Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 6

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

26 Abbey Place, July 7, 1871.

My dear Dohrn,

I have received your packet, and I will take care that your Report is duly presented to the a.s.sociation. But the "Happy Family" in general, and myself in particular, are very sorry you cannot come to Scotland.

We had begun to count upon it, and the children are immeasurably disgusted with the Insects which will not lay their eggs at the right time.

You have become acclimatised to my bad behaviour in the matter of correspondence, so I shall not apologise for being in arrear. I have been frightfully hard-worked with two Royal Commissions and the School Board all sitting at once, but I am none the worse, and things are getting into shape--which is a satisfaction for one's trouble. I look forward hopefully towards getting back to my ordinary work next year.

Your penultimate letter was very interesting to me, but the glimpses into your new views which it affords are very tantalising--and I want more. What you say about the development of the Amnion in your last letter still more nearly brought "Donner und Blitz!" to my lips--and I shall look out anxiously for your new facts. Lankester tells me you have been giving lectures on your views. I wish I had been there to hear.

He is helping me as Demonstrator in a course of instruction in Biology which I am giving to Schoolmasters--with the view of converting them into scientific missionaries to convert the Christian Heathen of these islands to the true faith.

I am afraid that the English microscope turned out to be by no means worth the money and trouble you bestowed upon it. But the glory of such an optical Sadowa should count for something! I wish that you would get your Jena man to supply me with one of his best objectives if the price is not ruinous--I should like to compare it with my 1/12 inch of Ross. [In this connection it may be noted that he himself invented a combination microscope for laboratory use, still made by Crouch the optician. (See "Journal of Queckett Micr. Club" volume 5 page 144.)]

All our children but Jessie have the whooping-cough--Pertussis--I don't know your German name for it. It is distressing enough for them, but, I think, still worse for their mother. However, there are no serious symptoms, and I hope the change of air will set them right.

They all join with me in best wishes and regrets that you are not coming. Won't you change your mind? We start on July 31st.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The summer holiday of 1871 was spent at St. Andrews, a place rather laborious of approach at that time, with all the impedimenta of a large and young family, but chosen on account of its nearness to Edinburgh, where the British a.s.sociation met that year. I well remember the night journey of some ten or eleven hours, the freshness of the early morning at Edinburgh, the hasty excursion with my father up the hill from the station as far as the old High Street. The return journey, however, was made easier by the kindness of Dr. Matthews Duncan, who put up the whole family for a night, so as to break the journey.

We stayed at Castlemount, now belonging to Miss Paton, just opposite the ruined castle. Among other visitors to St. Andrews known to my father were Professors Tait and Crum Brown, who inveigled him into making trial of the "Royal and Ancient" game, which then, as now, was the staple resource of the famous little city. I have a vivid recollection of his being hopelessly bunkered three or four holes from home, and can testify that he bore the moral strain with more than usual calm as compared with the generality of golfers. Indeed, despite his naturally quick temper and his four years of naval service at a time when, perhaps, the traditions of a former generation had not wholly died out, he had a special aversion to the use of expletives; and the occasional appearance of a strong word in his letters must be put down to a simply literary use which he would have studiously avoided in conversation. A curious physical result followed the vigour with which he threw himself into the unwonted recreation. For the last twenty years his only physical exercise had been walking, and now his arms went black and blue under the muscular strain, as if they had been bruised.

But the holiday was by no means spent entirely in recreation. One week was devoted to the British a.s.sociation; another to the examination of some interesting fossils at Elgin; while the last three weeks were occupied in writing two long articles, "Mr. Darwin's Critics," and the address ent.i.tled "Administrative Nihilism" referred to above, as well as a review of Dana's "Crinoids." The former, which appeared in the "Contemporary Review" for November ("Collected Essays" 2 120-187) was a review of (1) "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," by A.R. Wallace, (2) "The Genesis of Species," by St. George Mivart, F.R.S., and (3) an article in the "Quarterly" for July 1871, on Darwin's "Descent of Man."]

"I am Darwin's bull-dog," [he once said, and the "Quarterly Reviewer's" treatment of Darwin,] "alike unjust and unbecoming,"

[provoked him into immediate action.] "I am about sending you," [he writes to Haeckel on November 2,] "a little review of some of Darwin's critics. The dogs have been barking at his heels too much of late."

[Apart from this stricture, however, he notes the] "happy change"

[which] "has come over Mr. Darwin's critics. The mixture of ignorance and insolence which at first characterised a large proportion of the attacks with which he was a.s.sailed, is no longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism." [Notes too] "that, in a dozen years, the 'Origin of Species' has worked as complete a revolution in biological science as the 'Principia' did in astronomy--and it has done so, because, in the words of Helmholtz, it contains 'an essentially new creative thought.'"

[The essay is particularly interesting as giving evidence of his skill and knowledge in dealing with psychology, as against the "Quarterly Reviewer," and even with such an unlikely subject as scholastic metaphysics, so that, by an odd turn of events, he appeared in the novel character of a defender of Catholic orthodoxy against an attempt from within that Church to prove that its teachings have in reality always been in harmony with the requirements of modern science. For Mr. Mivart, while twitting the generality of men of science with their ignorance of the real doctrines of his church, gave a reference to the Jesuit theologian Suarez, the latest great representative of scholasticism, as following St. Augustine in a.s.serting, not direct, but derivative creation, that is to say, evolution from primordial matter endued with certain powers. Startled by this statement, Huxley investigated the works of the learned Jesuit, and found not only that Mr. Mivart's reference to the Metaphysical Disputations was not to the point, but that in the "Tractatus de opere s.e.x Dierum," Suarez expressly and emphatically rejects this doctrine and reprehends Augustine for a.s.serting it.]

By great good luck [he writes to Darwin from St. Andrews] there is an excellent library here, with a good copy of Suarez, in a dozen big folios. Among these I dived, to the great astonishment of the librarian, and looking into them as "the careful robin eyes the delver's toil" (vide "Idylls"), I carried off the two venerable clasped volumes which were most promising.

So I have come out in the new character of a defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and upset Mivart out of the mouth of his own prophet.

[Darwin himself was more than pleased with the article, and wrote enthusiastically (see "Life and Letters" 3 148-150). A few of his generous words may be quoted to show the rate at which he valued his friend's championship.

What a wonderful man you are to grapple with those old metaphysical-divinity books...The pendulum is now swinging against our side, but I feel positive it will soon swing the other way; and no mortal man will do half as much as you in giving it a start in the right direction, as you did at the first commencement.

And again, after "mounting climax on climax," he continues:--"I must tell you what Hooker said to me a few years ago. 'When I read Huxley, I feel quite infantile in intellect.'"

This sketch of what const.i.tuted his holiday--and it was not very much busier than many another holiday--may possibly suggest what his busy time must have been like.

Till the end of the year the immense amount of work did not apparently tell upon him. He rejoiced in it. In December he remarked to his wife that with all his different irons in the fire, he had never felt his mind clearer or his vigour greater. Within a week he broke down quite suddenly, and could neither work nor think. He refers to this in the following letter:--]

Jermyn Street, December 22, 1871.

My dear Johnny,

You are certainly improving. As a pract.i.tioner in the use of cold steel myself, I have read your letter in to-day's "Nature," "mit Ehrfurcht und Bewunderung." And the best evidence of the greatness of your achievement is that it extracts this expression of admiration from a poor devil whose brains and body are in a colloid state, and who is off to Brighton for a day or two this afternoon.

G.o.d be with thee, my son, and strengthen the contents of thy gall-bladder!

Ever thine,

T.H. Huxley.

PS.--Seriously, I am glad that at last a protest has been raised against the process of anonymous self-praise to which our friend is given. I spoke to Smith the other day about that dose of it in the "Quarterly" article on Spirit-rapping.

CHAPTER 2.3.

1872.

[Dyspepsia, that most distressing of maladies, had laid firm hold upon him. He was compelled to take entire rest for a time. But his first holiday produced no lasting effect, and in the summer he was again very ill. Then the worry of a troublesome lawsuit in connection with the building of his new house intensified both bodily illness and mental depression. He had great fears of being saddled with heavy costs at the moment when he was least capable of meeting any new expense--hardly able even to afford another much-needed spell of rest.

But in his case, as in others, at this critical moment the circle of fellow-workers in science to whom he was bound by ties of friendship, resolved that he should at least not lack the means of recovery. In their name Charles Darwin wrote him the following letter, of which it is difficult to say whether it does more honour to him who sent it or to him who received it:--

Down, Beckenham, Kent, April 23, 1873.

My dear Huxley,

I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in number) to inform you that they have placed through Robarts, Lubbock & Company, the sum of 2100 pounds sterling to your account at your bankers. We have done this to enable you to get such complete rest as you may require for the re-establishment of your health; and in doing this we are convinced that we act for the public interest, as well as in accordance with our most earnest desires. Let me a.s.sure you that we are all your warm personal friends, and that there is not a stranger or mere acquaintance amongst us. If you could have heard what was said, or could have read what was, as I believe, our inmost thoughts, you would know that we all feel towards you, as we should to an honoured and much loved brother. I am sure that you will return this feeling, and will therefore be glad to give us the opportunity of aiding you in some degree, as this will be a happiness to us to the last day of our lives. Let me add that our plan occurred to several of your friends at nearly the same time and quite independently of one another.

My dear Huxley, your affectionate friend,

Charles Darwin.

It was a poignant moment.] "What have I done to deserve this?" [he exclaimed. The relief from anxiety, so generously proffered, entirely overcame him; and for the first time, he allowed himself to confess that in the long struggle against ill-health, he had been beaten; but, as he said, only enough to teach him humility.

His first trip in search of health was in 1872, when he obtained two months' leave of absence, and prepared to go to the Mediterranean. His lectures to women on Physiology at South Kensington were taken over by Dr. Michael Foster, who had already acted as his subst.i.tute in the Fullerian course of 1868. But even on this cruise after health he was not altogether free from business. The stores of biscuit at Gibraltar and Malta were infested with a small grub and its coc.o.o.ns. Complaints to the home authorities were met by the answer that the stores were prepared from the purest materials and sent out perfectly free from the pest. Discontent among the men was growing serious, when he was requested by the Admiralty to investigate the nature of the grub and the best means of preventing its ravages. In the end he found that the biscuits were packed within range of stocks of newly arrived, unpurified cocoa, from which the eggs were blown into the stores while being packed, and there hatched out. Thereafter the packing was done in another place and the complaints ceased.]

January 3, 1872.

My dear Dohrn,

It is true enough that I am somewhat "erkrankt," though beyond general weariness, incapacity and disgust with things in general, I do not precisely know what is the matter with me.

Unwillingly, I begin to suspect that I overworked myself last year.

Doctors talk seriously to me, and declare that all sorts of wonderful things will happen if I do not take some more efficient rest than I have had for a long time. My wife adds her quota of persuasion and admonition, until I really begin to think I must do something, if only to have peace.