Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 33

[Much as he would have liked to visit the Maloja again this year, the state of his wife's health forbade such a long journey. He writes just after his attack of influenza to Sir M. Foster, who had been suffering in the same way:--]

Hodeslea, May 12, 1891.

My dear Foster,

I was very glad to hear from you. Pray don't get attempting to do anything before you are set up again.

I am in a ridiculous state of weakness, and bless my stars that I have nothing to do. I find it troublesome to do even that.

I wish ballooning had advanced so far as to take people to Maloja, for I do not think my wife ought to undertake such a journey, and yet I believe the high air would do us both more good than anything else....

The University of London scheme appears to be coming to grief, as I never doubted it would.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[So instead of going abroad, he stayed in Eastbourne till the end of August, receiving a short visit from his old friend Jowett, who, though sadly enfeebled by age, still persisted in travelling by himself, and a longer visit from his elder son and his family. But from September 11 to the 26th he and his wife made a trip through the west country, starting from Salisbury, which had so delighted him the year before, and proceeding by way of the Wye valley, which they had not visited since their honeymoon, to Llangollen. The first stage on the return journey was Chester, whence they made pious pilgrimage to the cradle of his name, Old Huxley Hall, some nine miles from Chester. Incorporated with a modern farm-house, and forming the present kitchen, are some solid stone walls, part of the old manor-house, now no longer belonging to any one of the name. From here they went to Coventry, where he had lived as a boy, and found the house which his father had occupied still standing.

A letter to an old pupil contains reflections upon the years of work to which he had devoted so much of his energies.]

To Professor T. Jeffery Parker, Otago.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 11, 1891.

My dear Parker,

It is a long time since your letter reached me, but I was so unwise as to put off answering it until the book arrived and I had read it. The book did not reach me for a long time, and what with one thing and another I have but just finished it. I a.s.sure you I am very proud of having my name connected with such a thorough piece of work, no less than touched by the kindness of the dedication.

Looking back from the aged point of view, the life which cost so much wear and tear in the living seems to have effected very little, and it is cheering to be reminded that one has been of some use.

Some years of continued ill-health, involving constant travelling about in search of better conditions than London affords, and long periods of prostration, have driven me quite out of touch with science. And indeed except for a certain toughness of const.i.tution I should have been driven out of touch with terrestrial things altogether.

It is almost indecent in a man at my time of life who has had two attacks of pleurisy, followed by a dilated heart, to be not only above ground but fairly vigorous again. However, I am obliged to mind my P's and Q's; avoid everything like hard work, and live in good air.

The last condition we have achieved by setting up a house close to the downs here; and I begin to think with Candide that "cultivons notre jardin" comprises the whole duty of man.

I was just out of the way of hearing anything about the University College chair; and indeed, beyond attending the Council of the school when necessary, and meetings of Trustees of the British Museum, I rarely go to London.

I have had my innings, and it is now for the younger generation to have theirs.

With best wishes, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[As for being no longer in touch with the world of science, he says the same thing in a note to Sir M. Foster, forwarding an inquiry after a scientific teacher (August 1).]

Please read the enclosed, and if you know of anybody suitable please send his name to Mr. Thomas.

I have told him that I am out of the way of knowing, and that you are physiologically omniscient, so don't belie the character!

[This year a number of Huxley's essays were translated into French.

"Nature" for July 23, 1891 (volume 44 page 272),--notes the publication of "Les Sciences Naturelles et l'Education," with a short preface by himself, dwelling upon the astonishing advance which had been made in the recognition of science as an instrument of education, but warning the younger generation that the battle is only half won, and bidding them beware of relaxing their efforts before the place of science is entirely a.s.sured. In the issue for December 31 ("Nature" 46 397), is a notice of "La Place de l'Homme dans la Nature," a re-issue of a translation of more than twenty years before, together with three ethnological essays, newly translated by M. H. de Varigny, to whom the following letters are addressed.]

To H. De Varigny.

May 17, 1891.

I am writing to my publishers to send you "Lay Sermons", "Critiques", "Science and Culture", and "American Addresses", pray accept them in expression of my thanks for the pains you are taking about the translation. "Man's Place in Nature" has been out of print for years, so I cannot supply it.

I am quite conscious that the condensed and idiomatic English into which I always try to put my thoughts must present many difficulties to a translator. But a friend of mine who is a much better French scholar than I am, and who looked over two or three of the essays, told me he thought you had been remarkably successful.

The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious as I grow older.

November 25, 1891.

I am very glad you have found your task pleasant, for I am afraid it must have cost you a good deal of trouble to put my ideas into the excellent French dress with which you have provided them. It fits so well that I feel almost as if I might be a candidate for a seat among the immortal forty!

As to the new volume, you shall have the refusal of it if you care to have it. But I have my doubts about its acceptability to a French public which I imagine knows little about Bibliolatry and the ways of Protestant clericalism, and cares less.

These essays represent a controversy which has been going on for five or six years about Genesis, the deluge, the miracle of the herd of swine, and the miraculous generally, between Gladstone, the ecclesiastical princ.i.p.al of King's College, various bishops, the writer of "Lux Mundi", that spoilt Scotch minister the Duke of Argyll, and myself.

My object has been to stir up my countrymen to think about these things; and the only use of controversy is that it appeals to their love of fighting, and secures their attention.

I shall be very glad to have your book on "Experimental Evolution". I insisted on the necessity of obtaining experimental proof of the possibility of obtaining virtually infertile breeds from a common stock in 1860 (in one of the essays you have translated). Mr. Tegetmeier made a number of experiments with pigeons some years ago, but could obtain not the least approximation to infertility.

From the first, I told Darwin this was the weak point of his case from the point of view of scientific logic. But, in this matter, we are just where we were thirty years ago, and I am very glad you are going to call attention to the subject.

Sending a copy of the translation soon after to Sir J. Hooker, he writes:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 11, 1892.

My dear Hooker,

We have been in the middle of snow for the last four days. I shall not venture to London, and if you deserve the family t.i.tle of the "judicious," I don't think you will either.

I send you by this post a volume of the French translation of a collection of my essays about Darwinism and Evolution, 1860-76, for which I have written a brief preface. I was really proud of myself when I discovered on re-reading them that I had nothing to alter.

What times those days were! Fuimus.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[The same subject of experimental evolution reappears in a letter to Professor Romanes of April 29. A project was on foot for founding an inst.i.tution in which experiments bearing upon the Darwinian theory could be carried out. After congratulating Professor Romanes upon his recent election to the Athenaeum Club, he proceeds:--]

In a review of Darwin's "Origin" published in the "Westminster" for 1860 ("Lay Sermons" pages 323-24), you will see that I insisted on the logical incompleteness of the theory so long as it was not backed by experimental proof that the cause a.s.sumed was competent to produce all the effects required. (See also "Lectures to Working Men" 1863 pages 146 and 147.) In fact, Darwin used to reproach me sometimes for my pertinacious insistence on the need of experimental verification.

But I hope you are going to choose some other t.i.tle than "Inst.i.tut transformiste," which implies that the Inst.i.tute is pledged to a foregone conclusion, that it is a workshop devoted to the production of a particular kind of article. Moreover, I should say that as a matter of prudence, you had better keep clear of the word "experimental."