Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Forbes' reply was a letter which Huxley, after his friend's death, held] "among his most precious possessions." [It appeared without names in the obituary notice of Forbes in the "Literary Gazette" for November 25, 1854, as an example of his unselfish generosity:—

I heartily concur in the course you have taken, and had I been placed as you have been, would have done exactly the same...Your way of proceeding was as true an act of friendship as any that could be performed. As to myself, I dream so little about medals, that the notion of being on the list never entered my brain, even when asleep. If it ever comes I shall be pleased and thankful; if it does not, it is not the sort of thing to break my equanimity. Indeed, I would always like to see it given not as a mere honour, but as a help to a good man, and this it is assuredly in Hooker's case. Government people are so ignorant that they require to have merits drummed into their heads by all possible means, and Hooker's getting the medal may be of real service to him before long. I am in a snug, though not an idle nest,—he has not got his resting-place yet. And so, my dear Huxley, I trust that you know me too well to think that I am either grieved or envious, and you, Hooker, and I are much of the same way of thinking.

It is interesting to record the same scrupulosity over the election to the Registrarship of the University of London in 1856, when, having begun to canvass for Dr. Latham before his friend Dr. W.B. Carpenter entered the field, he writes to Hooker:—]

I at once, of course told Carpenter precisely what I had done. Had I known of his candidature earlier, I should certainly have taken no active part on either side—not for Latham, because I would not oppose Carpenter, and not for Carpenter, because his getting the Registrarship would probably be an advantage for me, as I should have a good chance of obtaining the Examinership in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy which he would vacate. Indeed, I refused to act for Carpenter in a case in which he asked me to do so, partly for this reason and partly because I felt thoroughly committed to Latham. Under these circumstances I think you are quite absolved from any pledge to me. It's deuced hard to keep straight in this wicked world, but as you say the only chance is to out with it, and I thank you much for writing so frankly about the matter. I hope it will be as fine as to-day at Down. [(Charles Darwin's home in Kent.)

Unfortunately the method was not so successful with smaller minds. Once in 1852, when he had to report unfavourably on a paper for the "Annals of Natural History" on the structure of the Starfishes, sent in by an acquaintance, he felt it right not to conceal his action, as he might have done, behind the referee's usual screen of anonymity, but to write a frank account of the reasons which had led him so to report, that he might both clear himself of the suspicion of having dealt an unfair blow in the dark, and give his acquaintance the opportunity of correcting and enlarging his paper with a view of submitting it again for publication.

In this case the only result was an impassioned correspondence, the author even going so far as to suggest that Huxley had condemned the paper without having so much as dissected an Echinoderm in his life! and then all intercourse ceased, till years afterwards the gentleman in question realised the weaknesses of his paper and repented him of his wrath.

Before leaving London to begin his work at Tenby as Naturalist to the Survey, he delivered at St. Martin's Hall, on July 22, an address on the "Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences. (The subsequent reference is to the words, "I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms will bear his own share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the divine government, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake, to be corrected by and by." ("Collected Essays" 3 page 62.) This essay contains the definition of science as "trained and organised common sense," and the reference to a new "Peter Bell" which suggested Miss May Kendall's spirited parody of Wordsworth:—

Primroses by the river's brim Dicotyledons were to him, And they were nothing more.)

This, when it came out later as a pamphlet, he sent to his Tenby friend Dr. Dyster (of whom hereafter), to whose criticism on one passage he replied on October 10:—]

...I am rejoiced you liked my speechment. It was written hastily and is, like its speaker, I fear, more forcible than eloquent, but it can lay claim to the merit of being sincere.

My intention on page 28 was by no means to express any satisfaction at the worms being as badly off as ourselves, but to show that pain being everywhere is inevitable, and therefore like all other inevitable things to be borne. The rest of it is the product of my scientific Calvinism, which fell like a shell at your feet when we were talking over the fire.

I doubt, or at least I have no confidence in, the doctrine of ultimate happiness, and I am more inclined to look the opposite possibility fully in the face, and if that also be inevitable, make up my mind to bear it also.

You will tell me there are better consolations than Stoicism; that may be, but I do not possess them, and I have found my "grin and bear it" philosophy stand me in such good stead in my course through oceans of disgust and chagrin, that I should be loth to give it up.

[The summer of 1854 was spent in company with the Busks at Tenby, amid plenty of open-air work and in great peace of mind, varied with a short visit to Liverpool in order to talk business with his friend Forbes, who was eager that Huxley should join him in Edinburgh.]

Tenby, South Wales, September 3, 1854.

I have been here since the middle of August, getting rid of my yellow face and putting on a brown one, banishing dyspepsias and hypochondrias and all such other town afflictions to the four winds, and rejoicing exceedingly that I am out of the way of that pest, the cholera, which is raging just at present in London.

After I had arranged to come here to do a lot of work of my own which can only be done by the seaside, our Director, Sir Henry de la Beche, gave me a special mission of his own whereby I have the comfort of having my expenses paid, but at the same time get it taken out of me in additional labour, so my recreation is anything but leisure.

October 14.

I left this place for a week's trip to Liverpool in the end of September. The meeting of the British Association was held there, but I went not so much to be present as to meet Forbes, with whom I wanted to talk over many matters concerning us both. Forbes had a proposition that I should go to Edinburgh to take part of the duties of the Professor of Physiology there, who is in bad health, with the ultimate aim of succeeding to the chair. It was a tempting offer made in a flattering manner, and presenting a prospect of considerably better emolument than my special post, but it had the disadvantage of being but an uncertain position. Had I accepted, I should have been at the mercy of the actual Professor—and that is a position I don't like standing in, even with the best of men, and had he died or resigned at any time the Scotch chairs are so disposed of that there would have been nothing like a certainty of my getting the post, so I definitely declined—I hope wisely.

After some talk, Forbes agreed with my view of the case, so he is off to Edinburgh, and I shall go off to London. I hope to remain there for my life long.

[He had long felt that London gave the best opportunities for a scientific career, and it was on his advice that Tyndall had left Queenwood College for the Royal Institution, where he was elected Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1853:—]

6 Upper York Place, St. John's Wood, February 25, 1853.

My dear Tyndall,

Having rushed into more responsibility than I wotted of, I have been ruminating and taking counsel what advice to give you. When I wrote I hardly knew what kind of work you had in your present office, but Francis has since enlightened me. I thought you had more leisure. One thing is very clear—you must come out of that. Your Pegasus is quite out of place ploughing. You are using yourself up in work that comes to nothing, and so far as I can see cannot be worse off.

Now what are your prospects? Why, as I told you before, you have made a succes here and must profit by it. The other night your name was mentioned at the Philosophical Club (the most influential scientific body in London) with great praise. Gassiot, who has great influence, said in so many words, "you had made your fortune," and I frankly tell you I believe so too, if you can only get over the next three years. So you see that quoad position, like Quintus Curtius, there is a "fine opening" ready for you, only mind you don't spoil it by any of your horrid modesty.

So much for glory—now for economics. I have been trying to ferret out more nearly your chances of a post, and here are my results (which, I need not tell you, must be kept to yourself).

At the Museum in Jermyn Street, Playfair, Forbes, Percy and I think Sir Henry would do anything to get you, and eliminate —; but, so far as I can judge, the probability of his going is so small that it is not worth your while to reckon upon it. Nevertheless it may be comforting to you to know that in case of anything happening these men will help you tooth and nail. Cultivate Playfair when you have a chance—he is a good fellow, wishes you well, has great influence, and will have more. Entre nous, he has just got a new and important post under Government.

Next, the Royal Institution. This is where, as I told you, you ought to be looking to Faraday's place. Have no scruple about your chemical knowledge; you won't be required to train a college of students in abstruse analyses; and if you were, a year's work would be quite enough to put you at ease. What they want, and what you have, are CLEAR POWERS OF EXPOSITION—so clear that people may think they understand even if they don't. That is the secret of Faraday's success, for not a tithe of the people who go to hear him really understand him.

However, I am afraid that a delay must occur before you can get placed at the Royal Institution, as you cannot hold the Professorship until you have given a course of lectures there, and it would seem that there is no room for you this year. However, I must try and learn more about this.

Under these circumstances the London Institution looks tempting. I have been talking over the matter with Forbes, whose advice I look upon as first-rate in all these things, and he is decidedly of the opinion that you should take the London Institution if it is offered you. He says that lecturing there and lecturing at other Institutions, and writing, you could with certainty make more than you at present receive, and that you would have the command of a capital laboratory and plenty of time.

Then as to position—of which I was doubtful—it appears that Grove has made it a good one.

It is of great importance to look to this point in London—to be unshackled by anything that may prevent you taking the highest places, and it was only my fear on this head that made me advise you to hesitate about the London Institution. More consideration leads me to say, take that, if it will bring you up to London at once, so that you may hammer your reputation while it is hot.

However, consider all these things well, and don't be hasty. I will keep eyes and ears open and inform you accordingly. Write to me if there is anything you want done, supposing always there is nobody who will do it better—which is improbable.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[But this year of victory was not to pass away without one last blow from fate. On November 18, Edward Forbes, the man in whom Huxley had found a true friend and helper, inspired by the same ideals of truth and sincerity as himself, died suddenly at Edinburgh. The strong but delicate ties that united them were based not merely upon intellectual affinity, but upon the deeper moral kinship of two strong characters, where each subordinated interest to ideal, and treated others by the measure of his own self-respect. As early as March 1851 he had written:—]

I wish you knew my friend Professor Forbes. He is the best creature you can imagine, and helps me in all manner of ways. A man of very great knowledge, he is wholly free from pedantry and jealousy, the two besetting sins of literary and scientific men. Up to his eyes in work, he never grudges his time if it is to help a friend. He is one of the few men I have ever met to whom I can feel obliged, without losing a particle of independence or self-respect.

[The following from a letter to Hooker, announcing Forbes'death, is a striking testimony to his worth:—]

I think I have never felt so crushed by anything before. It is one of those losses which cannot be replaced either to the private friend or to science. To me especially it is a bitter loss. Without the aid and sympathy he has always given me from first to last, I should never have had the courage to persevere in the course I have followed. And it was one of my greatest hopes that we should work in harmony for long years at the aims so dear to us both.

But it is otherwise, and we who remain have nothing left but to bear the inevitable as we best may.

[And again a few days later:—]

I have had no time to write to you again till now, but I write to say how perfectly you express my own feeling about our poor friend. One of the first things I thought of was that medal business, and I never rejoiced in anything more than that I had not been deterred by any moral cowardice from acting as I did.

As it is I reckon that letter (which I will show you some day) among my most precious possessions.

[Huxley's last tribute to his dead friend was the organising a memorial fund, part of which went to getting a bust of him made, part to establishing an Edward Forbes medal, to be competed for by the students of his old school in Jermyn Street.

As Huxley had been Forbes' successor at Jermyn Street, so now he seemed to many marked out to succeed him at Edinburgh. In November he writes to Hooker:—]

People have been at me about the Edinburgh chair. If I could contrive to stop here, between you and I, I would prefer it to half a dozen Edinburgh chairs, but there is a mortal difference between 200 and 1000 pounds sterling a year. I have written to say that if the Professors can make up their minds they wish me to stand, I will—if not, I will not. For my own part, I believe my chances would be very small, and I think there is every probability of their dividing the chair, in which case I certainly would not go. However, I hate thinking about the thing.

[And also to his sister:—]

November 26, 1854.

My dearest Lizzie,

I feel I have been silent very long—a great deal too long—but you would understand if you knew how much I have to do; why, with every disposition to do otherwise, I now write hardly any but business letters. Even Nettie comes off badly I am afraid. When a man embarks as I have done, with nothing but his brains to back him, on the great sea of life in London, with the determination to MAKE the influence and the position and the money which he hasn't got, you may depend upon it that the fierce wants and interests of his present and immediate circle leave him little time to think of anything else, whatever old loves and old memories may be smouldering as warmly as ever below the surface. So, sister mine, you must not imagine because I do not write that therefore I do not think of you or care to know about you, but only that I am eaten up with the zeal of my own house, and doing with all my heart the thing that the moment calls for.

The last year has been eventful for me. There is always a Cape Horn in one's life that one either weathers or wrecks one's self on. Thank God I think I may say I have weathered mine—not without a good deal of damage to spars and rigging though, for it blew deuced hard on the other side.

At the commencement of this year my affairs came to a crisis. The Government, notwithstanding all the representations which were made to them, would neither give nor refuse the grant for the publication of my work, and by way of cutting short all further discussion the Admiralty called upon me to serve. A correspondence ensued, in which, as commonly happens in these cases, they got the worst of it in logic and words, and I in reality and "tin." They answered my syllogism by the irrelevant and absurd threat of stopping my pay if I did not serve at once. Here was a pretty business! However, it was no use turning back when so much had been sacrificed for one's end, so I put their Lordships' letter up on my mantelpiece and betook myself to scribbling for my bread. They, on the other hand, removed my name from the List. So there was an interregnum when I was no longer in Her Majesty's service. I had already joined the "Westminster Review," and had inured myself to the labour of translation—and I could get any amount of scientific work I wanted—so there was a living, though a scanty one, and amazingly hard work for it. My pen is not a very facile one, and what I write costs me a good deal of trouble.

In the spring of this year, however, a door opened. My poor lost friend Professor Forbes—whose steady attachment and aid had always been of the utmost service to me—was called to fill the chair of Natural History in Edinburgh at a moment's notice. It is a very valuable appointment, and he was obliged to fill it at once. Of course he left a number of vacancies behind, among them one at the Government School of Mines in Jermyn Street, where he lectured on Natural History. I was called upon to take up his lectures where he left off, in the same sudden way, and the upshot of it all was that I became permanently attached—with 200 pounds sterling a year pay. In other ways I can make a couple of hundred a year more even now, and I hope by-and-by to do better. In fact, a married man, as I hope soon to be, cannot live at all in the position which I ought to occupy under less than six hundred a year. If I keep my health, however, I have every hope of being able to do this—but, as the jockeys say, the pace is severe. Nettie is coming over in the spring, and if I have any luck at all, I mean to have paid off my debts and to be married by this time next year. ([He writes on July 21, 1851:—]"I commenced life upon nothing at all, and I had to borrow in the ordinary way from an agent for the necessary expenses of my outfit. I sent home a great deal of money, but notwithstanding, from the beautiful way they have of accumulating interest and charges of one description and another, I found myself 100 pounds sterling in debt when I returned—besides something to my brother, about which, however, I do not suppose I need trouble myself just at present. As you may imagine, living in London, my pay now hardly keeps me, to say nothing of paying off my old scores. I could get no account of how things were going on with my agent while I was away,and therefore I never could tell exactly how I stood.")

In the meanwhile, strangely enough—and very painfully for me—new possibilities have sprung up. My poor friend Forbes died only a week ago, just as he was beginning his course and entering upon as brilliant a career as ever was opened to any scientific man in this country.

I cannot tell you how deeply this has shocked me. I owe him so much, I loved him so well, and I have so very very few friends in the true sense of the word, that it has been perhaps a greater loss to me than to any one—although there never was a man so widely lamented. One could trust him so thoroughly! However, he has gone, poor fellow, and there is nothing for it but to shut one's self up again—and I was only going to say that his death leaves his post vacant, and I have been strongly urged to become a candidate for it by several of the most influential Edinburgh Professors. I am greatly puzzled what to do. I do not want to leave London, nor do I think much of my own chances of success if I become a candidate—though others do. On the other hand, a stipend which varies between 800 and 1200 pounds sterling a year is not to be pooh-poohed.

We shall see. If I can carry out some arrangements which are pending with the Government to increase my pay to 400 pounds sterling a year, I shall be strongly tempted to stop in London. It is THE place, the centre of the world.

In the meanwhile, as things always do come in heaps, I obtained my long-fought-for Grant—though indirectly—from the Government, which is, I think, a great triumph and vindication of the family motto—tenax propositi. Like many long-sought-for blessings, however, it is rather a bore now that I have it, as I don't see how I am to find time to write the book. But things "do themselves" in a wonderful way. I'll tell you how many irons I have in the fire at this present moment:—(1) a manual of Comparative Anatomy for Churchill; (2) my "Grant" book; (3) a book for the British Museum people (half done); (4) an article for Todd's "Cyclopaedia" (half done); (5) sundry memoirs on Science; (6) a regular Quarterly article in the "Westminster"; (7) lectures at Jermyn Street in the School of Mines; (8) lectures at the School of Art, Marlborough House; (9) lectures at the London Institution, and odds and ends. Now, my dearest Lizzie, whenever you feel inclined to think it unkind I don't write, just look at that list, and remember that all these things require strenuous attention and concentration of the faculties, and leave one not very fit for anything else. You will say that it is bad to be so entirely absorbed in these things, and to that I heartily say Amen!—but you might as well argue with a man who has just mounted the favourite for the "Oaks" that it is a bad thing to ride fast. He admits that, and is off like a shot when the bell rings nevertheless. My bell has rung some time, and thank God the winning post is in sight.

Give my kindest regards to the doctor and special love to all the children. I send a trifle for my godson and some odds and ends in the book line, among other things a Shakespeare for yourself, dear Liz.

Believe me, ever your affectionate brother,

T.H. Huxley.

[In December the Edinburgh chair was practically offered to him undivided; but by that time the London authorities thought they had better make it worth his while to stay at Jermyn Street, and with negotiations begun for this end he refused to stand for Edinburgh. In the following spring, however, he was again approached from Edinburgh—not so much to withdraw his refusal and again become a candidate, as to let it be made known that he would accept the chair if it were offered him. But his position in London was now established; and he preferred to live in London on a bare sufficiency rather than to enjoy a larger income away from the centre of things.

Two letters to Tyndall, which refer to the division of labour in the science reviews for the "Westminster," indicate very clearly the high pressure at which Huxley had already begun to work:—]

Tenby, South Wales, October 22, 1854.

My dear Tyndall,

I was rejoiced to find you entertaining my proposition at all. No one believes how hard you work more than I, but I was not going to be such a bad diplomatist as to put that at the head of my letter, and if I had thought that what I want you to do involved any great accession thereto, I think I could not have mustered up the face to ask you. But really and truly, so long as it is confined to our own department it is no great affair. You make me laugh at the long face you pull about the duties, based on my phrase. The fact is, you notice what you like, and what you do not you leave undone, unless you get an editorial request to say something about a particular book. The whole affair is entirely in your own hands—at least it is in mine—as I went upon my principle of having a row at starting...

Now here is an equitable proposition. Look at my work. I have a couple of monographs, odds and ends of papers for journals, a manual and some three courses of lectures to provide for this winter. "My necessities are as great as thine," as Sir Philip Sidney didn't say, so be a brick, split the difference, and say you will be ready for the April number. I will write and announce the fact to Chapman.

What idiots we all are to toil and slave at this pace. I almost repent me of tempting you—after all—so I promise to hold on if you really think you will be overdoing it.

With you I envy Francis his gastric energies. I feel I have done for myself in that line, and am in for a life-long dyspeps. I have not, now, nervous energy enough for stomach and brain both, and if I work the latter, not even the fresh breezes of this place will keep the former in order. That is a discovery I have made here, and though highly instructive, it is not so pleasant as some other physiological results that have turned up.

Chapman, who died of cholera, was a distant relative of my man. The poor fellow vanished in the middle of an unfinished article, which has appeared in the last "Westminster," as his forlorn vale! to the world. After all, that is the way to die, better a thousand times than drivelling off into eternity betwixt awake and asleep in a fatuous old age.

Believe me, ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[On Tyndall consenting, he wrote again on the 29th:—]

I rejoice in having got you to put your head under my yoke, and feel ready to break into a hand gallop on the strength of it.

I have written to Chapman to tell him you only make an experiment on your cerebral substance—whose continuance depends on tenacity thereof.

I didn't suspect you of being seduced by the magnificence of the emolument, you Cincinnatus of the laboratory. I only suggested that as pay sweetens labour, a fortiori it will sweeten what to you will be no labour.

I'm not a miserable mortal now—quite the contrary. I never am when I have too much to do, and my sage reflection was not provoked by envy of the more idle. Only I do wish I could sometimes ascertain the exact juste milieu of work which will suit, not my head or will, THESE can't have too much; but my absurd stomach.

[The Edinburgh candidature, the adoption of his wider scheme for the carrying out of the coast survey, and his approaching marriage, are touched upon in the following letters to Dr. Frederick Dyster of Tenby, whose keen interest in marine zoology was the starting-point of a warm friendship with the rising naturalist, some fifteen years his junior. (It was to Dyster that Huxley owed his introduction in 1854 to F.D. Maurice (whose work in educating the people he did his best to help), and later to Charles Kingsley, whom he first met at the end of June 1855.] "What Kingsley do you refer to?" [he writes on May 6,] "ALTON LOCKE Kingsley or Photographic Kingsley? I shall be right glad to find good men and true anywhere, and I will take your bail for any man. But the work must be critically done.") [He was strongly urged by the younger man to complete and systematise his observations by taking in turn all the species of each genus of annelids found at Tenby, and working them up into a series of little monographs] "which would be the best of all possible foundations for a History of the British Annelidae":—

To Dr. Dyster.

January 5, 1855

[He begins by confessing "a considerable liberty" he had been taking with Dyster's name, in calling a joint discovery of this, which he described in the "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal," Protula Dysteri.]

Are you very savage? If so, you must go and take a walk along the sands and see the slant rays of the sunset tipping the rollers as they break on the beach; that always made even ME at peace with all the world, and a fortiori it will you.

Truly, I wish I had any such source of consolation. Chimney pots are highly injurious to my morals, and my temper is usually in proportion to the extent of my horizon.

I have been swallowing oceans of disgust lately. All sorts of squabbles, some made by my own folly and others by the malice of other people, and no great sea and sky to go out under, and be alone and forget it all.

You may have seen my name advertised by Reeve as about to write a memoir of poor Forbes, to be prefixed to a collection of his essays. I found that to be a mere bookseller's dodge on Reeve's part, and when I made the discovery, of course we had a battle-royal, and I have now wholly withdrawn from it.

I find, however, that one's kind and generous friends imagine it was an electioneering manoeuvre on my part for Edinburgh. Imagine how satisfactory. I forget whether I told you that I had been asked to stand for Edinburgh and have done so. Whether I shall be appointed or not I do not know. So far as my own wishes go, I am in a curiously balanced state of mind about it. Many things make it a desirable post, but I dread leaving London and its freedom—its Bedouin sort of life—for Edinburgh and no whistling on Sundays. Besides, if I go there, I shall have to give up all my coast-survey plans, and all their pleasant concomitants.

Apropos of Edinburgh I feel much like the Irish hod-man who betted his fellow he could not carry him up to the top of a house in his hod. The man did it, but Pat turning round as he was set down on the roof, said, "Ye've done it, sure enough, but, bedad, I'd great hopes ye'd let me fall about three rounds from the top." Bedad, I'm nearly at the top of the Scotch ladder, but I've hopes.

It is finally settled that the chair will not be divided. I told them frankly I would not go if it were.

Has Highly sent your books yet?

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, February 13, 1855.

My dear Dyster,

...I will do my best to help—to some alumni if the chance comes in my way, though, as you say, I don't like him. I can't help it. I respect piety, and hope I have some after my own fashion, but I have a profound prejudice against the efflorescent form of it. I never yet found in people thoroughly imbued with that pietism, the same notions of honour and straightforwardness that obtain among men of the world. It may be otherwise with —, but I can't help my pagan prejudice. So don't judge harshly of me there-anent.

About Edinburgh, I have been going to write to you for days past. I have decided on withdrawing from the candidature, and have done so. In fact the more I thought of it the less I liked it. They require nine months' lectures some four or five times a week, which would have thoroughly used me up, and completely put a stop to anything like original work; and then there was a horrid museum to be arranged, work I don't care about, and which would have involved an amount of intriguing and heart-burning, and would have required an amount of diplomacy to carry to a successful issue, for which my temper and disposition are wholly unfitted.

And then I felt above all things that it was for me an imposture. Here have I been fighting and struggling for years, sacrificing everything to be a man of science, a genuine worker, and if I had obtained the Edinburgh chair, I should have been in reality a mere pedagogue and a man of science only in name. Such were my notions, and if I hesitated at all and allowed myself to become a candidate, it was only because I have other interests to consult than my own. Intending to "range myself" one of these days and become a respectable member of society, I was bound to consider my material interests. And so I should have been still a candidate for Edinburgh had not the Government here professed themselves unwilling to lose my services, adding the "material guarantee" of an addition to my income, which, though by no means bringing it up to the point of Edinburgh, will still enable me (das heisst "us") to live comfortably here.

I must renounce the "pomps and vanities," but all those other "lusts of the flesh" which may beseem a gentleman may be reasonably gratified.

Don't you think I have been wise in my Hercules choice? After all I don't lay claim to any great merit, seeing it was anything but certain I should get Edinburgh.

The best of all is that I have every reason to believe that Government will carry out my scheme for a coast survey, so happily and pleasantly begun at Tenby last year.

The final arrangements are almost complete, and I believe you may make up your mind to have four months of me next year. Tenby shall be immortalised and Jenkyn converted into a philosopher. [Jenkyn was employed to collect shells, etc., at Tenby. He is often alluded to as "the Professor."] By the way, I think the best way would be to retain the shells till I come. My main purpose is to have in them a catalogue of what Tenby affords.

Pray give my kind remembrances to Mrs. Dyster, and believe me, ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

April 1, 1855.

My dear Dyster,

By all that's good, your last note, which lies before me, has date a month ago. I looked at it just now, and became an April fool on the instant.

All the winds of March, however, took their course through my thorax and eventuated in lectures. At least that is all the account I can give to myself of the time, and an unprofitable account it is, for everything but one's exchequer.

So far as knowledge goes it is mere prodigality spending one's capital and adding nothing, for I find the physical exertion of lecturing quite unfits me for much else. Fancy how last Friday was spent. I went to Jermyn Street in the morning with the intention of preparing for my afternoon's lecture. People came talking to me up to within a quarter of an hour of the time, so I had to make a dash without preparation. Then I had to go home to prepare for a second lecture in the evening, and after that I went to a soiree, and got home about one o'clock in the morning.

I go on telling myself this won't do, but to no purpose.

You will be glad to hear that my affairs here are finally settled, and I am regularly appointed an officer of the survey with the commission to work out the natural history of the coast.

Edinburgh has been tempting me again, and in fact I believe I was within an ace of going there, but the Government definitely offering me this position, I was too glad to stop where I am.

I can make six hundred a year here, and that being the case, I conceive I have a right to consult my own inclinations and the interest of my scientific reputation. The coast survey puts in my hands the finest opportunities that ever a man had, and it is a pity if I do not make myself something better than a Caledonian pedagogue.

The great first scheme I have in connection with my new post is to work out the Marine Natural History of Britain, and to have every species of sea beast properly figured and described in the reports which I mean from time to time to issue. I can get all the engravings and all the printing I want done, but of course I am not so absurd as to suppose I can work out all these things myself. Therefore my notion is to seek in all highways and byways for fellow labourers. Busk will, I hope, supply me with figures and descriptions of the British Polyzoa and Hydrozoa, and I have confidence in my friend, Mr. Dyster of Tenby (are you presumptuous enough to say you know him?) for the Annelids, if he won't object to that mode of publishing his work. The Mollusks, the Crustaceans, and the Fishes, the Echinoderms and the Worms, will give plenty of occupation to the other people, myself included, to say nothing of distribution and of the recent geological changes, all of which come within my programme.

Did I not tell you it was a fine field, and could the land o' cakes give me any scope like this?

April 9, 1855.

My dear Dyster,

I didn't by any means mean to be so sphinx-like in my letter, though you have turned out an Oedipus of the first water. True it is that I mean to "range myself," "live cleanly and leave off sack," within the next few months—that is to say, if nothing happens to the good ship which is at present bearing my fiancee homewards.

So far as a restless mortal—more or less aweary of most things—like myself can be made happy by any other human being, I believe your good wishes are safe of realisation; at any rate, it will be my fault if they are not, and I beg you never to imagine that I could confound the piety of friendship with the "efflorescent" variety.

I hope to marry in July, and make my way down to Tenby shortly afterwards, and I am ready to lay you a wager that your vaticinations touching the amount of work that WON'T be done don't come true.

So much for wives—now for WORMS—(I could not for the life of me help the alliteration). I, as right reverend father in worms and Bishop of Annelidae, do not think I ought to interfere with my most promising son, when a channel opens itself for the publication of his labours. So do what you will apropos of J—. If he does not do the worms any better than he did the zoophytes, he won't interfere with my plans.

I shall be glad to see Mrs. Buckland's Echinoderm. I think it must be a novelty by what you say. She is a very jolly person, but I have an unutterable fear of scientific women.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

May 6, 1855.

My ship is not come home but is coming, and I have been in a state of desperation at the continuous east winds. However, to-day there is a westerly gale, and if it lasts I shall have news soon. You may imagine that I am in an unsatisfactory state of mind between this and lecturing five times a week.

I beg to say that the "goods" I expect are home produce this transplanted (or sent a voyage as you do Madeira), and not foreign growth by any means. But it is five years since we met, I am another man altogether, and if my wife be as much altered, we shall need a new introduction. Correspondence, however active, is a poor substitute for personal communication and tells one but little of the inner life.

[Finally, on the eve of his marriage in July, Tyndall congratulates him on being appointed to deliver the next course of Fullerian Lectures at the Royal Institution:—

The fates once seemed to point to our connection in a distant land: we are now colleagues at home, and I can claim you as my scientific brother. May the gods continue to drop fatness upon you, and may your next great step be productive of all the felicity which your warmest friends or your own rebellious heart can desire.

CHAPTER 1.9.

1855.

Miss Heathorn and her parents reached England at the beginning of May 1855, and took up their abode at 8 Titchfield Terrace, not far from Huxley's own lodgings and his brothers' house. One thing, however, filled Huxley with dismay. Miss Heathorn's health had broken down utterly, and she looked at death's door. All through the preceding year she had been very ill; she had gone with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wise, to the newly opened mining-camp at Bathurst, and she and Mrs. Wise were indeed the first women to visit it; returning to Sydney after rather a rough time, she caught a chill, and being wrongly treated by a doctor of the blood-letting, calomel-dosing school, she was reduced to a shadow, and only saved by another practitioner, who reversed the treatment just in time.

In his letters to her, Huxley had not at first realised the danger she had been in; and afterwards tried to keep her spirits up by a cheerful optimism that would only look forward to their joyful union and many years of unbroken happiness to atone for their long parting.

But the reality alarmed him. He took her to one of the most famous doctors of the day, as if merely a patient he was interested in. Then as one member of the profession to another, he asked him privately his opinion of the case. "I give her six months of life," said Aesculapius.] "Well, six months or not," [replied Huxley,] "she is going to be my wife." [The doctor was mightily put out. "You ought to have told me that before." Of course, the evasive answer in such a contingency was precisely what Huxley wished to avoid. Happily another leading doctor held a much more favourable opinion, and said that with care her strength would come back, slowly but surely.]

14 Waverley Place, Wednesday.

My dear Hooker,

My wife and I met again on Sunday last, and I have established herself, her father and mother, close by me here at 8 Titchfield Terrace, Regent's Park, and whenever you and Mrs. Hooker are in this part of the world, and can find time to call there, you will find her anything but surprised to see you.

God help me! I discover that I am as bad as any young fool who knows no better, and if the necessity for giving six lectures a week did not sternly interfere, I should be hanging about her ladyship's apron-strings all day. She is in very bad health, poor child, and I have some reason to be anxious, but I have every hope she will mend with care.

Oh this life! "atra cura," as old Thackeray has it, sits on all our backs and mingles with all our happiness. But if I go on talking in this way you will wonder what has come over my philosophership.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[Black Care was still in the background, but had relaxed her hold upon him. His spirits rose to the old point of gaiety. He writes how he gives a lively lecture to his students, and in the midst of it satan prompts him to crow or howl—a temptation happily resisted. He makes atrocious puns in bidding Hooker to the wedding, which took place on July 21.]

Jermyn Street, July 6, 1855.

My dear Hooker,

I ought long since to have thanked you in Thomson's name as well as my own for your "Flora Indica." Some day I promise myself much pleasure and profit from the digestion of the Introductory Essay, which is probably as much as my gizzard is competent to convert into nutrition.

I terminate my Baccalaureate and take my degree of M.A.-trimony (isn't that atrocious?) on Saturday, July 21. After the unhappy criminals have been turned off, there will be refreshments provided for the sheriffs, chaplain, and spectators. Will you come? Don't if it is a bore, but I should much like to have you there.

[It was not a large party that assembled at the George Huxleys for the wedding, but all were life-long friends, including, besides the Fanning clan and Mrs. Griffiths, an old Australian ally, Hooker, Tyndall, and Dr. and Mrs. Carpenter. There was none present but felt that abundant happiness was at least well earned after eight years of trial, and still more that its best guarantee was the firm loyalty and devotion that had passed through so many dangers of absence and isolation, so many temptations to renounce the ideal course under stress of circumstance, only to emerge strengthened and ennobled by the stern discipline of much sacrifice.

Great as was his new happiness, he hardly stood in need of Darwin's word of warning: "I hope your marriage will not make you idle; happiness, I fear, is not good for work." Huxley could not sit idle for long. If he had no occupation on hand, something worth investigation—and thorough investigation—was sure to catch his eye. So he writes to Hooker from Tenby:—]

15 St. Julian's Terrace, Tenby, August 16, 1855.

My dear Hooker,

I am so near the end of the honeymoon that I think it can hardly be immodest if I emerge from private life and write you a letter, more particularly as I want to know something. I went yesterday on an expedition to see the remains of a forest which exists between tidemarks at a place called Amroth, near here.

So far as I can judge there can be no doubt that this really is a case of downward movement. The stools of the trees are in their normal position, and their roots are embedded and interwoven in a layer of stiff blue clay, which lies immediately beneath the superficial mud of the shore. Layers of leaves, too, are mixed up with the clay in other parts, and the bark of some of the trees is in perfect preservation. The condition of the wood is very curious. It is like very hard cheese, so that you can readily cut slices with a spade, and yet where more of the trunk has been preserved some parts are very hard. The trees are, I fancy, Beech and Oak. Could you identify slices if I were to send you some?

Now it seems to me that here is an opportunity one does not often have of getting some information about the action of sea water on wood, and on the mode in which these vegetable remains may become embedded, etc. etc., and I want to get you to tell me where I can find information on submerged forests in general, so as to see to what points one can best direct one's attention, and to suggest any inquiries that may strike yourself.

I do not see how the stumps can occur in this position without direct sinking of the land, and that such a sinking should have occurred tallies very well with some other facts which I have observed as to the nature of the bottom at considerable depths here.

We had the jolliest cruise in the world by Oxford, Warwick, Kenilworth, Stratford, Malvern, Ross, and the Wye though it WAS a little rainy, and though my wife's strength sadly failed at times.

Still she was on the whole much better and stronger than I had any right to expect, and although I get frightened every now and then, yet there can be no doubt that she is steadily though slowly improving. I have no fears for the ultimate result, but her amendment will be a work of time. We have really quite settled down into Darby and Joan, and I begin to regard matrimony as the normal state of man. It's wonderful how light the house looks when I come back weary with a day's boating to what it used to do.

I hope Mrs. Hooker is well and about again. Pray give her our very kind regards, and believe me, my dear Hooker, ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[At Tenby he stayed on through August and September, continuing his occupations of the previous summer, dredging up specimens for his microscope, and working partly for his own investigations, partly for the Geological Survey.

CHAPTER 1.10.

1855-1858.

Up to his appointment at the School of Mines, Huxley's work had been almost entirely morphological, dealing with the Invertebrates. His first investigations, moreover, had been directed not to species-hunting, but to working out the real affinities of little known orders, and thereby evolving a philosophical classification from the limbo of "Vermes" and "Radiata."

He had continued the same work by tracing homologies of development in other classes of animals, such as the Cephalous Mollusca, the Articulata, and the Brachiopods. On these subjects, also, he had a good deal of correspondence with other investigators of the same cast of mind, and even when he did not carry conviction, the impression made by his arguments may be judged from the words of Dr. Allman, no mean authority, in a letter of May 2, 1852:—]

I have thought over your arguments again and again, and while I am the more convinced of their ingenuity, originality, and STRENGTH, I yet feel ashamed to confess that I too must exclaim "tenax propositi." When was it otherwise in controversy?

[Other speculations arising out of these researches had been given to the public in the form of lectures, notably that on Animal Individuality at the Royal Institution in 1852.

But after 1854, Paleontology and administrative work began to claim much of the time he would willingly have bestowed upon distinctly zoological research. His lectures on Natural History of course demanded a good deal of first-hand investigation, and not only occasional notes in his fragmentary journals, but a vast mass of drawings now preserved at South Kensington attest the amount of work he still managed to give to these subjects. But with the exception of the Hunterian Lectures of 1868, he only published one paper on Invertebrates as late as 1860; and only half a dozen, not counting the belated "Oceanic Hydrozoa," bear 1856 and 1859. The essay on the Crayfish did not appear until after he had left Jermyn Street and Paleontology for South Kensington.

The "Method of Paleontology," published in 1856, was the first of a long series of papers dealing with fossil creatures, the description of which fell to him as Naturalist to the Geological Survey. By 1860 he had published twelve such papers, and by 1871 twenty-six more, or thirty-eight in sixteen years.

It was a curious irony of fate that led him into this position. He writes in his Autobiography that, when Sir Henry de la Beche, the Director-General of the Geological Survey, offered him the post Forbes vacated of Paleontologist and Lecturer on Natural History,]

I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter only provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, and that I should give up Natural History as soon as I could get a physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one years, and a large part of my work has been paleontological.

[Yet the diversion was not without great use. A wide knowledge of paleontology offered a key to many problems that were hotly debated in the years of battle following the publication of the "Origin of Species" in 1859, as well as providing fresh subject-matter for the lectures in which he continued to give the lay world the results of his thought.

On the administrative and official side he laid before himself the organisation of the resources of the Museum of Practical Geology as an educational instrument. This involved several years' work in the arrangement of the specimens, so as to illustrate the paleontological lectures, and the writing of "introductions" to each section of the catalogue, which should be a guide to the students. The "Method of Paleontology" mentioned above served as the prefatory essay to the whole catalogue, and was reprinted in 1869 by the Smithsonian Institute of Washington under the title of "Principles and Methods of Paleontology."

This work led to his taking a lively interest in the organisation of museums in general, whether private, such as Sir Philip Egerton's, which he visited in 1856; local, such as Warwick or Chester; or central, such as the British Museum or that at Manchester.

With regard to the British Museum, the question had arisen of removing the Natural History collections from the confined space and dusty surroundings of Great Russell Street. A first memorial on the subject had been signed, not only by many non-scientific persons, but also by a number of botanists, who wished to see the British Museum Herbarium, etc., combined with the more accessible and more complete collections at Kew. Owing apparently to official opposition, the Natural History sub-committee of the British Museum Trustees advised a treatment of the Botanical Department which commended itself to none of the leading botanists. Consequently a number of botanists and zoologists took counsel together and drew up a fresh memorial from the strictly scientific point of view. Huxley and Hooker took an active part in the agitation.] "It is no use," [writes the former to his friend,] "putting any faith in the old buffers, hardened as they are in trespasses and sin." [And again:—]

I see nothing for it but for you and I to constitute ourselves into a permanent "Committee of Public Safety," to watch over what is being done and take measures with the advice of others when necessary...As for — and id genus omne, I have never expected anything but opposition from them. But I don't think it is necessary to trouble one's head about such opposition. It may be annoying and troublesome, but if we are beaten by it we deserve to be. With shall have to wade through oceans of trouble and abuse, but so long as we gain our end, I care not a whistle whether the sweet voices of the scientific mob are with me or against me.

[According to Huxley's views a complete system demanded a triple museum for each subject, Zoology and Botany, since Geology was sufficiently provided for in Jermyn Street—one typical or popular, "in which all prominent forms or types of animals or plants, recent or fossil, should be so displayed as to give the public an idea of the vast extent and variety of natural objects, to diffuse a general knowledge of the results obtained by science in their investigation and classification, and to serve as a general introduction to the student in Natural Science"; the second scientific, "in which collections of all available animals and plants and their parts, whether recent or fossil, and in a sufficient number of specimens, should be disposed conveniently for study, and to which should be exclusively attached an appropriate library, or collection of books and illustrations relating to science, quite independent of any general library"; the third economic, "in which economic products, whether zoological or botanical, with illustrations of the processes by which they are obtained and applied to use, should be so disposed as best to assist the progress of Commerce and the Arts." It demanded further a Zoological and a Botanical Garden, where the living specimens could be studied.

Some of these institutions existed, but were not under state control. Others were already begun—e.g. that of Economic Zoology at South Kensington; but the value of the botanical collections was minimised by want of concentration, while as to zoology "the British Museum contains a magnificent collection of recent and fossil animals, the property of the state, but there is no room for its proper display and no accommodation for its proper study. Its official head reports directly neither to the Government nor to the governing body of the institution...It is true that the people stroll through the enormous collections of the British Museum, but the sole result is that they are dazzled and confused by the multiplicity of unexplained objects, and the man of science is deprived thrice a week of the means of advancing knowledge."

The agitation of 1859-60 bore fruit in due season, and within twenty years the ideal here sketched was to a great extent realised, as any visitor to the Natural History Museum at South Kensington can see for himself.

The same principles are reiterated in his letter of January 25, 1868, to the Commissioners of the Manchester Natural History Society, who had asked his advice as to the erection of a museum. But to the principles he adds a number of most practical suggestions as to the actual structure of the building, which are briefly appended in abstract. The complement to this is a letter of 1872, giving advice as to a local museum at Chester, and one of 1859 describing the ideal catalogue for a geological museum.]

January 25, 1868.

The Commissioners of the Manchester Natural History Society.

SCHEME FOR A MUSEUM.

OBJECTS.

1. The public exhibition of a collection of specimens large enough to illustrate all the most important truths of Natural History, but not so extensive as to weary and confuse ordinary visitors.

2. The accessibility of this collection to the public.

3. The conservation of all specimens not necessary for the purpose defined in Paragraph 1 in a place apart.

4. The accessibility of all objects contained in the museum to the curator and to scientific students, without interference with the public or by the public.

5. Thorough exclusion of dust and dirt from the specimens.

6. A provision of space for workrooms, and, if need be, lecture-rooms.

PRINCIPLE.

A big hall (350 x 40 x 30) with narrower halls on either side, lighted from the top. The central hall for the public, the others for the curators, etc. The walls, of arches upon piers about 15 feet high, bearing on girders a gallery 5 feet wide in the public room, and 3 feet 6 inches in the curators'.

The cases should be larger below, 5 feet deep, and smaller above, 2 feet deep, with glass fronts to the public, and doors on the curators' side.

For very large specimens—e.g. a whale—the case could expand into the curators' part without encroaching on the public part, so as to keep the line of windows regular.

Specimens of the Vertebrata, illustrations of Physical Geography and Stratigraphical Geology, should be placed below.

The Invertebrata, Botanical and Mineralogical specimens in the galleries.

The partition to be continued above the galleries to the roof, thus excluding all the dust raised by the public.

Space for students should be provided in the curators' rooms.

Storage should be AMPLE.

A museum of this size gives twice as much area for exhibition purposes as that offered by ALL the cases in the present museum.

Athenaeum Club, December 8, 1872.

Dear Sir,

I regret that your letter has but just come into my hands, so that my reply cannot be in time for your meeting, which, I understand you to say, was to be held yesterday.

I have no hesitation whatever in expressing the opinion that, except in the case of large and wealthy towns (and even in their case primarily), a Local Museum should be exactly what its name implies, namely "Local"—illustrating local Geology, local Botany, local Zoology, and local Archaeology.

Such a museum, if residents who are interested in these sciences take proper pains, may be brought to a great degree of perfection and be unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells—who shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their "America is here," as Wilhelm Meister has it.

Yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Alfred Walker, Esq., Nant-y-Glyn, Colwyn Bay.

TO THE REVEREND P. BRODIE OF WARWICK.

Jermyn Street, October 14, 1859.

My dear Mr. Brodie,

I am sorry to say that I can as yet send you no catalogue of ours. The remodelling of our museum is only just completed, and only the introductory part of my catalogue is written. When it is printed you shall have an early copy.

If I may make a suggestion I should say that a catalogue of your museum for popular use should commence with a sketch of the topography and stratigraphy of the county, put into the most intelligible language, and illustrated by reference to mineral specimens in the cases, and to the localities where sections showing the superposition of such and such beds is to be seen. After that I think should come a list of the most remarkable and interesting fossils, with reference to the cases where they are to be seen; and under the head of each a brief popular account of the kind of animal or plant which the thing was when alive, its probable habits, and its meaning and importance as a member of the great series of successive forms of life.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The reorganisation of the course of studies at Jermyn Street, fully sketched out in the 1857 notebook, involved two very serious additions to his work over and above what was required of him by his appointment as Professor. He found his students to a great extent lacking in the knowledge of general principles necessary to the comprehension of the special work before them. To enable them to make the best use of his regular lectures, he offered them in addition a preliminary evening course of nine lectures each January, which he entitled "An Introduction to the Study of the Collection of Fossils in the Museum of Practical Geology." These lectures summed up what he afterwards named Physiography, together with a general sketch of fossils and their nature, the classification of animals and plants, their distribution at various epochs, and the principles on which they are constructed, illustrated by the examination of some animal, such as a lobster.

The regular lectures, fifty-seven in number, ran from February to April and from April to June, with fortnightly examinations during the latter period, six in number. I take the scheme from his notebook:—] "After prolegomena, the physiology and morphology of lobster and dove; then through Invertebrates, Anodon, Actinia, and Vorticella Protozoa, to Molluscan types. Insects, then Vertebrates. Supplemented Paleontologically by the demonstrations of the selected types in the cases; twelve Paleozoic, twelve Mesozoic and Cainozoic," [by his assistants.] "To make the course complete there should be added

1. A series of lectures on Species, practical discrimination and description, modification by conditions and distribution;

2. Lectures on the elements of Botany and Fossil Plants."

[This reorganisation of his course went hand in hand with his utilisation of the Jermyn Street Museum for paleontological teaching, and all through 1857 he was busily working at the Explanatory Catalogue.

Moreover, in 1855 he had begun at Jermyn Street his regular courses of lectures to working men—lectures which impressed those qualified to judge as surpassing even his class lectures. Year after year he gave the artisans of his best, on the principle enunciated thus early in a letter of February 27, 1855, to Dyster:—]

I enclose a prospectus of some People's Lectures (POPULAR Lectures I hold to be an abomination unto the Lord) I am about to give here. I want the working classes to understand that Science and her ways are great facts for them—that physical virtue is the base of all other, and that they are to be clean and temperate and all the rest—not because fellows in black with white ties tell them so, but because these are plain and patent laws of nature which they must obey "under penalties."

I am sick of the dilettante middle class, and mean to try what I can do with these hard-handed fellows who live among facts. You will be with me, I know.

[And again on May 6, 1855:—]

I am glad your lectures went off so well. They were better attended than mine [the Preliminary Course], although in point of earnestness and attention my audience was all I could wish. I am now giving a course of the same kind to working men exclusively—one of what we call our series of "working men's lectures," consisting of six given in turn by each Professor. The theatre holds 600, and is crammed full.

I believe in the fustian, and can talk better to it than to any amount of gauze and Saxony; and to a fustian audience (but to that only) I would willingly give some when I come to Tenby.

[The corresponding movement set going by F.D. Maurice also claimed his interest, and in 1857 he gave his first address at the Working Men's College to an audience, as he notes, of some fifty persons, including Maurice himself.

Other work of importance was connected with the Royal Institution. He had been elected to deliver the triennial course as Fullerian Professor, and for his subject in 1856-57 chose Physiology and Comparative Anatomy; in 1858, the Principles of Biology.

He was extremely glad of the additional "grist to the mill" brought in by these lectures. As he wrote in 1890:—]

I have good reason to know what difference a hundred a year makes when your income is not more than four or five times that. I remember when I was candidate for the Fullerian professorship some twenty-three years ago, a friend of mine asked a wealthy manager to support me. He promised, but asked the value of the appointment, and when told, said, "Well, but what's the use of a hundred a year to him?" I suppose he paid his butler that.

[A further attempt to organise scientific work throughout the country and make its results generally known, dates from this time. Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall had discussed, early in 1858, the possibility of starting a "Scientific Review," which should do for science what the "Quarterly" or the "Westminster" did for literature. The scheme was found not to be feasible at the time, though it was revived in another form in 1860; so in the meanwhile it was arranged that science should be laid before the public every fortnight, through the medium of a scientific column in the "Saturday Review." The following letter bears on this proposal:—]

April 20, 1858.

My dear Hooker,

Before the dawn of the proposal for the ever-memorable though not-to-be "Scientific Review," there had been some talk of one or two of us working the public up for science through the "Saturday Review." Maskelyne (you know him, I suppose) was the suggester of the scheme, and undertook to talk to the "Saturday" people about it.

I think the whole affair had dropped through, but yesterday Maskelyne came to me and to Ramsay with definite propositions from the "Saturday" editor.

He undertakes to put in a scientific article in the intermediate part between Leaders and Reviews once a fortnight if we will supply him. He is not to mutilate or to alter, but to take what he gets and be thankful.

The writers to select their own subjects. Now the question is, Will seven or eight of us, representing different sciences, join together and undertake to supply at least one article in three months? Once a fortnight would want a minimum of six articles in three months, so that if there were six, each man must supply one.

Sylvester is talked of for Mathematics. I am going to write to Tyndall about doing Physics. Maskelyne and perhaps Frankland will take Chemistry and Mineralogy. You and I might do Biology; Ramsay, Geology; Smyth, Technology.

This looks to me like a very feasible plan, not asking too much of anyone, and yet giving all an opportunity of saying what he has to say.

Besides this the "Saturday" would be glad to get Reviews from us.

If all those mentioned agree to join, we will meet somewhere and discuss plans.

Let me have a line to say what you think, and believe me, ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[In 1858 he read three papers at the Geological and two at the Linnean; he lectured (February 15) on Fish and Fisheries at South Kensington, and on May 21 gave a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution on "The Phenomena of Gemmation." He wrote an article for "Todd's Cyclopaedia," on the "Tegumentary Organs," an elaborate paper, as Sir M. Foster says, on a histological theme, to which, as to others of the same class on the Teeth and the Corpuscular Tactus ("Q. J. Micr. Science" 1853-4), he had been "led probably by the desire, which only gradually and through lack of fulfilment left him, to become a physiologist rather than a naturalist."

No less important was his more general work for science. Physiological study in England at this time was dominated by transcendental notions. To put first principles on a sound experimental basis was the aim of the new leaders of scientific thought. To this end Huxley made two contributions in 1858—one on the general subject of the cell theory, the other on the particular question of the development of the skull. "In a striking 'Review of the Cell Theory,'" says Sir M. Foster, "which appeared in the "British and Foreign Medical Review" in 1858, a paper which more than one young physiologist at the time read with delight, and which even to-day may be studied with no little profit, he, in this subject as in others, drove the sword of rational inquiry through the heart of conceptions, metaphysical and transcendental, but dominant."

Of this article Professor E. Ray Lankester also writes:—

...Indeed it is a fundamental study in morphology. The extreme interest and importance of the views put forward in that article may be judged of by the fact that although it is forty years since it was published, and although our knowledge of cell structure has made immense progress during those forty years, yet the main contention of that article, namely that cells are not the cause but the result of organisation—in fact, are, as he says, to the tide of life what the line of shells and weeds on the seashore is to the tide of the living sea—is even now being re-asserted, and in a slightly modified form is by very many cytologists admitted as having more truth in it than the opposed view and its later outcomes, to the effect that the cell is the unit of life in which and through which alone living matter manifests its activities.

The second was his Croonian Lecture of 1858, "On the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull," in which he demonstrated from the embryological researches of Rathke and others, that after the first step the whole course of development in the segments of the skull proceeded on different lines from that of the vertebral column; and that Oken's imaginative theory of the skull as modified vertebrae, logically complete down to a strict parallel between the subsidiary head-bones and the limbs attached to the spine, outran the facts of a definite structure common to all vertebrates which he had observed. ("Following up Rathke, he strove to substitute for the then dominant fantastic doctrines of the homologies of the cranial elements advocated by Owen, sounder views based on embryological evidence. He exposed the futility of attempting to regard the skull as a series of segments, in each of which might be recognised all the several parts of a vertebra, and pointed out the errors of trusting to superficial resemblances of shape and position. He showed, by the history of the development of each, that, though both skull and vertebral column are segmented, the one and the other, after an early stage, are fashioned on lines so different as to exclude all possibility of regarding the detailed features of each as mere modifications of a type repeated along the axis of the body. 'The spinal column and the skull start from the same primitive condition, whence they immediately begin to diverge.' 'It may be true to say that there is a primitive identity of structure between the spinal or vertebral column and the skull; but it is no more true that the adult skull is a modified vertebral column than it would be to affirm that the vertebral column is modified skull.' This lecture marked an epoch in England in vertebrate morphology, and the views enunciated in it carried forward, if somewhat modified, as they have been, not only by Huxley's subsequent researches and by those of his disciples, but especially by the splendid work of Gegenbauer, are still, in the main, the views of the anatomists of to-day."—Sir M. Foster, Royal Society Obituary Notice of T.H. Huxley.)

With the demolition of Oken's theory fell the superstructure raised by its chief supporter, Owen, "archetype" and all.

It was undoubtedly a bold step to challenge thus openly the man who was acknowledged as the autocrat of science in Britain. Moreover, though he had long felt that on his own subjects he was Owen's master, to begin a controversy was contrary to his deliberate practice. But now he had the choice of submitting to arbitrary dictation or securing himself from further aggressions by dealing a blow which would weaken the authority of the aggressor. For the growing antagonism between him and Owen had come to a head early in the preceding year, when the latter, taking advantage of the permission to use the lecture-theatre at Jermyn Street for the delivery of a paleontological course, unwarrantably assumed the title of Professor of Paleontology at the School of Mines, to the obvious detriment of Huxley's position there. His explanations not satisfying the council of the School of Mines, Huxley broke off all personal intercourse with him.

CHAPTER 1.11.

1857-1858.

Throughout this period his health was greatly tried by the strain of his work and life in town. Headache! headache! is his repeated note in the early part of 1857, and in 1858 we find such entries as:—]

"February 11.—Used up. Hypochondrical and bedevilled."

"Ditto 12."

"13.—Not good for much."

"21.—Toothache, incapable all day."

[And again:—]

"March 30. Voiceless."

"31.—Missed lecture."

[And]

"April 1.—Unable to go out."

[He would come in thoroughly used up after lecturing twice on the same day, as frequently happened, and lie wearily on one sofa; while his wife, whose health was wretched, matched him on the other. Yet he would go down to a lecture feeling utterly unable to deliver it, and, once started, would carry it through successfully—at what cost of nervous energy was known only to those two at home.

But there was another branch of work, that for the Geological Survey, which occasionally took him out of London, and the open-air occupation and tramping from place to place did him no little good. Thus, through the greater part of September and October 1856 he ranged the coasts of the Bristol Channel from Weston to Clovelly, and from Tenby to Swansea, preparing a "Report on the Recent Changes of Level in the Bristol Channel."] "You can't think," [he writes from Braunton on October 3,] "how well I am, so long as I walk eight or ten miles a day and don't work too much, but I find fifteen or sixteen miles my limit for comfort."

[For many years after this his favourite mode of recruiting from the results of a spell of overwork was to take a short walking tour with a friend. In April 1857 he is off for a week to Cromer; in 1860 he goes with Busk and Hooker for Christmas week to Snowdon; another time he is manoeuvred off by his wife and friends to Switzerland with Tyndall.

In Switzerland he spent his summer holidays both in 1856 and 1857, in the latter year examining the glaciers with Tyndall scientifically, as well as seeking pleasure by the ascent of Mont Blanc. As fruits of this excursion were published late in the same year, his "Letter to Mr. Tyndall on the Structure of Glacier Ice" ("Phil. Mag." 14 1857), and the paper in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society," which appeared—much against his will—in the joint names of himself and Tyndall. Of these he wrote in 1893 in answer to an inquiry on the subject:—]

By the Observations on Glaciers I imagine you refer to a short paper published in "Phil. Mag." that embodied results of a little bit of work of my own. The Glacier paper in the "Phil. Trans." is essentially and in all respects Professor Tyndall's. He took up glacier work in consequence of a conversation at my table, and we went out to Switzerland together, and of course talked over the matter a good deal. However, except for my friend's insistence, I should not have allowed my name to appear as joint author, and I doubt whether I ought to have yielded. But he is a masterful man and over-generous.

[And in a letter to Hooker he writes:—]

By the way, you really must not associate me with Tyndall and talk about OUR theory. My sole merit in the matter (and for that I do take some credit) is to have set him at work at it, for the only suggestion I made, namely that the veined structure was analogous to his artificial cleavage phenomena, has turned out to be quite wrong.

Tyndall fairly MADE me put my name to that paper, and would have had it first if I would have let him, but if people go on ascribing to me any share in his admirable work I shall have to make a public protest. All I am content to share is the row, if there is to be one.

[The following letters to Hooker and Tyndall touch upon his Swiss trips of 1856 and 1857:—]

Berne, September 3, 1856.

I send you a line hence, having forgotten to write from Interlaken, whence we departed this morning.

The Weissthor expedition was the most successful thing you can imagine. We reached the Riffelberg in 11 1/2 hours, the first six being the hardest work I ever had in my life in the climbing way, and the last five carrying us through the most glorious sight I ever witnessed. During the latter part of the day there was not a cloud on the whole Monte Rosa range, so you may imagine what the Matterhorn and the rest of them looked like from the wide plain of neve just below the Weissthor. It was quite a new sensation, and I would not have missed it for any amount; and besides this I had an opportunity of examining the neve at a very great height. A regularly stratified section, several hundred feet high, was exposed on the Cima di Jazi, and I was convinced that the Weissthor would be a capital spot for making observations on the neve and on other correlative matters. There are no difficulties in the way of getting up to it from the Zermatt side, tough job as it is from Macugnaga, and we might readily rig a tent under shelter of the ridge. That would lick old Saussure into fits. All the Zermatt guides put the S. Theodul pass far beneath the Weissthor in point of difficulty; and you may tell Mrs. Hooker that they think the S. Theodul easier than the Monte Moro. The best of the joke was that I lost my way in coming down the Riffelberg to Zermatt the same evening, so that altogether I had a long day of it. The next day I walked from Zermatt to Visp (recovering Baedeker by the way), but my shoes were so knocked to pieces that I got a blister on my heel. Next day Voiture to Susten, and then over Gemmi to Kandersteg, and on Thursday my foot was so queer I was glad to get a retour to Interlaken. I found most interesting and complete evidences of old moraine deposits all the way down the Leuk valley into the Rhine valley, and I believe those little hills beyond Susten are old terminal moraines too. On the other side I followed moraines down to Frutigen, and great masses of glacial gravel with boulders, nearly to the Lake of Thum.

My wife is better, but anything but strong.

Chamounix, August 16, 1857.

My wife sends me intelligence of the good news you were so kind as to communicate to her. I need not tell you how rejoiced I am that everything has gone on well, and that your wife is safe and well. Offer her my warmest congratulations and good wishes. I have made one matrimonial engagement for Noel already, otherwise I would bespeak the hand of the young lady for him.

It has been raining cats and dogs these two days, so that we have been unable to return to our headquarters at the Montanvert which we left on Wednesday for the purpose of going up Mont Blanc. Tyndall (who has become one of the most active and daring mountaineers you ever saw—so that we have christened him "cat"; and our guide said the other day "Il va plus fort qu'un mouton. Il faut lui mettre une sonnette") had set his heart on the performance of this feat (of course with purely scientific objects), and had equally made up his mind not to pay five and twenty pounds sterling for the gratification. So we had one guide and took two porters in addition as far as the Grande Mulets. He is writing to you, and will tell you himself what happened to those who reached the top—to wit, himself, Hirst, and the guide. I found that three days in Switzerland had not given me my Swiss legs, and consequently I remained at the Grands Mulets, all alone in my glory, and for some eight hours in a great state of anxiety, for the three did not return for about that period after they were due.

I was there on a pinnacle like St. Simon Stylites, and nearly as dirty as that worthy saint must have been, but without any of his other claims to angelic assistance, so that I really did not see, if they had fallen into a crevasse, how I was to help either them or myself. They came back at last, just as it was growing dusk, to my inexpressible relief, and the next day we came down here—such a set of dirty, sun-burnt, snow-blind wretches as you never saw.

We heartily wished you were with us. What we shall do next I neither know nor care, as I have placed myself entirely under Commodore Tyndall's orders; but I suppose we shall be three or four days more at the Montanvert, and then make the tour of Mont Blanc. I have tied up six pounds sterling in one end of my purse, and when I have no more than that I shall come back. Altogether I don't feel in the least like the father of a family; no more would you if you were here. The habit of carrying a pack, I suppose, makes the "quiver full of arrows" feel light.

115 Esplanade, Deal, September 3, 1857.

My dear Tyndall,

I don't consider myself returned until next Wednesday, when the establishment of No. 14 will reopen on its accustomed scale of magnificence, but I don't mind letting you know I am in the flesh and safe back.

The tour round Mont Blanc was a decided success; in fact, I had only to regret you were not with me. The grand glacier of the Allee Blanche and the view of Mont Blanc from the valley of Aosta were alone worth all the trouble. I had only one wet day, and that I spent on the Brenon Glacier; for, in spite of all good resolutions to the contrary, I cannot resist poking into the glaciers whenever I have a chance. You will be interested in my results, which we shall soon, I hope, talk on together at length.

As I suspected, Forbes has made a most egregious blunder. What he speaks of and figures as the "structure" of the Brenon is nothing but a peculiar arrangement of ENTIRELY SUPERFICIAL DIRT BANDS, DEPENDENT ON THE STRUCTURE, BUT NOT IT. The true structure is singularly beautiful and well marked in the Brenon, the blue veins being very close set, and of course wholly invisible from a distance of a hundred yards, which is less than that of the spot whence Forbes' view of the (supposed) structure is taken.

I saw another wonderful thing in La Brenon. About the middle of its length there is a step like this of about 20 or 30 feet in height. In the lower part (B) the structural planes are vertical; in the upper (A) they dip at a considerable angle. I thought I had found a case of unconformability, indicating a slip of one portion of the glacier over another, but when I came to examine the intermediate region (X) carefully, I found the structural planes at every intermediate angle, and consequently a perfect transition from the one to the other.

I returned by Aosta, the great St. Bernard, and the Col de Balme. Old Simond was quite affectionate in his discourse about you, and seemed quite unhappy because you would not borrow his money. He had received your remittance, and asked me to tell you so. He was distressed at having forgotten to get a certificate from you, so I said in mine I was quite sure you were well satisfied with him.

On our journey he displayed his characteristic qualities, Je ne sais pas being the usual answer to any topographical inquiries with a total absence of nerve, and a general conviction that distances were very great and that the weather would be bad. However, we got on very well, and I was sorry to part with him.

I came home by way of Neuchatel, paying a visit to the Pierre a Bot, which I have long wished to see. My financial calculations were perfect in theory, but nearly broke down in practice, inasmuch as I was twice obliged to travel first-class when I calculated on second. The result was that my personal expenses between Paris and London amounted to 1.50!! and I arrived at my own house hungry and with a remainder of a few centimes. I should think that your fate must have been similar.

Many thanks for writing to my wife. She sends her kindest remembrances to you.

Ever yours,

T.H.H.

[The year 1857 was the last in which Huxley apparently had time to go so far in journal-writing as to draw up a balance-sheet at the year's end of work done and work undone. Though he finds] "as usual a lamentable difference between agenda and acta; many things proposed to be done not done, and many things not thought of finished," [still there is enough noted to satisfy most energetic people. Mention has already been made of his lectures—sixty-six at Jermyn Street, twelve Fullerian, and as many more to prepare for the next year's course; seven to working men, and one at the Royal Institution, together with the rearrangement of specimens at the Jermyn Street Museum, and the preparation of the Explanatory Catalogue, which this year was published to the extent of the Introduction and the Tertiary collections. To these may be added examinations at the London University, where he had succeeded Dr. Carpenter as examiner in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy in 1856, reviews, translations, a report on Deep Sea Soundings, and ten scientific memoirs.

The most important of the unfinished work consists of the long-delayed "Oceanic Hydrozoa," the "Manual of Comparative Anatomy," and a report on Fisheries. The rest of the unfinished programme shows the usual commixture of technical studies in anatomy and paleontology, with essays on the philosophical and educational bearings of his work. On the one hand are memoirs of Daphnia, Nautilus, and the Herring, the affinities of the Paleozoic Crustacea, the Ascidian Catalogue and Positive Histology; on the other, the Literature of the Drift, a review of the present state of philosophical anatomy, and a scheme for arranging the Explanatory Catalogue to serve as an introductory textbook to the Jermyn Street lectures and the paleontological demonstrations. Here, too, would fall a proposed "Letter on the Study of Comparative Anatomy," to do for those subjects what Henslow had done in his "Letter" for Botany.

In addition to the fact of his being forced to take up Paleontology, it was perhaps the philosophic breadth of view with which he regarded his subject at any time, and the desire of getting to the bottom of each subsidiary problem arising from it, that made him for many years seem constantly to spring aside from his own subject, to fly off at a tangent from the line in which he was assured of unrivalled success did he but devote to it his undivided powers. But he was prepared to endure the charge of desultoriness with equanimity. In part, he was still studying the whole field of biological science before he would claim to be a master in one department; in part, he could not yet tell to what post he might succeed when he left—as he fully expected to leave—the Professorship at Jermyn Street.

One characteristic of his early papers should not pass unnoticed. This was his familiarity with the best that had been written on his subjects abroad as well as in England. Thoroughness in this respect was rendered easier by the fact that he read French and German with almost as much facility as his mother tongue. "It is true, of course, that scientific men read French and German before the time of Huxley; but the deliberate consultation of all the authorities available has been maintained in historical succession since Huxley's earliest papers, and was absent in the papers of his early contemporaries." (P. Chalmers Mitchell in "Natural Science" August 1895.)

About this time his activity in several branches of science began to find recognition from scientific societies at home and abroad. In 1857 he was elected honorary member of the Microscopical Society of Giessen; and in the same year, of a more important body, the Academy of Breslau (Imperialis Academia Caesariana Naturae Curiosum). He writes to Hooker:—]

14 Waverley Place, April 3, 1857.

Having subsided from standing upon my head—which was the immediate causation of your correspondence about the co-extension Imperialis Academia Caesariana Naturae Curiosum (don't I know their thundering long title well!)—I have to say that I was born on the 4th of May of the year 1825, whereby I have now more or less mis-spent thirty-one years and a bittock, nigh on thirty-two.

Furthermore, my locus natalis is Ealing, in the county of Middlesex. Upon my word, it is very obliging of the "curious naturals," and I must say wholly surprising and unexpected.

I shall hold up my head immensely to-morrow when (blessed be the Lord) I give my last Fullerian.

Among other things, I am going to take Cuvier's crack case of the 'Possum of Montmartre as an illustration of MY views.

I wondered what had become of you, but the people have come talking about me this last lecture or two, so I supposed you had erupted to Kew.

My glacier article is out; tell me what you think of it some day.

I wrote a civil note to Forbes yesterday, charging myself with my crime, and I hope that is the end of the business. [Principal James Forbes, with whose theory of glaciers Huxley and Tyndall disagreed.]

My wife is mending slowly, and if she were here would desire to be remembered to you.

[In December 1858 he became a Fellow of the Linnean, and the following month not only Fellow but Secretary of the Geological Society.

In 1858 also he was elected to the Athenaeum Club under Rule 2, which provides that the committee shall yearly elect a limited number of persons distinguished in art, science, or letters. His proposer was Sir R. Murchison, who wrote:—

Athenaeum, January 26.

My dear Huxley,

I had a success as to you that I never had or heard of before. Nineteen persons voted, and of these eighteen voted for you and no one against you. You, of course, came in at the head of the poll; no other having, i.e. Cobden, more than eleven.

Yours well satisfied,

Rod. I. Murchison.

[From this time forth he corresponded with many foreign men of science; in these years particularly with Victor Carus, Lacaze Duthiers, Kolliker, and de Quatrefages, in reference to their common interest in the study of the invertebrates.

At home, the year 1857 opened very brightly for Huxley with the birth of his first child, a son, on the eve of the New Year. A Christmas child, the boy was named Noel, and lived four happy years to be the very sunshine of home, the object of passionate devotion, whose sudden loss struck deeper and more ineffaceably than any other blow that befell Huxley during all his life.

As he sat alone that December night, in the little room that was his study in the house in Waverley Place, waiting for the event that was to bring him so much happiness and so much sorrow, he made a last entry in his journal, full of hope and resolution. In the blank space below follows a note of four years later, when "the ground seemed cut from under his feet," yet written with restraint and without bitterness.]