Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 53

There have been threatenings of late that the field of battle of Evolution was being transferred to Nephelococcygia.

I see you are inclined to advocate the possibility of considerable "saltus" on the part of Dame Nature in her variations. I always took the same view, much to Mr. Darwin's disgust, and we used often to debate it.

If you should come across my article in the "Westminster" (1860) you will find a paragraph on that question near the end. I am writing to Macmillan to send you the volume.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

By the way, have you ever considered this point, that the variations of which breeders avail themselves are exactly those which occur when the previously wild stocks are subjected to exactly the same conditions?

[The rest of the first half of the year is not eventful. As ill.u.s.trating the sort of communications which constantly came to him, I quote from a letter to Sir J. Donnelly, of January 11:--]

I had a letter from a fellow yesterday morning who must be a lunatic, to the effect that he had been reading my essays, thought I was just the man to spend a month with, and was coming down by the five o'clock train, attended by his seven children and his MOTHER-IN-LAW!

Frost being over, there was lots of boiling water ready for him, but he did not turn up!

Wife and servants expected nothing less than a.s.sa.s.sination.

[Later he notes with dismay an invitation as a Privy Councillor to a State evening party:--]

It is at 10.30 P.M., just the time this poor old septuagenarian goes to bed!

My swellness is an awful burden, for as it is I am going to dine with the Prime Minister on Sat.u.r.day.

[The banquet with the Prime Minister here alluded to was the occasion of a brief note of apology to Lord Rosebery for having unintentionally kept him waiting:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 28, 1894.

Dear Lord Rosebery,

I had hoped that my difficulties in dealing with an overtight scabbard stud, as we sat down to dinner on Sat.u.r.day had inconvenienced no one but myself, until it flashed across my mind after I had parted from you that, as you had observed them, it was only too probable that I had the misfortune to keep you waiting.

I have been in a state of permanent blush ever since, and I feel sure you will forgive me for troubling you with this apology as the only remedy to which I can look for relief from that unwonted affliction.

I am, dear Lord Rosebery, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[All through the spring he had been busy completing the chapter on Sir Richard Owen's work, which he had been asked to write by the biographer of his old opponent, and on February 4 tells Sir J.D. Hooker:--]

I am toiling over my chapter about Owen, and I believe his ghost in Hades is grinning over my difficulties.

The thing that strikes me most is, how he and I and all the things we fought about belong to antiquity.

It is almost impertinent to trouble the modern world with such antiquarian business.

[He sent the ma.n.u.script to Sir M. Foster on June 16; the book itself appeared in December. The chapter in question was restricted to a review of the immense amount of work, most valuable on its positive side, done by Owen (compare the letter of January 18, 1893.); and the review in "Nature" remarks of it that the criticism is "so straightforward, searching, and honest as to leave nothing further to be desired."

Besides this piece of work, he had written early in the year a few lines on the general character of the nineteenth century, in reply to a request, addressed to "the most ill.u.s.trious children of the century,"

for their opinion as to what name will be given to it by an impartial posterity--the century of Comte, of Darwin or Renan, of Edison, Pasteur, or Gladstone. He replied:--]

I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.

The activity of the scientific spirit has been manifested in every region of speculation and of practice.

Many of the eminent men you mention have been its effective organs in their several departments.

But the selection of any one of these, whatever his merits, as an adequate representative of the power and majesty of the scientific spirit of the age would be a grievous mistake.

Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah.

[The unexampled increase in the expenditure of the European states upon their armaments led the Arbitration Alliance this year to issue a memorial urging the Government to co-operate with other Governments in reducing naval and military burdens. Huxley was asked to sign this memorial, and replied to the secretary as follows:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, June 21, 1894.

Dear Sir,

I have taken some time to consider the memorial to which you have called my attention, and I regret that I do not find myself able to sign it.

Not that I have the slightest doubt about the magnitude of the evils which accrue from the steady increase of European armaments; but because I think that this regrettable fact is merely the superficial expression of social forces, the operation of which cannot be sensibly affected by agreements between Governments.

In my opinion it is a delusion to attribute the growth of armaments to the "exactions of militarism." The "exactions of industrialism,"

generated by international commercial compet.i.tion, may, I believe, claim a much larger share in prompting that growth. Add to this the French thirst for revenge, the most just determination of the German and Italian peoples to a.s.sert their national unity; the Russian Panslavonic fanaticism and desire for free access to the western seas; the Papacy steadily fishing in the troubled waters for the means of recovering its lost (I hope for ever lost) temporal possessions and spiritual supremacy; the "sick man," kept alive only because each of his doctors is afraid of the other becoming his heir.

When I think of the intensity of the perturbing agencies which arise out of these and other conditions of modern European society, I confess that the attempt to counteract them by asking Governments to agree to a maximum military expenditure, does not appear to me to be worth making; indeed I think it might do harm by leading people to suppose that the desires of Governments are the chief agents in determining whether peace or war shall obtain in Europe.

I am, yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Later in the year, on August 8, took place the meeting of the British a.s.sociation at Oxford, noteworthy for the presidential address delivered by Lord Salisbury, Chancellor of the University, in which the doctrine of evolution was "enunciated as a matter of course--disputed by no reasonable man,"--although accompanied by a description of the working of natural selection and variation which appeared to the man of science a mere travesty of these doctrines.

Huxley had been persuaded to attend this meeting, the more willingly, perhaps, since his reception at Oxford the year before suggested that there would be a special piquancy in the contrast between this and the last meeting of the a.s.sociation at Oxford in 1860. He was not disappointed. Details apart, the cardinal situation was reversed. The genius of the place had indeed altered. The representatives of the party, whose prophet had once contemptuously come here to anathematise the "Origin", returned at length to the same spot to admit--if not altogether ungrudgingly--the greatness of the work accomplished by Darwin.

Once under promise to go, he could not escape without the "few words"

which he now found so tiring; but he took the part which a.s.sured him greatest freedom, as seconder of the vote of thanks to the president for his address. The study of an advance copy of the address raised an]

"almost overwhelming temptation" [to criticise certain statements contained in it; but this would have been out of place in seconding a vote of thanks; and resisting the temptation, he only] "conveyed criticism," [as he writes to Professor Lewis Campbell], "in the form of praise": [going so far as to suggest] "it might be that, in listening to the deeply interesting address of the President, a thought had occasionally entered his mind how rich and profitable might be the discussion of that paper in Section D" (Biology). [It was not exactly an offhand speech. Writing to Sir M. Foster for any good report which might appear in an Oxford paper, he says:--]

I have no notes of it. I wrote something on Tuesday night, but this draft is no good, as it was metamorphosed two or three times over on Wednesday.

[One who was present and aware of the whole situation once described how he marked the eyes of another interested member of the audience, who knew that Huxley was to speak, but not what he meant to say, turning anxiously whenever the president reached a critical phrase in the address, to see how he would take it. But the expression of his face told nothing; only those who knew him well could infer a suppressed impatience from a little twitching of his foot.

Of this occasion Professor Henry F. Osborn, one of his old pupils, writes in his "Memorial Tribute to Thomas H. Huxley" ("Transactions of the N.Y. Acad. Society" volume 15):--

Huxley's last public appearance was at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation at Oxford. He had been very urgently invited to attend, for, exactly a quarter of a century before, the a.s.sociation had met at Oxford, and Huxley had had his famous encounter with Bishop Wilberforce. It was felt that the anniversary would be an historic one, and incomplete without his presence, and so it proved to be. Huxley's especial duty was to second the vote of thanks for the Marquis of Salisbury's address--one of the invariable formalities of the opening meetings of the a.s.sociation. The meeting proved to be the greatest one in the history of the a.s.sociation. The Sheldonian Theatre was packed with one of the most distinguished scientific audiences ever brought together, and the address of the Marquis was worthy of the occasion.

The whole tenor of it was the unknown in science. Pa.s.sing from the unsolved problems of astronomy, chemistry, and physics, he came to biology. With delicate irony he spoke of the] "COMFORTING WORD, EVOLUTION," [and pa.s.sing to the Weismannian controversy, implied that the diametrically opposed views so frequently expressed nowadays threw the whole process of evolution into doubt. It was only too evident that the Marquis himself found no comfort in evolution, and even entertained a suspicion as to its probability. It was well worth the whole journey to Oxford to watch Huxley during this portion of the address. In his red doctor-of-laws gown, placed upon his shoulders by the very body of men who had once referred to him as "a Mr. Huxley" (This phrase was actually used by the "Times".), he sank deeper into his chair upon the very front of the platform and restlessly tapped his foot. His situation was an unenviable one. He had to thank an ex-Prime Minister of England and present Chancellor of Oxford University for an address, the sentiments of which were directly against those he himself had been maintaining for twenty-five years. He said afterwards that when the proofs of the Marquis's address were put into his hands the day before, he realised that he had before him a most delicate and difficult task.

Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) one of the most distinguished living physicists, first moved the vote of thanks, but his reception was nothing to the tremendous applause which greeted Huxley in the heart of that University whose cardinal principles he had so long been opposing.

Considerable anxiety had been felt by his friends lest his voice should fail to fill the theatre, for it had signally failed during his Romanes Lecture delivered in Oxford the year before, but when Huxley arose he reminded you of a venerable gladiator returning to the arena after years of absence. He raised his figure and his voice to its full height, and, with one foot turned over the edge of the step, veiled an unmistakable and vigorous protest in the most gracious and dignified speech of thanks.