Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 56

If they, or other people, have forgotten that there are other potent causes of action which may interfere with this, it is no fault of scientific method but only their own stupidity.

Hydrostatics is not a "dismal science," because water does not always seek the lowest level--e.g. from a bottle turned upside down, if there is a cork in the neck!

There is much need that somebody should do for what is vaguely called "Ethics" just what the Political Economists have done. Settle the question of what will be done under the unchecked action of certain motives, and leave the problem of "ought" for subsequent consideration.

For, whatever they ought to do, it is quite certain the majority of men will act as if the attainment of certain positive and negative pleasures were the end of action.

We want a science of "Eubiotics" to tell us exactly what will happen if human beings are exclusively actuated by the desire of well-being in the ordinary sense. Of course the utilitarians have laid the foundations of such a science, with the result that the nicknamer of genius called this branch of science "pig philosophy," making just the same blunder as when he called political economy "dismal science."

"Moderate well-being" may be no more the worthiest end of life than wealth. But if it is the best to be had in this queer world--it may be worth trying for.

But you will begin to wish the train had been PUNCTUAL!

Draw comfort from the fact that if error is always with us, it is, at any rate, remediable. I am more hopeful than when I was young. Perhaps life (like matrimony, as some say) should begin with a little aversion!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some years before this, a fund for a "Darwin Medal" had been established in memory of the great naturalist, the medal to be awarded biennially for researches in biology. With singular appropriateness, the first award was made to Dr. A.R. Wallace, the joint propounder of the theory of Natural Selection, whose paper, entrusted to Darwin's literary sponsorship, caused the speedy publication of Darwin's own long-continued researches and speculations. The second, with equal appropriateness, was to Sir J.D. Hooker, both as a leader in science and a helper and adviser of Darwin.

Huxley's own view of such scientific honours as medals and diplomas was that they should be employed to stimulate for the future rather than to reward for the past; and delighted as he was at the poetic justice of these two awards, this justice once satisfied, he let his opinion be known that thenceforward the Darwin Medal ought to be given only to younger men. But when this year he found the Darwin Medal awarded to himself "for his researches in biology and his long a.s.sociation with Charles Darwin," he could not but be touched and gratified by this mark of appreciation from his fellow-workers in science, this a.s.sociation in one more scientific record with old allies and true friends--to "have his niche in the Pantheon" next to Hooker and near to Darwin.

It was a rare instance of the fitness of things that the three men who had done most to develop and to defend Darwin's ideas should live to stand first in the list of the Darwin medalists; and Huxley felt this to be a natural closing of a chapter in his life, a fitting occasion on which to bid farewell to public life in the world of science. Almost at the same moment another chapter in science reached its completion in the "coming of age" of "Nature", a journal which, when scientific interests at large had grown stronger, had succeeded in realising his own earlier efforts to found a scientific organ, and with which he had always been closely a.s.sociated.

As mentioned above, he wrote for the November number an introductory article called "Past and Present," comparing the state of scientific thought of the day with that of twenty-five years before, when the journal was first started. To celebrate the occasion, a dinner was to be held this same month of all who had been a.s.sociated with "Nature", and this Huxley meant to attend, as well as the more important anniversary dinner of the Royal Society on St. Andrew's Day.]

I have promised [he writes on November 6 to Sir M. Foster] to go to the "Nature" dinner if I possibly can. Indeed I should be sorry to be away.

As to the Royal Society nothing short of being confined to bed will stop me. And I shall be good for a few words after dinner.

Thereafter I hope not to appear again on any stage.

[His letter about the medal expresses his feelings as to the award.]

Hodeslea, November 2, 1894.

My dear Foster,

Didn't I tell the P.R.S., Secretaries, Treasurer, and all the Fellows thereof, when I spoke about Hooker years ago, that thenceforth the Darwin Medal was to be given to the young, and not to useless old extinct volcanoes? I ought to be very angry with you all for coolly ignoring my wise counsels.

But whether it is vanity or something a good deal better, I am not. One gets chill old age, and it is very pleasant to be warmed up unexpectedly even against one's injunctions. Moreover, my wife is very pleased, not to say jubilant; and if I were made Archbishop of Canterbury I should not be able to convince her that my services to Theology were hardly of the sort to be rewarded in that fashion.

I need not say what I think about your action in the matter, my faithful old friend. With our love to you both.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I suppose you are all right again, as you write from the R.S. Liver permitting I shall attend meeting and dinner. It is very odd that the Medal should come along with my p.r.o.nouncement in "Nature", which I hope you like. I cut out rather a stinging paragraph at the end.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 11, 1894.

My dear Donnelly,

Why on earth did I not answer your letter before? Echo (being Irish) says, "Because of your infernal bad habit of putting off; which is growing upon you, you wretched old man."

Of course I shall be very glad if anything can be done for S--. Howes has written to me about him since your letter arrived--and I am positively going to answer his epistle. It's Sunday morning, and I feel good.

You will have seen that the R.S. has been giving me the Darwin Medal, though I gave as broad a hint as was proper the last time I spoke at the Anniversary, that it ought to go to the young men. Nevertheless, with ordinary inconsistency of the so-called "rational animal," I am well pleased.

I hope you will be at the dinner, and would ask you to be my guest--but as I thought my boys and boys-in-law would like to be there, I have already exceeded my lawful powers of invitation, and had to get a dispensation from Michael Foster.

I suppose I shall be like a horse that "stands at livery" for some time after--but it is positively my last appearance on any stage.

We were very glad to hear from Lady Donnelly that you had had a good and effectual holiday. With our love.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

I return Howes' letter in case you want it. I see I need not write to him again after all. Three cheers!

Please give Lady Donnelly this. A number of estimable members of her s.e.x have flown at me for writing what I thought was a highly complimentary letter. But SHE will be just, I know.

"The best of women are apt to be a little weak in the great practical arts of give-and-take, and putting up with a beating, and a little too strong in their belief in the efficacy of government. Men learn about these things in the ordinary course of their business; women have no chance in home life, and the boards and councils will be capital schools for them. Again, in the public interest it will be well; women are more naturally economical than men, and have none of our false shame about looking after pence. Moreover, they don't job for any but their lovers, husbands, and children, so that we know the worst."

[The speech at the Royal Society Anniversary dinner--which he evidently enjoyed making--was a fine piece of speaking, and quite carried away the audience, whether in the gentle depreciation of his services to science, or in his profession of faith in the methods of science and the final triumph of the doctrine of evolution, whatever theories of its operation might be adopted or discarded in the course of further investigation.

I quote from the "Times" report of the speech:--]

But the most difficult task that remains is that which concerns myself.

It is 43 years ago this day since the Royal Society did me the honour to award me a Royal medal, and thereby determined my career. But, having long retired into the position of a veteran, I confess that I was extremely astonished--I honestly also say that I was extremely pleased to receive the announcement that you had been good enough to award to me the Darwin Medal. But you know the Royal Society, like all things in this world, is subject to criticism. I confess that with the ingrained instincts of an old official that which arose in my mind after the reception of the information that I had been thus distinguished was to start an inquiry which I suppose suggests itself to every old official--How can my Government be justified? In reflecting upon what had been my own share in what are now very largely ancient transactions, it was perfectly obvious to me that I had no such claims as those of Mr. Wallace. It was perfectly clear to me that I had no such claims as those of my lifelong friend Sir Joseph Hooker, who for 25 years placed all his great sources of knowledge, his sagacity, his industry, at the disposition of his friend Darwin. And really, I begin to despair of what possible answer could be given to the critics whom the Royal Society, meeting as it does on November 30, has lately been very apt to hear about on December 1. Naturally there occurred to my mind that famous and comfortable line, which I suppose has helped so many people under like circ.u.mstances, "They also serve who only stand and wait." I am bound to confess that the standing and waiting, so far as I am concerned, to which I refer, has been of a somewhat peculiar character. I can only explain it, if you will permit me to narrate a story which came to me in my old nautical days, and which, I believe, has just as much foundation as a good deal of other information which I derived at the same period from the same source. There was a merchant ship in which a member of the Society of Friends had taken pa.s.sage, and that ship was attacked by a pirate, and the captain thereupon put into the hands of the member of the Society of Friends a pike, and desired him to take part in the subsequent action, to which, as you may imagine, the reply was that he would do nothing of the kind; but he said that he had no objection to stand and wait at the gangway. He did stand and wait with the pike in his hands, and when the pirates mounted and showed themselves coming on board he thrust his pike with the sharp end forward into the persons who were mounting, and he said, "Friend, keep on board thine own ship." It is in that sense that I venture to interpret the principle of standing and waiting to which I have referred. I was convinced as firmly as I have ever been convinced of anything in my life, that the "Origin of Species" was a ship laden with a cargo of rich value, and which, if she were permitted to pursue her course, would reach a veritable scientific Golconda, and I thought it my duty, however naturally averse I might be to fighting, to bid those who would disturb her beneficent operations to keep on board their own ship. If it has pleased the Royal Society to recognise such poor services as I may have rendered in that capacity, I am very glad, because I am as much convinced now as I was 34 years ago that the theory propounded by Mr. Darwin--I mean that which he propounded, not that which has been reported to be his by too many ill-instructed, both friends and foes--has never yet been shown to be inconsistent with any positive observations, and if I may use a phrase which I know has been objected to, and which I use in a totally different sense from that in which it was first proposed by its first propounder, I do believe that on all grounds of pure science it "holds the field," as the only hypothesis at present before us which has a sound scientific foundation. It is quite possible that you will apply to me the remark that has often been applied to persons in such a position as mine, that we are apt to exaggerate the importance of that to which our lives have been more or less devoted. But I am sincerely of opinion that the views which were propounded by Mr. Darwin 34 years ago may be understood hereafter as const.i.tuting an epoch in the intellectual history of the human race. They will modify the whole system of our thought and opinion, our most intimate convictions. But I do not know, I do not think anybody knows, whether the particular views which he held will be hereafter fortified by the experience of the ages which come after us; but of this thing I am perfectly certain, that the present course of things has resulted from the feeling of the smaller men who have followed him that they are incompetent to bend the bow of Ulysses, and in consequence many of them are seeking their salvation in mere speculation. Those who wish to attain to some clear and definite solution of the great problems which Mr. Darwin was the first person to set before us in later times must base themselves upon the facts which are stated in his great work, and, still more, must pursue their inquiries by the methods of which he was so brilliant an exemplar throughout the whole of his life. You must have his sagacity, his untiring search after the knowledge of fact, his readiness always to give up a preconceived opinion to that which was demonstrably true, before you can hope to carry his doctrines to their ultimate issue; and whether the particular form in which he has put them before us may be such as is finally destined to survive or not is more, I venture to think, than anybody is capable at this present moment of saying. But this one thing is perfectly certain--that it is only by pursuing his methods, by that wonderful single-mindedness, devotion to truth, readiness to sacrifice all things for the advance of definite knowledge, that we can hope to come any nearer than we are at present to the truths which he struggled to attain.

To Sir J.D. Hooker.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 4, 1894.

My dear old Man,

See the respect I have for your six years' seniority! I wished you had been at the dinner, but was glad you were not. Especially as next morning there was a beastly fog, out of which I bolted home as fast as possible.

I shall have to give up these escapades. They knock me up for a week afterwards. And really it is a pity, just as I have got over my horror of public speaking, and find it very amusing. But I suppose I should gravitate into a bore as old fellows do, and so it is as well I am kept out of temptation.

I will try to remember what I said at the "Nature" dinner. I scolded the young fellows pretty sharply for their slovenly writing. [A brief report of this speech is to be found in the "British Medical Journal"

for December 8, 1894, page 1262.]

There will be a tenth volume of Essays some day, and an Index rerum. Do you remember how you scolded me for being too speculative in my maiden lecture on Animal Individuality forty odd years ago? "On revient toujours," or, to put it another way, "The dog returns to his etc. etc."

So I am deep in philosophy, grovelling through Diogenes Laertius--Plutarch's "Placita" and sich--and often wondering whether the schoolmasters have any better ground for maintaining that Greek is a finer language than English than the fact that they can't write the latter dialect.