Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 5

M.E. Grant Duff.]

CHAPTER 2.2.

1871.

["In 1871" (to quote Sir M. Foster), "the post of Secretary to the Royal Society became vacant through the resignation of William Sharpey, and the Fellows learned with glad surprise that Huxley, whom they looked to rather as a not distant President, was willing to undertake the duties of the office." This office, which he held until 1880, involved him for the next ten years in a quant.i.ty of anxious work, not only in the way of correspondence and administration, but the seeing through the press and often revising every biological paper that the Society received, as well as reading those it rejected. Then, too, he had to attend every general, council, and committee meeting, amongst which latter the "Challenger" Committee was a load in itself.

Under pressure of all this work, he was compelled to give up active connection with other learned societies. (See Appendix 2.)

Other work this year, in addition to the School Board, included courses of lectures at the London Inst.i.tution in January and February, on "First Principles of Biology," and from October to December on "Elementary Physiology"; lectures to Working Men in London from February to April, as well as one at Liverpool, March 25, on "The Geographical Distribution of Animals"; two lectures at the Royal Inst.i.tution, May 12 and 19, on "Berkeley on Vision," and the "Metaphysics of Sensation" ("Collected Essays" 6). He published one paleontological paper, "Fossil Vertebrates from the Yarrow Colliery"

(Huxley and Wright, "Irish Academy Transactions"). In June and July he gave 36 lectures to schoolmasters--that important business of teaching the teachers that they might set about scientific instruction in the right way. (See below.) He attended the British a.s.sociation at Edinburgh, and laid down his Presidency; he brought out his "Manual of Vertebrate Anatomy," and wrote a review of "Mr. Darwin's Critics" (see below), while on October 9 he delivered an address at the Midland Inst.i.tute, Birmingham, on "Administrative Nihilism" ("Collected Essays" 1). This address, written between September 21 and 28, and remodelled later, was a pendant to his educational campaign on the School Board; a restatement and justification of what he had said and done there. His text was the various objections raised to State interference with education; he dealt first with the upholders of a kind of caste system, men who were willing enough to raise themselves and their sons to a higher social plane, but objected on semi-theological grounds to any one from below doing likewise--neatly satirising them and their notions of gentility, and quoting Plato in support of his contention that what is wanted even more than means to help capacity to rise is "machinery by which to facilitate the descent of incapacity from the higher strata to the lower." He repeats in new phrase his warning] "that every man of high natural ability, who is both ignorant and miserable, is as great a danger to society as a rocket without a stick is to people who fire it. Misery is a match that never goes out; genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow: and if knowledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run amuck among friends and foes."

[Another cla.s.s of objectors will have it that government should be restricted to police functions, both domestic and foreign, that any further interference must do harm.]

Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that we accept the proposition that the functions of the State may be properly summed up in the one great negative commandment--"Thou shalt not allow any man to interfere with the liberty of any other man,"--I am unable to see that the logical consequence is any such restriction of the power of Government, as its supporters imply. If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhoid and diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to just as much as if he went about with a pistol threatening my life; if he is to be allowed to let his children go unvaccinated, he might as well be allowed to leave strychnine lozenges about in the way of mine; and if he brings them up untaught and untrained to earn their living, he is doing his best to restrict my freedom, by increasing the burden of taxation for the support of gaols and workhouses, which I have to pay.

The higher the state of civilisation, the more completely do the actions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens. So that, even upon the narrowest view of the functions of the State, it must be admitted to have wider powers than the advocates of the police theory are disposed to admit.

[This leads to a criticism of Mr. Spencer's elaborate comparison of the body politic to the body physical, a comparison vitiated by the fact that "among the higher physiological organisms there is none which is developed by the conjunction of a number of primitively independent existences into a complete whole."]

The process of social organisation appears to be comparable, not so much to the process of organic development, as to the synthesis of the chemist, by which independent elements are gradually built up into complex aggregations--in which each element retains an independent individuality, though held in subordination to the whole.

[It is permissible to quote a few more sentences from this address for the sake of their freshness, or as ill.u.s.trating the writer's ideas.

Discussing toleration,] "I cannot discover that Locke fathers the pet doctrine of modern Liberalism, that the toleration of error is a good thing in itself, and to be reckoned among the cardinal virtues."

[(This bears on his speech against Ultramontanism.)

Of Mr. Spencer's comparison of the State to a living body in the interests of individualism:--]

I suppose it is universally agreed that it would be useless and absurd for the State to attempt to promote friendship and sympathy between man and man directly. But I see no reason why, if it be otherwise expedient, the State may not do something towards that end indirectly.

For example, I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it.

The sole order of n.o.bility which, in my judgment, becomes a philosopher, is the rank which he holds in the estimation of his fellow-workers, who are the only competent judges in such matters.

Newton and Cuvier lowered themselves when the one accepted an idle knighthood, and the other became a baron of the empire. The great men who went to their graves as Michael Faraday and George Grote seem to me to have understood the dignity of knowledge better when they declined all such meretricious trappings. [(On the other hand, he thought it right and proper for officials, in scientific as in other departments, to accept such honours, as giving them official power and status. In his own case, while refusing all simple t.i.tular honours, he accepted the Privy Councillorship, because, though incidentally carrying a t.i.tle, it was an office; and an office in virtue of which a man of science might, in theory at least, be called upon to act as responsible adviser to the Government, should special occasion arise.)

The usual note of high pressure recurs in the following letter, written to thank Darwin for his new work, "The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to s.e.x."]

Jermyn Street, February 20, 1871.

My dear Darwin,

Best thanks for your new book, a copy of which I find awaiting me this morning. But I wish you would not bring your books out when I am so busy with all sorts of things. You know I can't show my face anywhere in society without having read them--and I consider it too bad.

No doubt, too, it is full of suggestions just like that I have hit upon by chance at page 212 of volume 1, which connects the periodicity of vital phenomena with antecedent conditions.

Fancy lunacy, etc., coming out of the primary fact that one's nth ancestor lived between tide-marks! I declare it's the grandest suggestion I have heard of for an age.

I have been working like a horse for the last fortnight, with the f.a.g end of influenza hanging about me--and I am improving under the process, which shows what a good tonic work is.

I shall try if I can't pick out from "s.e.xual Selection" some practical hint for the improvement of gutter-babies, and bring in a resolution thereupon at the School Board.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This year also saw the inception of a scheme for a series of science primers, under the joint editorship of Professors Huxley, Roscoe, and Balfour Stewart. Huxley undertook the Introductory Primer, but it progressed slowly owing to pressure of other work, and was not actually finished till 1880.]

26 Abbey Place, June 29, 1871.

My dear Roscoe,

If you could see the minutes of the Proceedings of the Aid to Science Commission, the Contagious Diseases Commission and the School Board (to say nothing of a lecture to Schoolmasters every morning), you would forgive me for not having written to you before.

But now that I have had a little time to look at it, I hasten to say that your chemical primer appears to me to be admirable--just what is wanted.

I enclose the sketch for my Primer primus. You will see the bearing of it, rough as it is. When it touches upon chemical matters, it would deal with them in a more rudimentary fashion than yours does, and only prepare the minds of the fledglings for you.

I send you a copy of the Report of the Education Committee, the resolutions based on which I am now slowly getting pa.s.sed by our Board. The adoption of (c) among the essential subjects has, I hope, secured the future of Elementary Science in London. Cannot you get as much done in Manchester?

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Sir Charles Lyell was now nearly 74 years old, and though he lived four years longer, age was beginning to tell even upon his vigorous powers. A chance meeting with him elicited the following letter:--]

26 Abbey Place, July 30, 1871.

My dear Darwin,

I met Lyell in Waterloo Place to-day walking with Carrick Moore--and although what you said the other day had prepared me, I was greatly shocked at his appearance, and still more at his speech. There is no doubt it is affected in the way you describe, and the fact gives me very sad forebodings about him. The Fates send me a swift and speedy end whenever my time comes. I think there is nothing so lamentable as the spectacle of the wreck of a once clear and vigorous mind!

I am glad Frank enjoyed his visit to us. He is a great favourite here, and I hope he will understand that he is free of the house. It was the greatest fun to see Jess and Mady [aged 13 and 12 respectively] on their dignity with him. No more kissing, I can tell you. Miss Mady was especially sublime.

Six out of our seven children have the whooping-cough. Need I say therefore that the wife is enjoying herself?

With best regards to Mrs. Darwin and your daughter (and affectionate love to Polly) believe me,

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The purchase of the microscope, already referred to, was the subject of another letter to Dr. Dohrn, of which only the concluding paragraph about the School Board, is of general interest. Unfortunately the English microscope did not turn out a success, as compared to the work of the Jena opticians: this is the "optical Sadowa" of the second letter.]

I fancy from what you wrote to my wife that there has been some report of my doings about the School Board in Germany. So I send you the number of the "Contemporary Review" [Containing his article on "The School Boards," etc.] for December that you may see what line I have really taken. Fanatics on both sides abuse me, so I think I must be right.

When is this infernal war to come to an end? I hold for Germany as always, but I wish she would make peace.

With best wishes for the New Year,