Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 23

CHAPTER 1.13.

1859.

[In November 1859 the "Origin of Species" was published, and a new direction was given to Huxley's activities. Ever since Darwin and Wallace had made their joint communication to the Linnean Society in the preceding July, expectation had been rife as to the forthcoming book.

Huxley was one of the few privileged to learn Darwin's argument before it was given to the world; but the greatness of the book, mere instalment as it was of the long acc.u.mulated ma.s.s of notes, almost took him by surprise. Before this time, he had taken up a thoroughly agnostic att.i.tude with regard to the species question, for he could not accept the creational theory, yet sought in vain among the trans.m.u.tationists for any cause adequate to produce trans.m.u.tation. He had had many talks with Darwin, and though ready enough to accept the main point, maintained such a critical att.i.tude on many others, that Darwin was not by any means certain of the effect the published book would produce upon him. Indeed, in his 1857 notebook, I find jotted down under the head of his paper on Pygocephalus (read at the Geological Society),]

"anti-progressive confession of faith." [Darwin was the more anxious, as, when he first put pen to paper, he had fixed in his mind three judges, by whose decision he determined mentally to abide. These three were Lyell, Hooker, and Huxley. If these three came round, partly through the book, partly through their own reflections, he could feel that the subject was safe. "No one," writes Darwin on November 13, "has read it, except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker thinks him a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to me; but is evidently deeply interested in the subject." And again: "I think I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can convert Huxley I shall be content." ("Life" volume 2 page 221.)

On all three, the effect of the book itself, with its detailed arguments and overwhelming array of evidence, was far greater than that of previous discussions. With one or two reservations as to the logical completeness of the theory, Huxley accepted it as a well-founded working hypothesis, calculated to explain problems otherwise inexplicable.

Two extracts from the chapter he contributed to the "Life of Darwin"

show very clearly his att.i.tude of mind when the "Origin of Species" was first published:--]

Extract from "The Reception of the 'Origin of Species'" in "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin" volume 2 pages 187-90 and 195-97.

I think I must have read the "Vestiges" before I left England in 1846; but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon me, and I was not brought into serious contact with the "Species" question until after 1850. At that time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony, which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth, with all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it had cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was unbia.s.sed in respect of any doctrine which presented itself, if it professed to be based on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning. It seemed to me then (as it does now) that "creation," in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence; and that it made its appearance in six days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition of some pre-existing Being.

Then, as now, the so-called a priori arguments against Theism; and, given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me to be devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then, and I have not now, the smallest a priori objection to raise to the account of the creation of animals and plants given in "Paradise Lost," in which Milton so vividly embodies the natural sense of Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is untrue because it is impossible. I confine myself to what must be regarded as a modest and reasonable request for some particle of evidence that the existing species of animals and plants did originate in that way, as a condition of my belief in a statement which appears to me to be highly improbable.

And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same answer to give to the evolutionists of 1851-8. Within the ranks of the biologists, at that time, I met with n.o.body, except Dr. Grant of University College, who had a word to say for Evolution--and his advocacy was not calculated to advance the cause. Outside these ranks, the only person known to me whose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and who was, at the same time, a thorough-going evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose acquaintance I made, I think, in 1852, and then entered into the bonds of a friendship which, I am happy to think, has known no interruption.

Many and prolonged were the battles we fought on this topic. But even my friend's rare dialectic skill and copiousness of apt ill.u.s.tration could not drive me from my agnostic position. I took my stand upon two grounds:--Firstly, that up to that time, the evidence in favour of trans.m.u.tation was wholly insufficient; and secondly, that no suggestion respecting the causes of trans.m.u.tation a.s.sumed, which had been made, was in any way adequate to explain the phenomena. Looking back at the state of knowledge at that time, I really do not see that any other conclusion was justifiable.

In those days I had never even heard of Trevira.n.u.s' "Biologie." However, I had studied Lamarck attentively and I had read the "Vestiges" with due care; but neither of them afforded me any good ground for changing my negative and critical att.i.tude. As for the "Vestiges," I confess that the book simply irritated me by the prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind manifested by the writer. If it had any influence on me at all, it set me against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I wrote on the "Vestiges" while under that influence...

But, by a curious irony of fate, the same influence which led me to put as little faith in modern speculations on this subject as in the venerable traditions recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis, was perhaps more potent than any other in keeping alive a sort of pious conviction that Evolution, after all, would turn out true. I have recently read afresh the first edition of the "Principles of Geology"; and when I consider that this remarkable book had been nearly thirty years in everybody's hands, and that it brings home to any reader of ordinary intelligence a great principle and a great fact,--the principle that the past must be explained by the present, unless good cause be shown to the contrary; and the fact that so far as our knowledge of the past history of life on our globe goes, no such cause can be shown--I cannot but believe that Lyell, for others, as for myself, was the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin. For consistent uniformitarianism postulates Evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world.

The origin of a new species by other than ordinary agencies would be a vastly greater "catastrophe" than any of those which Lyell successfully eliminated from sober geological speculation.

Thus, looking back into the past, it seems to me that my own position of critical expectancy was just and reasonable, and must have been taken up, on the same grounds, by many other persons. If Aga.s.siz told me that the forms of life which have successively tenanted the globe were the incarnations of successive thoughts of the Deity; and that he had wiped out one set of these embodiments by an appalling geological catastrophe as soon as His ideas took a more advanced shape, I found myself not only unable to admit the accuracy of the deductions from the facts of paleontology, upon which this astounding hypothesis was founded, but I had to confess my want of any means of testing the correctness of his explanation of them. And besides that, I could by no means see what the explanation explained. Neither did it help me to be told by an eminent anatomist that species had succeeded one another in time, in virtue of "a continuously operative creational law." That seemed to me to be no more than saying that species had succeeded one another in the form of a vote-catching resolution, with "law" to catch the man of science, and "creational" to draw the orthodox. So I took refuge in that "thatige Skepsis" which Goethe has so well defined; and, reversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of the received doctrines when I had to do with the trans.m.u.tationist; and stood up for the possibility of trans.m.u.tation among the orthodox--thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness.

I remember, in the course of my first interview with Mr. Darwin, expressing my belief in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation between natural groups and in the absence of transitional forms, with all the confidence of youth and imperfect knowledge. I was not aware, at that time, that he had then been many years brooding over the species-question; and the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer, that such was not altogether his view, long haunted and puzzled me. But it would seem that four or five years' hard work had enabled me to understand what it meant; for Lyell, writing to Sir Charles Bunbury (under date of April 30, 1856), says:--

"When Huxley, Hooker, and Wollaston were at Darwin's last week they (all four of them) ran a tilt against species--further, I believe, than they are prepared to go."

I recollect nothing of this beyond the fact of meeting Mr. Wollaston; and except for Sir Charles's distinct a.s.surance as to "all four," I should have thought my outrecuidance was probably a counterblast to Wollaston's conservatism. With regard to Hooker, he was already, like Voltaire's Habbakuk, capable du tout in the way of advocating Evolution.

As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my contemporaries who thought seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion, to labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact. And I may therefore suppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace paper in 1858, and still more that of the "Origin" in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light which, to a man who has lost himself on a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms which a.s.sumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The "Origin" provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.

Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma--Refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857 I had no answer ready, and I do not think that anyone else had. A year later we reproached ourselves with dulness for being perplexed with such an inquiry. My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the "Origin" was, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!" I suppose that Columbus' companions said much the same when he made the egg stand on end. The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough; but none of us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the "Origin" guided the benighted.

Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of Evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not, was to me a matter of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of the "Origin" I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the creation hypothesis. And if we had none of us been able to discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to speak, thrust under our noses, what force remained in the dilemma--creation or nothing? It was obvious that hereafter the probability would be immensely greater, that the links of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than that natural causation should be incompetent to produce all the phenomena of nature.

The only rational course for those who had no other object than the attainment of truth was to accept "Darwinism" as a working hypothesis and see what could be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate the facts of organic life, or it would break down under the strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense; and, for once, common sense carried the day.

[Even before the "Origin" actually came out, Huxley had begun to act as what Darwin afterwards called his "general agent." He began to prepare the way for the acceptance of the theory of evolution by discussing, for instance, one of the most obvious difficulties, namely, How is it that if evolution is ever progressive, progress is not universal? It was a point with respect to which Darwin himself wrote soon after the publication of the "Origin":--"Judging from letters...and from remarks, the most serious omission in my book was not explaining how it is, as I believe, that all forms do not necessarily advance, how there can now be SIMPLE organisms existing." (May 22, 1860.)

Huxley's idea, then, was to call attention to the persistence of many types without appreciable progression during geological time; to show that this fact was not explicable on any other hypothesis than that put forward by Darwin; and by paleontological arguments, to pave the way for consideration of the imperfection of the geological record.

Such were the lines on which he delivered his Friday evening lecture on "Persistent Types" at the Royal Inst.i.tution on June 3,1859.

However, the chief part which he took at this time in extending the doctrines of evolution was in applying them to his own subjects, Development and Vertebrate Anatomy, and more particularly to the question of the origin of mankind.

Of all the burning questions connected with the Origin of Species, this was the most heated--the most surrounded by prejudice and pa.s.sion. To touch it was to court attack; to be exposed to endless scorn, ridicule, misrepresentation, abuse--almost to social ostracism. But the facts were there; the structural likenesses between the apes and man had already been shown; and as Huxley warned Darwin,] "I will stop at no point so long as clear reasoning will carry me further."

[Now two years before the "Origin" appeared, the denial of these facts by a leading anatomist led Huxley, as was his wont, to re-investigate the question for himself and satisfy himself one way or the other. He found that the previous investigators were not mistaken. Without going out of his way to refute the mis-statement as publicly as it was made, he simply embodied his results in his regular teaching. But the opportunity came unsought. Fortified by his own researches, he openly challenged these a.s.sertions when repeated at the Oxford meeting of the British a.s.sociation in 1860, and promised to made good his challenge in the proper place.

We also find him combating some of the difficulties in the way of accepting the theory laid before him by Sir Charles Lyell. The veteran geologist had been Darwin's confidant from almost the beginning of his speculations; he had really paved the way for the evolutionary doctrine by his own proof of geological uniformity, but he shrank from accepting it, for its inevitable extension to the descent of man was repugnant to his feelings. Nevertheless, he would not allow sentiment to stand in the way of truth, and after the publication of the "Origin" it could be said of him:--]

Lyell, up to that time a pillar of the anti-trans.m.u.tationists (who regarded him, ever afterwards, as Pallas Athene may have looked at Dian, after the Endymion affair), declared himself a Darwinian, though not without putting in a serious caveat. Nevertheless, he was a tower of strength, and his courageous stand for truth as against consistency did him infinite honour. (T.H. Huxley in "Life of Darwin" volume 2 page 231.)

[To Sir Charles Lyell.]

June 25, 1859.

My dear Sir Charles,

I have endeavoured to meet your objections in the enclosed.

Ever yours, very truly,

T.H. Huxley.

The fixity and definite limitation of species, genera, and larger groups appear to me to be perfectly consistent with the theory of trans.m.u.tation. In other words, I think TRANs.m.u.tATION may take place without transition.

Suppose that external conditions acting on species A give rise to a new species, B; the difference between the two species is a certain definable amount which may be called A-B. Now I know of no evidence to show that the interval between the two species must NECESSARILY be bridged over by a series of forms, each of which shall occupy, as it occurs, a fraction of the distance between A and B. On the contrary, in the history of the Ancon sheep, and of the six-fingered Maltese family, given by Reaumur, it appears that the new form appeared at once in full perfection.

I may ill.u.s.trate what I mean by a chemical example. In an organic compound, having a precise and definite composition, you may effect all sorts of trans.m.u.tations by subst.i.tuting an atom of one element for an atom of another element. You may in this way produce a vast series of modifications--but each modification is definite in its composition, and there are no transitional or intermediate steps between one definite compound and another. I have a sort of notion that similar laws of definite combination rule over the modifications of organic bodies, and that in pa.s.sing from species to species "Natura fecit saltum."

All my studies lead me to believe more and more in the absence of any real transitions between natural groups, great and small--but with what we know of the physiology of conditions [?] this opinion seems to me to be quite consistent with trans.m.u.tation.

When I say that no evidence, or hardly any, would justify one in believing in the view of a new species of Elephant, e.g. out of the earth, I mean that such an occurrence would be so diametrically contrary to all experience, so opposed to those beliefs which are the most constantly verified by experience, that one would be justified in believing either that one's senses were deluded, or that one had not really got to the bottom of the phenomenon. Of course, if one could vary the conditions, if one could take a little silex, and by a little hocus-pocus a la crosse, galvanise a baby out of it as often as one pleased, all the philosopher could do would be to hold up his hands and cry, "G.o.d is great." But short of evidence of this kind, I don't mean to believe anything of the kind.

How much evidence would you require to believe that there was a time when stones fell upwards, or granite made itself by a spontaneous rearrangement of the elementary particles of clay and sand? And yet the difficulties in the way of these beliefs are as nothing compared to those which you would have to overcome in believing that complex organic beings made themselves (for that is what creation comes to in scientific language) out of inorganic matter.

I know it will be said that even on the trans.m.u.tation theory, the first organic being must have made itself. But there is as much difference between supposing the pa.s.sage of inorganic matter into an AMOEBA, e.g., and into an ELEPHANT, as there is between supposing that Portland stone might have built itself up into St. Paul's, and believing that the Giant's Causeway may have come about by natural causes.

True, one must believe in a beginning somewhere, but science consists in not believing the having reached that beginning before one is forced to do so.

It is wholly impossible to prove that any phenomenon whatsoever is not produced by the interposition of some unknown cause. But philosophy has prospered exactly as it has disregarded such possibilities, and has endeavoured to resolve every event by ordinary reasoning.

I do not exactly see the force of your argument that we are bound to find fossil forms intermediate between men and monkeys in the Rocks.

Crocodiles are the highest reptiles as men are the highest mammals, but we find nothing intermediate between CROCODILIA and LACERTILIA in the whole range of the Mesozoic rocks. How do we know that Man is not a persistent type? And as for implements, at this day, and as, I suppose, for the last two or three thousand years at least, the savages of Australia have made their weapons of nothing but bone and wood. Why should h.o.m.o EOCENUS or OOLITICUS, the fellows who waddied the AMPHITHERIUM and speared the PHASCOLOTHERIUM as the Australian n.i.g.g.e.rs treat their congeners, have been more advanced?

I by no means suppose that the trans.m.u.tation hypothesis is proven or anything like it. But I view it as a powerful instrument of research.

Follow it out, and it will lead us somewhere; while the other notion is like all the modifications of "final causation," a barren virgin.

And I would very strongly urge upon you that it is the logical development of Uniformitarianism, and that its adoption would harmonise the spirit of Paleontology with that of Physical Geology.

CHAPTER 1.14.

1859-1860.