Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 32

The actions we call sinful are as much the consequence of the order of nature as those we call virtuous. They are part and parcel of the struggle for existence through which all living things have pa.s.sed, and they have become sins because man alone seeks a higher life in voluntary a.s.sociation.

Therefore the instrument has never been marred; on the contrary, we are trying to get music out of harps, sacbuts, and psalteries, which never were in tune and seemingly never will be.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Few years pa.s.sed without some utterance from Huxley on the subject of education, especially scientific education. This year we have a letter to Professor Ray Lankester touching the science teaching at Oxford.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 28, 1891.

Dear Lankester,

I met Foster at the Athenaeum when I was in town last week, and we had some talk about your "very gentle" stirring of the Oxford pudding. I asked him to let you know when occasion offered, that (as I had already said to Burdon Sanderson) I drew a clear line apud biology between the medical student and the science student.

With respect to the former, I consider it ought to be kept within strict limits, and made simply a Vorschule to human anatomy and physiology.

On the other hand, the man who is going out in natural science ought to have a much larger dose, especially in the direction of morphology.

However, from what I understood from Foster, there seems a doubt about the "going out" in "Natural Science", so I had better confine myself to the medicos. Their burden is already so heavy that I do not want to see it increased by a needless weight even of elementary biology.

Very many thanks for the "Zoological articles" just arrived.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Don't write to the "Times" about anything; look at the trouble that comes upon a harmless man for two months, in consequence.

[The following letter, which I quote from the "Yorkshire Herald" of April 11, 1891, was written in answer to some inquiries from Mr. J.

Harrison, who read a paper on Technical Education as applied to Agriculture, before the Easingwold Agricultural Club.]

I am afraid that my opinion upon the subject of your inquiry is worth very little--my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound.

However, there are some general principles which apply to all technical training; the first of these, I think, is that practice is to be learned only by practice. The farmer must be made by and through farm work. I believe I might be able to give you a fair account of a bean plant and of the manner and condition of its growth, but if I were to try to raise a crop of beans, your club would probably laugh consumedly at the result. Nevertheless, I believe that you practical people would be all the better for the scientific knowledge which does not enable me to grow beans. It would keep you from attempting hopeless experiments, and would enable you to take advantage of the innumerable hints which Dame Nature gives to people who live in direct contact with things. And this leads me to the second general principle which I think applies to all technical teaching for school-boys and school-girls, and that is, that they should be led from the observation of the commonest facts to general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of elementary instruction preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure that I should attempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology or geology, as such.

It is a method fraught with the danger of spending too much time and attention on abstraction and theories, on words and notions instead of things. The history of a bean, of a grain of wheat, of a turnip, of a sheep, of a pig, or of a cow properly treated--with the introduction of the elements of chemistry, physiology, and so on as they come in--would give all the elementary science which is needed for the comprehension of the processes of agriculture in a form easily a.s.similated by the youthful mind, which loathes everything in the shape of long words and abstract notions, and small blame to it. I am afraid I shall not have helped you very much, but I believe that my suggestions, rough as they are, are in the right direction.

[The remaining letters of the year are of miscellaneous interest. They show him happily established in his retreat at Eastbourne in very fair health, on his guard against any further repet.i.tion of his "jubilee honour" in the shape of his old enemy pleurisy; unable to escape the more insidious attacks of influenza, but well enough on the whole to be in constant good spirits.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 13, 1891.

My dear Skelton,

Many thanks to you for reminding me that there are such things as "Summer Isles" in the universe. The memory of them has been pretty well blotted out here for the last seven weeks. You see some people can retire to "Hermitages" as well as other people; and though even Argyll c.u.m Gladstone powers of self-deception could not persuade me that the view from my window is as good as that from yours, yet I do see a fine wavy chalk down with "cwms" and soft turfy ridges, over which an old fellow can stride as far as his legs are good to carry him.

The fact is, that I discovered that staying in London any longer meant for me a very short life, and by no means a merry one. So I got my son-in-law to build me a cottage here, where my wife and I may go down-hill quietly together, and "make our sowls" as the Irish say, solaced by an occasional visit from children and grandchildren.

The deuce of it is, that however much the weary want to be at rest the wicked won't cease from troubling. Hence the occasional skirmishes and alarms which may lead my friends to mis...o...b.. my absolute detachment from sublunary affairs. Perhaps peace dwells only among the fork-tailed Petrels!

I trust Mrs. Skelton and you are flourishing, and that trouble will keep far from the hospitable doors of Braid through the New Year.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[No sooner had he settled down in his new country home, than a strange piece of good fortune, such as happens more often in a story-book than in real life, enabled him at one stroke to double his little estate, to keep off the unwelcome approach of the speculative builder, and to give himself scope for the newly-discovered delights of the garden. The sale of the house in Marlborough Place covered the greater part of the cost of Hodeslea; but almost on the very day on which the sale was concluded, he became the possessor of another house at Worthing by the death of Mr. Anthony Rich, the well-known antiquarian. An old man, almost alone in the world, his admiration for the great work done recently in natural science had long since led him to devise his property to Darwin and Huxley, to the one his private fortune, to the other his house and its contents, notably a very interesting library.

As a matter of feeling, Huxley was greatly disinclined to part with this house, Chapel Croft, as soon as it had come into his hands. A year earlier, he might have made it his home; but now he had settled down at Eastbourne, and Chapel Croft, as it stood, was unlikely to find a tenant. Accordingly he sold it early in July, and with the proceeds bought the piece of land adjoining his house. Thus he writes to Sir J.

Hooker:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 17, 1891.

My dear Hooker,

My estate is somewhat of a white elephant. There is about a couple of acres of ground well situated and half of it in the shape of a very pretty lawn and shrubbery, but unluckily, in building the house, dear old Rich thought of his own convenience and not mine (very wrong of him!), and I cannot conceive anybody but an old bachelor or old maid living in it. I do not believe anybody would take it as it stands. No doubt the site is valuable, and it would be well worth while to anybody with plenty of cash to spare to build on to the house and make it useful. But I neither have the cash, nor do I want the bother. However, Waller is going to look at the place for me and see what can be done.

It seems hardly decent to sell it at once; and moreover the value is likely to increase. I suppose at present it is worth 2000 pounds, but that is only a guess.

Apropos of naval portrait gallery, can you tell me if there is a portrait of old John Richardson anywhere extant? I always look upon him as the founder of my fortunes, and I want to hang him up (just over your head) on my chimney breast. Voici! [sketch showing the position of the pictures above the fireplace]:--

By your fruits ye shall judge them! My cold was influenza, I have been in the most preposterously weak state ever since; and at last my wife lost patience and called in the doctor, who is s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g me up with nux vomica.

Sound wind and limb otherwise.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again on July 3:--]

I have just been offered 2800 pounds for Anthony Rich's place and have accepted it. It is probably worth 3000 pounds, but if I were to have it on my hands and sell by auction I should get no more out of the transaction.

I am greatly inclined to put some of the money into a piece of land--a Naboth's vineyard--in front of my house and turn horticulturist. I find nailing up creepers a delightful occupation.

[In the same letter he describes two meetings with old friends:--]

Last Friday I ran down to Hindhead to see Tyndall. He was very much better than I hoped to find him, after such a long and serious illness, quite bright and "Tyndalloid" and not aged as I feared he would be...The local doctor happened to be there during my visit and spoke very confidently of his speedy recovery. The leg is all right again, and he even talks of Switzerland, but I begged Mrs. Tyndall to persuade him to keep quiet and within reach of home and skilled medical attendance.

Sat.u.r.day to Monday we were at Down, after six or seven years'

interruption of our wonted visits. It was very pleasant if rather sad.

Mrs. Darwin is wonderfully well--naturally aged--but quite bright and cheerful as usual. Old Parslow turned up on Sunday, just eighty, but still fairly hale. Fuimus fuimus!

[(Parslow was the old butler who had been in Mr. Darwin's service for many years.)

To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1891.

You dear people must have entered into a conspiracy, as I had letters from all yesterday. I have never been so set up before, and begin to think that fathers (like port) must improve in quality with age. (No irreverent jokes about their getting crusty, Miss.)

Julian and Joyce taken together may perhaps give a faint idea of my perfections as a child. I have not only a distinct recollection of being noticed on the score of my good looks, but my mother used to remind me painfully of them in my later years, looking at me mournfully and saying, "And you were such a pretty boy!"