect nothing from me for the next three or four months. We shall be off abroad, not later than the 8th June, and among the everlasting hills, a fico for your controversies! Wace's paper shall be waste paper for me. Oh! This is a "goak" which Peterborough would not understand.

I think you are right about the wine and water business--I had my doubts--but it was too tempting. All the teetotalers would have been on my side.

There is no more curious example of the influence of education than the respect with which this poor bit of conjuring is regarded. Your genuine pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig. I trust you have properly enjoyed the extracts from Newman. That a man of his intellect should be brought down to the utterance of such drivel--by Papistry, is one of the strongest of arguments against that d.a.m.nable perverter of mankind, I know of.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Shortly afterwards, he received a long and rambling letter in connection with this subject. Referring to the pa.s.sage in the first article, "the apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly' should be the rule of life of a true agnostic," the writer began by begging him "to 'suffer gladly' one fool more," and after several pages wound up with a variation of the same phrase. It being impossible to give any valid answer to his hypothetical inquiries, Huxley could not resist the temptation to take the opening thus offered him, and replied:--]

Sir,

I beg leave to acknowledge your letter. I have complied with the request preferred in its opening paragraph.

Faithfully yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter also arises out of this controversy:--

Its occasion (writes Mr. Taylor) was one which I had written on seeing an article in which he referred to the Persian sect of the Babis. I had read with much interest the account of it in Count Gobineau's book, and was much struck with the points of likeness to the foundation of Christianity, and the contrast between the subsequent history of the two; I asked myself how, given the points of similarity, to account for the contrast; is it due to the Divine within the one, or the human surroundings? This question I put to Professor Huxley, with many apologies for intruding on his leisure, and a special request that he would not suffer himself to be further troubled by any reply.]

To Mr. Robert Taylor.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 8, 1889.

Sir,

In looking through a ma.s.s of papers, before I leave England for some months among the mountains in search of health, I have come upon your letter of 7th March. As a rule I find that out of the innumerable letters addressed to me, the only ones I wish to answer are those the writers of which are considerate enough to ask that they may receive no reply, and yours is no exception.

The question you put is very much to the purpose: a proper and full answer would take up many pages; but it will suffice to furnish the heads to be filled up by your own knowledge.

1. The Church founded by Jesus has NOT made its way; has NOT permeated the world--but DID become extinct in the country of its birth--as Nazarenism and Ebionism.

2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the 4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under new or old names.

3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared G.o.d"--and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together for all purposes--the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.

If these things are so--and I appeal to your knowledge of history that they are so--what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter was written in reply to one from Mr. Clodd on the first of the articles in this controversy. This article, it must be remembered, not only replied to Dr. Wace's attack, but at the same time bantered Mr. Frederic Harrison's pretensions on behalf of Positivism at the expense alike of Christianity and Agnosticism.]

3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, February 19, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

I am very much obliged to you for your cheery and appreciative letter.

If I do not empty all Harrison's vials of wrath I shall be astonished!

But of all the sickening humbugs in the world, the sham pietism of the Positivists is to me the most offensive.

I have long been wanting to say my say about these questions, but my hands were too full. This time last year I was so ill that I thought to myself, with Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But my wiry const.i.tution has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I have every reason to believe that with renunciation of the devil and all his works (i.e.

public speaking, dining and being dined, etc.) my faculties may be unimpaired for a good spell yet. And whether my lease is long or short, I mean to devote them to the work I began in the paper on the Evolution of Theology.

You will see in the next "Nineteenth" a paper on the Evidence of Miracles, which I think will be to your mind.

Hutton is beginning to drivel! There really is no other word for it.

[This refers to an article in the "Spectator" on "Professor Huxley and Agnosticism," February 9, 1889, which suggests, with regard to demoniac possession, that the old doctrine of one spirit driving out another is as good as any new explanation, and fortifies this conclusion by a reference to the phenomena of hypnotism.]

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[To the same:--]

4 Marlborough Place, April 15, 1889.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

The adventurous Mr. C. wrote to me some time ago. I expressed my regret that I could do nothing for the evolution of tent-pegs. What wonderful people there are in the world!

Many thanks for calling my attention to "Antiqua Mater." I will look it up. I have such a rooted objection to returning books, that I never borrow one or allow anybody to lend me one if I can help it.

I hear that Wace is to have another innings, and I am very glad of it, as it will give me the opportunity of putting the case once more as a connected argument.

It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with those who take up a new idea.

I have had for some time the notion of dealing with the "Three great myths"--1. Creation; 2. Fall; 3. Deluge; but I suspect I am getting to the end of my tether physically, and shall have to start for the Engadine in another month's time.

Many thanks for your congratulations about my daughter's marriage. No two people could be better suited for one another, and there is a charming little grand-daughter of the first marriage to be cared for.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[One more piece of writing dates from this time. He writes to his wife on March 2:--]

A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of celebrities, with a sketch of their career attached, has bothered me out of my life for something to go with my portrait, and to escape the abominable bad taste of some of the notices, I have done that. I shall show it you before it goes back to Engel in proof.

This sketch of his life is the brief autobiography which is printed at the beginning of volume 1 of the "Collected Essays". He was often pressed, both by friends and by strangers, to give them some more autobiography; but moved either by dislike of any approach to egotism, or by the knowledge that if biography is liable to give a false impression, autobiography may leave one still more false, he constantly refused to do so, especially so long as he had capacity for useful work. I found, however, among his papers, an entirely different sketch of his early life, half-a-dozen sheets describing the time he spent in the East end, with an almost Carlylean sense of the horrible disproportions of life. I cannot tell whether this was a first draft for the present autobiography, or the beginnings of a larger undertaking.