[His wife, however, continued in very weak health. She was prostrated by the loss of her little boy. So in the middle of March he gladly accepted Mr. Darwin's invitation for her and the three children to spend a fortnight in the quiet of his house at Down, where he himself managed to run down for a week end.] "It appears to me," [he writes to his wife,] "that you are subjecting poor Darwin to a savage Tennysonian persecution. I shall see him looking like a martyr and across talk double science next Sunday."

[In April another good friend, Dr. Bence Jones, lent the invalid his house at Folkestone for three months. Unable even to walk when she went there, her recovery was a slow business. Huxley ran down every week; his brother George and his wife also were frequent visitors. Meanwhile he resolved to move into a new house, in order that she might not return to a place so full of sorrowful memories. On May 30 he effected the move to a larger house not half a mile away from Waverley Place—26 Abbey Place (now 23 Abercorn Place). Here also Mrs. Heathorn lived for the next year, my grandfather, over seventy as he was, being compelled to go out again to Australia to look after a business venture of his which had come to grief.

Meantime the old house was still on his hands for another year. Trying to find a tenant, he writes on May 21, 1861:—]

I met J. Tyndall at Ramsay's last night, and I think he is greatly inclined to have the house. I gave him your message and found that a sneaking kindness for the old house actuated him a good deal in wishing to take it. It is not a bad fellow, and we won't do him much on the fixtures.

[Eventually Tyndall and his friend Hirst established themselves there.

This spring Professor Henslow, Mrs. Hooker's father, a botanist of the first rank, and a man extraordinarily beloved by all who came in contact with him, was seized with a mortal illness, and lingered on without hope of recovery through almost the whole of April. Huxley writes:—]

Jermyn Street, April 4, 1861.

My dear Hooker,

I am very much grieved and shocked by your letter. The evening before last I heard from Busk that your father-in-law had been ill, and that you had been to see him, and I meant to have written to you yesterday to inquire, but it was driven out of my head by people coming here. And then I had a sort of unreasonable notion that I should see you at the Linnean Council to-day and hear that all was right again. God knows, I feel for you and your poor wife. Knowing what a great rift the loss of a mere undeveloped child will leave in one's life, I can faintly picture to myself the great and irreparable vacuity in a family circle caused by the vanishing out of it of such a man as Henslow, with great acquirements, and that great calm catholic judgment and sense which always seemed to me more prominent in him than in any man I ever knew.

He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his life than that? For such a man there can be no fear in facing the great unknown, his life has been one long experience of the substantial justice of the laws by which this world is governed, and he will calmly trust to them still as he lays his head down for his long sleep.

You know all these things as well as I do, and I know as well as you do that such thoughts do not cure heartache or assuage grief. Such maladies, when men are as old as you and I are, are apt to hang about one a long time, but I find that if they are faced and accepted as part of our fair share of life, a great deal of good is to be got out of them. You will find that too, but in the meanwhile don't go and break yourself down with over wear and tear. The heaviest pull comes after the excitement of a catastrophe of this kind is over.

Believe in my affectionate sympathy with you, and that I am, my dear old fellow, yours ever,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again on the 18th:—]

Many thanks for your two letters. It would be sad to hear of life dragging itself out so painfully and slowly, if it were not for what you tell me of the calmness and wisdom with which the poor sufferer uses such strength as is left him.

One can express neither wish nor hope in such a case. With such a man what is will be well. All I have to repeat is, don't knock yourself up. I wish to God I could help you in some way or other beyond repeating the parrot cry. If I can, of course you will let me know.

[In June 1861 a jotting in his notebook records that he is at work on the chick's skull, part of the embryological work which he took up vigorously at this time, and at once the continuation of his researches on the Vertebrate Skull, embodied in his Croonian lecture of 1858, and the beginning of a long series of investigations into the structure of birds. There is a reference to this in a very interesting letter dealing chiefly with what he conceived to be the cardinal point of the Darwinian theory:—]

26 Abbey Place, September 4, 1861.

My dear Hooker,

Yesterday being the first day I went to the Athenaeum after reading your note, I had a look at, and a good laugh over, the "Quarterly" article. Who can be the writer?

I have been so busy studying chicken development, a difficult subject to which I had long ago made up my mind to devote my first spare time, that I have written you no word about your article in the "Gardener's Chronicle." I quite agree with the general tendency of your argument, though it seems to me that you put your view rather too strongly when you seem to question the position "that, as a rule, resemblances prevail over differences" between parent and offspring. Surely, as a rule, resemblances DO prevail over differences, though I quite agree with you that the latter have been far too much overlooked. The great desideratum for the species question at present seems to me to be the determination of the law of variation. Because no law has yet been made out, Darwin is obliged to speak of variation as if it were spontaneous or a matter of chance, so that the bishops and superior clergy generally (the only real atheists and believers in chance left in the world) gird at him as if he were another Lucretius.

It is [in] the recognition of a tendency to variation apart from the variation of what are ordinarily understood as external conditions that Darwin's view is such an advance on Lamarck. Why does not somebody go to work experimentally, and get at the law of variation for some one species of plant?

What a capital article that was in the "Athenaeum" the other day apud the Schlagintweits. [The brothers Schlagintweit (four of whom were ultimately employed), who had gained some reputation for their work on the Physical Geography of the Alps, were, on Humboldt's recommendation, despatched by the East India Company in 1854-55-56 to the Deccan, and especially to the Himalayan region (where they were the first Europeans to cross the Kuenlun Mountains), in order to correlate the instruments and observations of the several magnetic surveys of India. But they enlarged the scope of their mission by professing to correct the great trigonometrical survey, while the contract with them was so loosely drawn up that they had practically a roving commission in science, to make researches and publish the results—up to nine volumes—in all manner of subjects, which in fact ranged from the surveying work to ethnology, and were crowned by an additional volume on Buddhism! The original cost to the Indian Government was estimated at 15 thousand pounds sterling; the allowances from the English Government during the inordinately prolonged period of arranging and publishing materials, including payment for sixty copies of each volume, atlas, and so forth, as well as personal payments, came to as much more.

Unfortunately the results were of less value than was expected. The attempt to correct the work done with the large instruments of the trigonometrical survey by means of far smaller instruments was absurd; away from the ground covered by the great survey the figures proved to be very inaccurate. The most annoying part of the affair was that it absorbed the State aid which might have been given to more valuable researches.

The Council of the Royal Society had been consulted as to the advisability of despatching this expedition and opposed it, for there were in the service of the Company not a few men admirably qualified for the duty, whose scientific services had received scant appreciation. Nevertheless, the expedition started after all, with the approval of Colonel Sabine, the president. In the last months of 1866, Huxley drew up for the Royal Society a report upon the scientific value of the results of the expedition.] Don Roderigo is very wroth at being made responsible with Sabine, and indeed I think he had little enough to do with it.

You will see a letter from him in this week's "Athenaeum."

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 1.17.

1861-1863.

[It has been seen that the addition of journalistic work in science to the mass of original research and teaching work upon which Huxley was engaged, called forth a remonstrance from both Lyell and Darwin. To Hooker it seemed still more serious that he was dividing his allegiance, and going far afield in philosophy, instead of concentrating himself upon natural science. He writes:—

I am sorry to hear that you are so poorly, and wish I could help you to sit down and work quietly at pure science. You have got into a whirlpool, and should stroke vigorously at the proper angle, not attempt to breast the whole force of the current, nor yet give in to it. Do take the counsel of a quiet looker on and withdraw to your books and studies in pure Natural History; let modes of thought alone. You may make a very good naturalist, or a very good metaphysician (of that I know nothing, don't despise me), but you have neither time nor place for both.

However, it must be remarked that this love of philosophy, not recently acquired either, was only part of the passion for general principles underlying the facts of science which had always possessed him. And the time expended upon it was not directly taken from the hours of scientific work; he would read in bed through the small hours of the night, when sleep was slow in coming to him. In this way he got through an immense amount of philosophy in the course of several years. Not that he could "state the views of so and so" upon any given question, or desired such kind of knowledge; he wished to find out and compare with his own the answers which other thinkers gave to the problems which interested himself.

A gentler reproof of this time touches his handwriting, which was never of the most legible, so that his foreign correspondents in particular sometimes complained. Haeckel used to get his difficulties deciphered by his colleague Gegenbaur. I cannot forbear quoting the delicate remonstrance of Professor Lacaze du Thiers, and the flattering remedy he proposed:—

March 14.

Je lis l'Anglais imprime, mais vos ecritures anglaises sont si rapides, qu'il m'est quelquefois difficile de m'en sortir. On me dit que vous ecrivez si bien le francais que je crois que je vous lirais bien mieux dans ma langue!

On his return from examining at Dublin, he again looked over proofs for Mr. Spencer.]

Jermyn Street, August 3, 1861.

My dear Spencer,

I have been absent on a journey to Dublin and elsewhere [Visiting Sir Philip Egerton at Oulton Park.] nearly all this week, and hence your note and proof did not reach me till yesterday. I have but just had time to glance through the latter, and I need hardly say how heartily I concur in its general tenor. I have, however, marked one or two passages which I think require some qualification. Then, at page 272, the fact that the vital manifestations of plants depend as entirely as those of animals upon the fall towards stable equilibrium of the elements of a complex protein compound is not sufficiently prominent. It is not so much that plants are deoxidisers and animals oxidisers, as that plants are manufacturers and animals consumers. It is true that plants manufacture a good deal of non-nitrogenous produce in proportion to the nitrogenous, but it is the latter which is chiefly useful to the animal consumer and not the former. This point is a very important one, which I have never seen clearly and distinctly put—the prettiness of Dumas' circulation of the elements having seduced everybody.

Of course this in no way affects the principle of what you say. The statements which I have marked at page 276 and 278 should have their authorities given, I think. I should hardly like to commit myself to them absolutely.

You will, if my memory does not mislead me, find authority for my note at page 283 in Stephenson's life. I think old George Stephenson brought out his views at breakfast at Sir R. Peel's when Buckland was there.

These are all the points that strike me, and I do not keep your proof any longer (I send it by the same post as this note), because I fear you may be inconvenienced by the delay.

Tyndall is unfortunately gone to Switzerland, so that I cannot get you his comments. Whether he might have picked holes in any detail or not I do not know, but I know his opinions sufficiently well to make sure in his agreement with the general argument. In fact a favourite problem of his is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

I am grieved to hear such a poor account of your health; I believe you will have to come at last to the heroic remedy of matrimony, and if "gynopathy" were a mode of treatment that could be left off if it did not suit the constitution, I should decidedly recommend it.

But it's worse than opium-eating—once begun and you must go on, and so, though I ascribe my own good condition mainly to the care my wife takes of me, I dare not recommend it to you, lest perchance you should get hold of the wrong medicine.

Beyond spending a night awake now and then I am in very good order, and I am going to spend my vacation in a spasmodic effort to lick the "Manual" into shape and work off some other arrears.

My wife is very fairly well, and, I trust, finally freed from all the symptoms which alarmed me so much. I dread the coming round of September for her again, but it must be faced.

The babbies are flourishing; and beyond the facts that we have a lunatic neighbour on one side and an empty house on the other, that it has cost me about twice as much to get into my house as I expected, that the cistern began to leak and spoil a ceiling, and such other small drawbacks, the new house is a decided success.

I forget whether I gave you the address, which is—

26 Abbey Place, St. John's Wood.

You had better direct to me there, as after the 10th of this month I shall not be here for six weeks.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[October shows an unusual entry in his diary; the sacrifice of a working evening to hear Jenny Lind sing. Fond though he was of music, as those may remember who ever watched his face at the Sunday evening gatherings in Marlborough Place in the later seventies, when there was sure to be at least a little good music or singing either from his daughters or some of the guests, he seldom could spare the time for concert-going or theatre-going, and the occasional notes of his bachelor days, "to the opera with Spencer," had ceased as his necessary occupations grew more engrossing.

This year his friend Hooker moved to Kew to act as second in command to his father, Sir William Hooker, the director of the Botanical Gardens. This move made meetings between the two friends, except at clubs and societies, more difficult, and was one of the immediate causes of the foundation of the x Club. It is this move which is referred to in the following letters; the "poor client" being the wife of an old messmate of his on the "Rattlesnake":—]

Jermyn Street, November 17.

My dear Hooker,

My wife wrote to yours yesterday, the enclosed note explaining the kitchen-revolution which, it seems, must delay our meeting. When she had done, however, she did not know where to direct it, and I am no wiser, so I send it to you.

It's a horrid nuisance and I have sworn a few, but that will not cook the dinner, however much it may prepare me for being cooked elsewhere. To complete my disgust at things in general, my wife is regularly knocked up with dining out twice this week, though it was only in the quietest way. I shall have to lock her up altogether.

X— has made a horrid mess of it, and I am sorry to say, from what I know of him, that I cannot doubt where the fault lies. The worst of it is that he has a wife and three children over here, left without a penny or any means of support. The poor woman wrote to me the other day, and when I went to see her I found her at the last shilling and contemplating the workhouse as her next step. She has brothers in Australia, and it appeared to me that the only way to do her any good was to get her out. She cannot starve there, and there will be more hope for her children than an English poor-house. I am going to see if the Emigration Commissioners will do anything for her, as of course it is desirable to cut down the cost of exportation to the smallest amount.

It is most lamentable that a man of so much ability should have so utterly damned himself as X— has, but he is hopelessly Celtic.

I shall be at the Phil. Club next Thursday.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

14 Waverley Place, Monday morning [November 1861].

My dear Hooker,

The obstinate manner in which Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose Mrs. Hooker's epistle to you.

You shall have your own way about the dinner, though we shall have triumphed over all domestic difficulties by that time, and the first lieutenant scorns the idea of being "worrited" about anything. I only grieve it is such a mortal long way for you to come.

I could find it in my heart to scold you well for your generous aid to my poor client. I assure you I told you all about the case because it was fresh in my mind, and without the least notion of going to you for that kind of aid. May it come back to you in some good shape or other.

I find it is no use to look for help from the emigration people, but I have no fear of being able to get the 50 pounds sterling which will send them out by the "Walter Hood."

Would it be fair to apply to Bell in such a case? I will have a talk to you about it at the Phil. Club.

Ever, my dear Hooker, yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[In 1862, in addition to all the work connected with the species question already detailed, Huxley published three paleontological papers ("On the new Labyrinthodonts from the coal-field of Edinburgh"; "On a Stalk-eyed Crustacean from the coal-fields of Paisley"; and "On the Teeth of Diprotodon."), while the paper on the "Anatomy and Development of Pyrosoma," first read on December 1, 1859, was now published in the "Proceedings of the Linnean Society."

In the list of work in hand are four paleontological papers, besides the slowly progressing "Manual of Comparative Anatomy." ("On Indian Fossils," on "Cephalaspis and Pteraspis," on "Stagonolepis," and a "Memoir descriptive of Labyrinthodont remains from the Trias and Coal of Britain," which he first treated of in 1858, "clearly establishing for the first time the vertebrate nature of these remains."—Sir M. Foster, Obituary Notice "Proceedings of the Royal Society" 59 55.)

When he went north to deliver his lectures at Edinburgh "On the relation of Man to the Lower Animals," he took the opportunity of examining fossils at Forfar, and lectured also at Glasgow; while at Easter he went to Ireland; on March 15 he was at Dublin, lecturing there on the 25th.

Reference has already been made (in the letter to C. Darwin of May 6, 1862) to the unsatisfactory state of Huxley's health. He was further crippled by neuralgic rheumatism in his arm and shoulder, and to get rid of this, went on July 1 to Switzerland for a month's holiday. Reaching Grindelwald on the 4th, he was joined on the 6th by Dr. Tyndall, and with him rambled on the glacier and made an expedition to the Faulhorn. On the 13th they went to the Rhone glacier, meeting Sir J. Lubbock on their way, at the other side of the Grimsel. Both here and at the Eggischhorn, where they went a few days later, Huxley confined himself to easy expeditions, or, as his notebook has it, stayed "quiet" or "idle," while the hale pair ascended the Galenstock and the Jungfrau.

By July 28 he was home again in time for an examiners' meeting at the London University the next day, and a viva voce in physiology on the 4th August, before going to Scotland to serve on the Fishery Commission.

This was the first of the numerous commissions on which he served. With his colleagues, Dr. Lyon Playfair (afterwards Lord Playfair) and Colonel Maxwell, he was busy from August 8 to September 16, chiefly on the west coast, taking evidence from the trawlers and their opponents, and making direct investigations into the habits of the herring.

The following letter to Mr. (afterwards Sir W.H.) Flower, then Curator of the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, refers to this trip and to his appointment to the examinership in physiology at the College of Surgeons, for which he had applied in May and which he held until 1870. Mr. Flower, indeed, was deeply interested at this time in the same problems as Huxley, and helped his investigations for "Man's Place" by making a number of dissections to test the disputed relations between the brain of man and of the apes.]

Hotel de la Jungfrau, Aeggischhorn, July 18, 1862.

My dear Flower,

Many thanks for your letter. I shall make my acknowledgments to the council in due form when I have read the official announcement on my return to England. I trust they will not have occasion to repent declining Dr. —'s offer. At any rate I shall do my best.

I am particularly obliged to you for telling me about the Dijon bones. Dijon lies quite in my way in returning to England, and I shall stop a day there for the purpose of making the acquaintance of M. Nodet and his Schizopleuron. I have a sort of dim recollection that there are some other remains of extinct South American mammals in the Dijon Museum which I ought to see.

Your news about the lower jaw made me burst out into such an exclamation that all the salle-a-manger heard me! I saw the fitness of the thing at once. The foramen and the shape of the condyle ought to have suggested it at once.

I have had a very pleasant trip, passing through Grindelwald, the Aar valley, and the Rhone valley, as far as here; but, up to the day before yesterday, my health remained very unsatisfactory, and I was terribly teased by the neuralgia or rheumatism or whatever it is.

On that day, however, I had a very sharp climb involving a great deal of exertion and a most prodigious sweating, and on the next morning I really woke up a new man. Yesterday I repeated the dose and I am in hopes now that I shall come back fit to grapple with all the work that lies before me.

Ever, my dear Flower, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This autumn he gladly took on what appeared to be an additional piece of work. On October 12 he writes from 26 Abbey Place:—]

I saw Flower yesterday, and I find that my present colleague in the Hunterian Professorship wishes to get rid of his share in the lectures, having, I suppose, at the eleventh hour discovered his incompetency. It looks paradoxical to say so, but it will really be easier for me to give eighteen or twenty-four lectures than twelve, so that I have professed my readiness to take as much as he likes off his hands.

[This Professorship had been in existence for more than sixty years, for when the Museum of the famous anatomist John Hunter was entrusted to the College of Surgeons by the Government, the condition was made that "one course of lectures, not less than twenty-four in number, on comparative anatomy and other subjects, illustrated by the preparations, shall be given every year by some member of the company." Huxley arranged to publish from year to year the substance of his lectures on the vertebrates, "and by that process to bring out eventually a comprehensive, though condensed, systematic work on 'Comparative Anatomy'." ("Comparative Anatomy" volume 1 Preface.)

Of the labour entailed in this course, the late Sir W.H. Flower wrote:—

When, in 1862, he was appointed to the Hunterian Professorship at the College of Surgeons, he took for the subject of several yearly courses of lectures the anatomy of the vertebrata, beginning with the primates, and as the subject was then rather new to him, and as it was a rule with him never to make a statement in a lecture which was not founded upon his own actual observation, he set to work to make a series of original dissections of all the forms he treated of. These were carried on in the workroom at the top of the college, and mostly in the evenings, after his daily occupation at Jermyn Street (the School of Mines, as it was then called) was over, an arrangement which my residence in the college buildings enabled me to make for him. These rooms contained a large store of material, entire or partially dissected animals preserved in spirit, which, unlike those mounted in the museum, were available for further investigation in any direction, and these, supplemented occasionally by fresh subjects from the Zoological Gardens, formed the foundation of the lectures...On these evenings it was always my privilege to be with him, and to assist in the work in which he was engaged. In dissecting, as in everything else, he was a very rapid worker, going straight to the point he wished to ascertain with a firm and steady hand, never diverted into side issues, nor wasting any time in unnecessary polishing up for the sake of appearances; the very opposite, in fact, to what is commonly known as "finikin." His great facility for bold and dashing sketching came in most usefully in this work, the notes he made being largely helped out with illustrations.

The following is the letter in which he makes himself known to Professor Haeckel of Jena, who, in his thanks for the specimens, bewails the lot of "us poor inland Germans, who have to get help from England."]

The Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, October 28, 1862.

Sir,

A copy of your exceedingly valuable and beautiful monograph, "Die Radiolarien," came into my hands two or three days ago, and I have been devoting the little leisure I possess just at present to a careful study of its contents, which are to me profoundly interesting and instructive.

Permit me to say this much by way of introduction to a request which I have to prefer, which is, that you will be good enough to let me have a copy of your Habitationsschrift, "De Rhizopodum Finibus," if you have one to spare. If it is sent through Frommans of Jena to the care of Messrs. Williams and Norgate, London, it will reach me safely.

I observe that in your preface you state that you have no specimen of the famous Barbadoes deposit. As I happen to possess some from Schomburgk's own collection, I should be ashamed to allow you any longer to suffer from that want, and I beg your acceptance of the inclosed little packet. If this is not sufficient, pray let me know and I will send you as much more.

If you desire it, I can also send you some of the Oran earth, and as much as you like of the Atlantic deep-sea soundings, which are almost entirely made up of Globigerina and Polycistina.

I am, Sir, yours very faithfully,

Thomas H. Huxley.

[The next letter refers to the scientific examinations at the University of London.]

December 4, 1862.

My dear Hooker,

I look upon you as art and part of the "Natural History Review," though not ostensibly one of the gang, so I bid you to a feast, partly of reason and partly of mutton, at my house on December 11 (being this day week) at half-past six. Do come if you can, for we have not seen your ugly old phiz for ages, and should be comforted by an inspection thereof, however brief.

I did my best yesterday to get separate exhibitions for Chemistry, Botany, and Zoological Biology, at the committee yesterday [At the London University.], and I suspect from your letter that if you had been there you would have backed me. However, it is clear that they only mean to give separate exhibits for Chemistry and Biology as a whole.

Because Botany and Zoology are, philosophically speaking, cognate subjects, people are under the delusion that it is easier to work both up at the same time, than it would be to work up, say, Chemistry and Botany. Just fancy asking a young man who has heaps of other things to work up for the B.Sc., to qualify himself for honours both in botany, histological, systematic, and physiological. That is to say, to get a PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE of both these groups of subjects.

I really think the botanical and zoological examiners ought to memorialise the senate jointly on the subject. The present system leads to mere sham and cram.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The year 1863, notable for the publication of Huxley's first book, found him plunged deep in an immense quantity of work of all sorts. He was still examiner in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy at the London University, a post he held from 1855 to 1863, and again from 1865 to 1870, "making," as Sir Michael Foster says, "even an examination feel the influence of the new spirit in biology; and among his examinees at that time there was one at least who, knowing Huxley by his writings, but by his writings only, looked forward to the viva voce test, not as a trial, but as an occasion of delight."

In addition to the work mentioned in the following letters, I note three lectures at Hull on April 6, 8, and 10; a paper on "Craniology" (January 17), and his "Letter on the Human Remains in the Shell Mounds," in the "Ethnological Society's Transactions," while the Fishery Commission claimed much of his time, either at the Board of Trade, or travelling over the north, east, and south coasts from the end of July to the beginning of October, and again in November and December.]

Jermyn Street, April 30, 1863.

My dear Kingsley,

I am exceedingly pleased to have your good word about the lectures,—and I think I shall thereby be encouraged to do what a great many people have wished—that is, to bring out an enlarged and revised edition of them.

The only difficulty is time—if one could but work five-and-twenty hours a day!

With respect to the sterility question, I do not think there is much doubt as to the effect of breeding in and in in destroying fertility. But the sterility which must be obtained by the selective breeder in order to convert his morphological species into physiological species—such as we have in nature—must be quite irrespective of breeding in and in.

There is no question of breeding in and in between a horse and an ass, and yet their produce is usually a sterile hybrid.

So if Carrier and Tumbler, e.g., were physiological species equivalent to Horse and Ass, their progeny ought to be sterile or semi-sterile. So far as experience has gone, on the contrary, it is perfectly fertile—as fertile as the progeny of Carrier and Carrier or Tumbler and Tumbler.

From the first time that I wrote about Darwin's book in the "Times" and in the "Westminster" until now, it has been obvious to me that this is the weak point of Darwin's doctrine. He HAS shown that selective breeding is a vera causa for morphological species; he has not yet shown it a vera causa for physiological species.

But I entertain little doubt that a carefully devised system of experimentation would produce physiological species by selection—only the feat has not been performed yet.

I hope you received a copy of "Man's Place in Nature," which I desired should be sent to you long ago. Don't suppose I ever expect an acknowledgment of the book—it is one of the greatest nuisances in the world to have that to do, and I never do it—but as you mentioned the Lectures and not the other, I thought it might not have reached you. If it has not, pray let me know and a copy shall be forwarded, as I want you very much to read Essay Number 2.

I have a great respect for all the old bottles, and if the new wine can be got to go into them and not burst them I shall be very glad—I confess I do not see my way to it; on the contrary, the longer I live and the more I learn the more hopeless to my mind becomes the contradiction between the theory of the universe as understood and expounded by Jewish and Christian theologians, and the theory of the universe which is every day and every year growing out of the application of scientific methods to its phenomena.

Whether astronomy and geology can or cannot be made to agree with the statements as to the matters of fact laid down in Genesis—whether the Gospels are historically true or not—are matters of comparatively small moment in the face of the impassable gulf between the anthropomorphism (however refined) of theology and the passionless impersonality of the unknown and unknowable which science shows everywhere underlying the thin veil of phenomena.

Here seems to me to be the great gulf fixed between science and theology—beside which all Colenso controversies, reconcilements of Scripture a la Pye Smith, etc., cut a very small figure.

You must have thought over all this long ago; but steeped as I am in scientific thought from morning till night, the contrast has perhaps a greater vividness to me. I go into society, and except among two or three of my scientific colleagues I find myself alone on these subjects, and as hopelessly at variance with the majority of my fellow-men as they would be with their neighbours if they were set down among the Ashantees. I don't like this state of things for myself—least of all do I see how it will work out for my children. But as my mind is constituted, there is no way out of it, and I can only envy you if you can see things differently.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, May 5, 1863.

My dear Kingsley,

My wife and children are away at Felixstow on the Suffolk coast, and as I run down on Saturday and come back on Monday your MS. has been kept longer than it should have been. I am quite agreed with the general tenor of your argument; and indeed I have often argued against those who maintain the intellectual gulf between man and the lower animals to be an impassable one, by pointing to the immense intellectual chasm as compared to the structural differences between two species of bees or between sheep and goat or dog and wolf. So again your remarks upon the argument drawn from the apparent absence of progression in animals seem to me to be quite just. You might strengthen them much by reference to the absence of progression in many races of men. The West African savage, as the old voyagers show, was in just the same condition two hundred years ago as now—and I suspect that the modern Patagonian is as nearly as possible the unimproved representative of the makers of the flint implements of Abbeville.

Lyell's phrase is very good, but it is a simple application of Darwin's views to human history. The advance of mankind has everywhere depended on the production of men of genius; and that production is a case of "spontaneous variation" becoming hereditary, not by physical propagation, but by the help of language, letters and the printing press. Newton was to all intents and purposes a "sport" of a dull agricultural stock, and his intellectual powers are to a certain extent propagated by the grafting of the "Principia," his brain-shoot, on us.

Many thanks for your letter. It is a great pleasure to me to be able to speak out to any one who, like yourself, is striving to get at truth through a region of intellectual and moral influences so entirely distinct from those to which I am exposed.

I am not much given to open my heart to anybody, and on looking back I am often astonished at the way in which I threw myself and my troubles at your head, in those bitter days when my poor boy died. But the way in which you received my heathen letters set up a freemasonry between us, at any rate on my side; and if they make you a bishop I advise you not to let your private secretary open any letters with my name in the corner, for they are as likely as not to contain matters which will make the clerical hair stand on end.

I am too much a believer in Butler and in the great principle of the "Analogy" that "there is no absurdity in theology so great that you cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity of Nature" (it is not commonly stated in this way), to have any difficulties about miracles. I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school.

Nevertheless, I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian world call, and, so far as I can see, are justified in calling, atheist and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown underlying the phenomena of the universe stands to us in the relation of a Father—loves us and cares for us as Christianity asserts. On the contrary, the whole teaching of experience seems to me to show that while the governance (if I may use the term) of the universe is rigorously just and substantially kind and beneficent, there is no more relation of affection between governor and governed than between me and the twelve judges. I know the administrators of the law desire to do their best for everybody, and that they would rather not hurt me than otherwise, but I also know that under certain circumstances they will most assuredly hang me; and that in any case it would be absurd to suppose them guided by any particular affection for me.

This seems to me to be the relation which exists between the cause of the phenomena of this universe and myself. I submit to it with implicit obedience and perfect cheerfulness, and the more because my small intelligence does not see how any other arrangement could possibly be got to work as the world is constituted.

But this is what the Christian world calls atheism, and because all my toil and pains does not enable me to see my way to any other conclusion than this, a Christian judge would (if he knew it) refuse to take my evidence in a court of justice against that of a Christian ticket-of-leave man.

So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, the immortality of the soul, and the future state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection a priori can I—who am compelled perforce to believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force and in a very unmistakable PRESENT state of rewards and punishments for all our deeds—have to these doctrines? Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.

But read Butler, and see to what drivel even his great mind descends when he has to talk about the immortality of the soul! I have never seen an argument on that subject which from a scientific point of view is worth the paper it is written upon. All resolve themselves into this formula:—The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is very pleasant and very useful, therefore it is true.

All the grand language about "human aspiration," "consistency with the divine justice," etc., etc., collapses into this at last—Better the misery of the "Vale! in aeternum vale!" ten times over than the opium of such empty sophisms—I have drunk of that cup to the bottom.

I am called away and must close my letter. Don't trouble to answer it unless you are so minded.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, May 22, 1863.

My dear Kingsley,

Pray excuse my delay in replying to your letter. I have been very much pressed for time for these two or three days.

First touching the action of the spermatozoon. The best information you can find on the subject is, I think, in Newport's papers in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1851, 1853, and 1854, especially the 1853 paper. Newport treats only of the Frog, but the information he gives is very full and definite. Allen Thomson's very accurate and learned article "Ovum" in Todd's "Cyclopaedia" is also well worth looking through, though unfortunately it is least full just where you want most information. In French there is Coste's "Developpement des Corps organises" and the volume on "Development" by Bischoff in the French translation of the last edition of Soemmering's "Anatomy."

So much for your inquiries as to the matters of fact. Next, as to questions of speculation. If any expression of ignorance on my part will bring us nearer we are likely to come into absolute contact, for the possibilities of "may be" are, to me, infinite.

I know nothing of Necessity, abominate the word Law (except as meaning that we know nothing to the contrary), and am quite ready to admit that there may be some place, "other side of nowhere," par exemple, where 2 + 2 = 5, and all bodies naturally repel one another instead of gravitating together.

I don't know whether Matter is anything distinct from Force. I don't know that atoms are anything but pure myths. Cogito, ergo sum is to my mind a ridiculous piece of bad logic, all I can say at any time being "Cogito." The Latin form I hold to be preferable to the English "I think," because the latter asserts the existence of an Ego—about which the bundle of phenomena at present addressing you knows nothing. In fact, if I am pushed, metaphysical speculation lands me exactly where your friend Raphael was when his bitch pupped. In other words, I believe in Hamilton, Mansell and Herbert Spencer so long as they are destructive, and I laugh at their beards as soon as they try to spin their own cobwebs.

Is this basis of ignorance broad enough for you? If you, theologian, can find as firm footing as I, man of science, do on this foundation of minus nought—there will be nought to fear for our ever diverging.

For you see I am quite as ready to admit your doctrine that souls secrete bodies as I am the opposite one that bodies secrete souls—simply because I deny the possibility of obtaining any evidence as to the truth and falsehood of either hypothesis. My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM ARE OPPOSITE POLES OF THE SAME ABSURDITY—the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter.

Cabanis and Berkeley (I speak of them simply as types of schools) are both asses, the only difference being that one is a black donkey and the other a white one.

This universe is, I conceive, like to a great game being played out, and we poor mortals are allowed to take a hand. By great good fortune the wiser among us have made out some few of the rules of the game, as at present played. We call them "Laws of Nature," and honour them because we find that if we obey them we win something for our pains. The cards are our theories and hypotheses, the tricks our experimental verifications. But what sane man would endeavour to solve this problem: given the rules of a game and the winnings, to find whether the cards are made of pasteboard or goldleaf? Yet the problem of the metaphysicians is to my mind no saner.

If you tell me that an Ape differs from a Man because the latter has a soul and the ape has not, I can only say it may be so; but I should uncommonly like to know how either that the ape has not one or that the man has.

And until you satisfy me as to the soundness of your method of investigation, I must adhere to what seems to my mind a simpler form of notation—i.e. to suppose that all phenomena have the same substratum (if they have any), and that soul and body, or mental and physical phenomena, are merely diverse manifestations of that hypothetical substratum. In this way, it seems to me, I obey the rule which works so well in practice, of always making the simplest possible suppositions.

On the other hand, if you are of a different opinion, and find it more convenient to call the x which underlies (hypothetically) mental phenomena, Soul, and the x which underlies (hypothetically) physical phenomena, Body, well and good. The two-fluid theory and the one-fluid theory of electricity both accounted for the phenomena up to a certain extent, and both were probably wrong. So it may be with the theories that there is only one x in nature or two x's or three x's.

For, if you will think upon it, there are only four possible ontological hypotheses now that Polytheism is dead.

1. There is no x = Atheism on Berkeleyan principles.

2. There is only one x = Materialism or Pantheism, according as you turn it heads or tails.

3. There are two x's: Spirit and Matter = Speculators incertae sedis.

4. There are three x's: God, Souls, Matter = Orthodox Theologians.

To say that I adopt any one of those hypotheses, as a representation of fact, would to my mind be absurd; but Number 2 is the one I can work with best. To return to my metaphor, it chimes in better with the rules of the game of nature than any other of the four possibilities, to my mind.

But who knows when the great Banker may sweep away table and cards and all, and set us learning a new game? What will become of all my poor counters then? It may turn out that I am quite wrong, and that there are no x's or 20 x's.

I am glad you appreciate the rich absurdities of the new doctrine of spontogenesis [?]. Against the doctrine of spontaneous generation in the abstract I have nothing to say. Indeed it is a necessary corollary from Darwin's views if legitimately carried out, and I think Owen smites him (Darwin) fairly for taking refuge in "Pentateuchal" phraseology when he ought to have done one of two things—(a) give up the problem, (b) admit the necessity of spontaneous generation. It is the very passage in Darwin's book to which, as he knows right well, I have always strongly objected. The x of science and the x of genesis are two different x's, and for any sake don't let us confuse them together. Maurice has sent me his book. I have read it, but I find myself utterly at a loss to comprehend his point of view.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter is interesting, as showing his continued interest in the question of skull structure, as well as his relation to his friend and fellow-worker, Dr. W.K. Parker.]

Jermyn Street, March 18, 1863.

My dear Parker,

Any conclusion that I have reached will seem to me all the better based for knowing that you have been near or at it, and I am therefore right glad to have your letter. If I had only time, nothing would delight me more than to go over your preparations, but these Hunterian Lectures are about the hardest bit of work I ever took in hand, and I am obliged to give every minute to them.

By and by I will gladly go with you over your vast material.

Did you not some time ago tell me that you considered the Y-shaped bone (so-called presphenoid) in the Pike to be the true basisphenoid? If so, let me know before lecture to-morrow, that I may not commit theft unawares.

I have arrived at that conclusion myself from the anatomical relations of the bone in question to the brain and nerves.

I look upon the proposition opisthotis = turtle's "occipital externe" = Perch's Rocher (Cuvier) as the one thing needful to clear up the unity of structure of the bony cranium; and it shall be counted unto me as a great sin if I have helped to keep you back from it. The thing has been dawning upon me ever since I read Kolliker's book two summers ago, but I have never had time to work it out.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following extracts from a letter to Hooker and a letter to Darwin describe the pressure of his work at this time.]

1863.

My dear Hooker,

...I would willingly send a paper to the Linnean this year if I could, but I do not see how it is practicable. I lecture five times a week from now till the middle of February. I then have to give eighteen lectures at the College of Surgeons—six on classification, and twelve on the vertebrate skeleton. I might write a paper on this new Glyptodon, with some eighteen to twenty plates. A preliminary notice has already gone to the Royal Society. I have a decade of fossil fish in progress; a fellow in the country WILL keep on sending me splendid new Labyrinthodonts from the coal, and that d—d manual must come out.

Ayez pitie de moi.

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, July 2, 1863.

My Dear Darwin,

I am horribly loth to say that I cannot do anything you want done; and partly for that reason and partly because we have been very busy here with some new arrangements during the last day or two, I did not at once reply to your note.

I am afraid, however, I cannot undertake any sort of new work. In spite of working like a horse (or if you prefer it, like an ass), I find myself scandalously in arrear, and I shall get into terrible hot water if I do not clear off some things that have been hanging about me for months and years.

If you will send me up the specimens, however, I will ask Flower (whom I see constantly) to examine them for you. The examination will be no great trouble, and I am ashamed to make a fuss about it, but I have sworn a big oath to take no fresh work, great or small, until certain things are done.

I wake up in the morning with somebody saying in my ear, "A is not done, and B is not done, and C is not done, and D is not done," etc., and a feeling like a fellow whose duns are all in the street waiting for him. By the way, you ask me what I am doing now, so I will just enumerate some of the A, B, and C's aforesaid.

A. Editing lectures on Vertebrate skull and bringing them out in the "Medical Times."

B. Editing and re-writing lectures on Elementary Physiology, just delivered here and reported as I went along. ([Delivered on Friday evenings from April to June at Jermyn Street, and reported in the "Medical Times." They formed the basis of his well-known little book on "Elementary Physiology," published 1866. He writes on April 22:—] "Macmillan has just been with me, and I am let in for a school book on physiology based on these lectures of mine. Money arrangements not quite fixed yet, but he is a good fellow, and will not do me unnecessarily.")

C. Thinking of my course of twenty-four lectures on the Mammalia at the College of Surgeons in next spring, and making investigations bearing on the same.

D. Thinking of and working at a "Manual of Comparative Anatomy" (may it be d—d); which I have had in hand these seven years.

E. Getting heaps of remains of new Labyrinthodonts from the Glasgow coalfield, which have to be described.

F. Working at a memoir on Glyptodon based on a new and almost entire specimen at the College of Surgeons.

G. Preparing a new decade upon Fossil fishes for this place.

H. Knowing that I ought to have written long ago a description of a most interesting lot of Indian fossils sent to me by Oldham.

I. Being blown up by Hooker for doing nothing for the "Natural History Review."

K. Being bothered by sundry editors just to write articles "which you know you can knock off in a moment."

L. Consciousness of having left unwritten letters which ought to have been written long ago, especially to C. Darwin.

M. General worry and botheration. Ten or twelve people taking up my time all day about their own affairs.

N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. U. V. W. X. Y. Z.

Societies.

Clubs.

Dinners, evening parties, and all the apparatus for wasting time called "Society." Colensoism and botheration about Moses...Finally pestered to death in public and private because I am supposed to be what they call a "Darwinian."

If that is not enough, I could exhaust the Greek alphabet for heads in addition.

I am glad to hear that Wyman thinks well of my book, as he is very competent to judge. I hear it is republished in America, but I suppose I shall get nothing out of it. [In this expectation, however, he was agreeably disappointed by the action of D. Appleton and Company.

An undated letter to Kingsley, who had suggested that he should write an article on Prayer, belongs probably to the autumn of 1863:—]

I should like very much to write such an article as you suggest, but I am very doubtful about undertaking it for "Fraser." Anything I could say would go to the root of praying altogether, for inasmuch as the whole universe is governed, so far as I can see, in the same way, and the moral world is as much governed by laws as the physical—whatever militates against asking for one sort of blessing seems to me to tell with the same force against asking for any other.

Not that I mean for a moment to say that prayer is illogical, for if the whole universe is ruled by fixed laws it is just as logically absurd for me to ask you to answer this letter as to ask the Almighty to alter the weather. The whole argument is an "old foe with a new face," the freedom and necessity question over again.

If I were to write about the question I should have to develop all this side of the problem, and then having shown that logic, as always happens when it is carried to extremes, leaves us bombinantes in vacuo, I should appeal to experience to show that prayers of this sort are not answered, and to science to prove that if they were they would do a great deal of harm.

But you know this would never do for the atmosphere of "Fraser." It would be much better suited for an article in my favourite organ, the wicked "Westminster."

However, to say truth, I do not see how I am to undertake anything fresh just at present. I have promised an article for "Macmillan" ages ago; and Masson scowls at me whenever we meet. I am afraid to go through the Albany lest Cook should demand certain reviews of books which have been long in my hands. I am just completing a long memoir for the Linnean Society; a monograph on certain fossil reptiles must be finished before the new year. My lectures have begun, and there is a certain "Manual" looming in the background. And to crown all, these late events [the death of his brother] have given me such a wrench that I feel I must be prudent.

[The following reference to Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, has a quasi-prophetic interest:—]

May 7.

Dined at the Smiths' last night. [Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Smith, of dictionary fame.] Lowe was to have been there, but had a dinner-party of his own...I have come to the conviction that our friend Bob is a most admirable, well-judging statesman, for he says I am the only man fit to be at the head of the British Museum [i.e. of the Natural History Collections.], and that if he had his way he would put me there.

[Years afterwards, on Sir R. Owen's retirement, he was offered the post, but declined it, as he greatly disliked the kind of work. At the same time, he pointed out to the Minister who made the offer that the man of all others for the post would be the late distinguished holder of it, Sir W.H. Flower, a suggestion happily acted on.

Early in August a severe loss befell him in the sudden death of his brother George, who had been his close friend ever since he had returned from Australia, who had given him all the help and sympathy in his struggles that could be given by a man of the world without special interests in science or literature. With brilliancy enough to have won success if he had had patience to ensure it, he was not only a pleasant companion, a "clubbable man" in Johnson's phrase, but a friend to trust. The two households had seen much of one another; the childless couple regarded their brother's children almost as their own. Thus a real gap was made in the family circle, and the trouble was not lessened by the fact that George Huxley's affairs were left in great confusion, and his brother not only spent a great deal of time in looking after the interests of the widow, but took upon himself certain obligations in order to make things straight, with the result that he was even compelled to part with his Royal Medal, the gold of which was worth 50 pounds sterling.]

CHAPTER 1.18.

1864.

[The year 1864 was much like 1863. The Hunterian Lectures were still part of his regular work. The Fishery Commission claimed a large portion of his time. from March 28 to April 2 he was in Cornwall; on May 7 at Shoreham; from July 24 to September 9 visiting the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The same pressure of work continued. He published four papers on paleontological or anatomical subjects in the "Natural History Review" (On "Cetacean Fossils termed Ziphius by Cuvier," in the "Transactions of the Geological Society"; in those of the "Zoological," papers on "Arctocebus Calabarensis" and "The Structure of the Stomach in Desmodus Rufus"; and on the "Osteology of the Genus Glyptodon," in the "Philosophical Transactions."), he wrote "Further Remarks upon the Human Remains from the Neanderthal," and later, dealing with "Criticisms on the 'Origin of Species'" ("Collected Essays" 2 page 80 "Darwiniana"), he gently but firmly dispersed several misconceptions of his old friend Kolliker as to the plain meaning of the book; and ridiculed the pretentious ignorance of M. Flourens' dicta upon the same subject; while in the winter he delivered a course of lectures to working men on "The Various Races of Mankind," a choice of subject which shows that his chief interest at that time lay in Ethnology.]

Jermyn Street, January 16, 1864.

My dear Darwin,

I have had no news of you for a long time, but I earnestly hope you are better.

Have you any objection to putting your name to Flower's certificate for the Royal Society herewith inclosed? It will please him much if you will; and I go bail for his being a thoroughly good man in all senses of the word—which, as you know, is more than I would say for everybody.

Don't write any reply; but Mrs. Darwin perhaps will do me the kindness to send the thing on to Lyell as per enclosed envelope. I will write him a note about it.

We are all well, barring customary colds and various forms of infantile pip. As for myself, I am flourishing like a green bay tree (appropriate comparison, Soapy Sam would observe), in consequence of having utterly renounced societies and society since October.

I have been working like a horse, however, and shall work "horser" as my college lectures begin in February.

Tout a vous,

T.H. Huxley.

Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, April 18, 1864.

My dear Darwin,

I was rejoiced to see your handwriting again, so much so that I shall not scold you for undertaking the needless exertion (as it's my duty to do) of writing to thank me for my book. [Hunterian Lectures on Anatomy.]

I thought the last lecture would be nuts for you, but it is really shocking. There is not the smallest question that Owen wrote both the article "Oken" and the "Archetype Book," which appeared in its second edition in French—why, I know not. I think that if you will look at what I say again, there will not be much doubt left in your mind as to the identity of the writer of the two.

The news you give of yourself is most encouraging; but pray don't think of doing any work again yet. Careful as I have been during this last winter not to burn the candle at both ends, I have found myself, since the pressure of my lectures ceased, in considerable need of quiet, and I have been lazy accordingly.

I don't know that I fear, with you, caring too much for science—for there are lots of other things I should like to go into as well, but I do lament more and more as time goes on, the necessity of becoming more and more absorbed in one kind of work, a necessity which is created for any one in my position, partly by one's reputation, and partly by one's children. For directly a man gets the smallest repute in any branch of science, the world immediately credits him with knowing about ten times as much as he really does, and he becomes bound in common honesty to do his best to climb up to his reputed place. And then the babies are a devouring fire, eating up the present and discounting the future; they are sure to want all the money one can earn, and to be the better for all the credit one can win.

However, I should fare badly without the young monkeys. Your pet Marian is almost as shy as ever, though she has left off saying "can't," by the way.

My wife is wonderfully well. As I tell her, Providence has appointed her to take care of me when I am broken down and decrepit.

I hope you can say as much of Mrs. Darwin. Pray give her my kind regards.

And believe me, ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A letter to his sister gives a sketch of his position at this time, speaking of which he says to Dr. (afterwards Sir J.) Fayrer,] "You and I have travelled a long way, in all senses, since you settled my career for me on the steps of the Charing Cross Hospital." [It must be remembered that his sister was living in Tennessee, and that her son at fifteen was serving in the Confederate army.]

Jermyn Street, May 4, 1864.

You will want to know something about my progress in the world. Well, at this moment I am Professor of Natural History here, and Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the College of Surgeons. The former is the appointment I have held since 1855; the latter chair I was asked to take last year, and now I have delivered two courses in that famous black gown with the red facings which the doctor will recollect very well. What with the duties of these two posts and other official and non-official business, I am worked to the full stretch of my powers, and sometimes a little beyond them; though hitherto I have stood the wear and tear very well.

I believe I have won myself a pretty fair place in science, but in addition to that I have the reputation (of which, I fear, you will not approve) of being a great heretic and a savage controversialist always in rows. To the accusation of heresy I fear I must plead guilty; but the second charge proceeds only, I do assure you, from a certain unconquerable hatred of lies and humbug which I cannot get over.

I have read all you tell me about the south with much interest and with the warmest sympathy, so far as the fate of the south affects you. But I am in the condition of most thoughtful Englishmen. My heart goes with the south, and my head with the north.

I have no love for the Yankees, and I delight in the energy and self-sacrifice of your people; but for all that, I cannot doubt that whether you beat the Yankees or not, you are struggling to uphold a system which must, sooner or later, break down.

I have not the smallest sentimental sympathy with the negro; don't believe in him at all, in short. But it is clear to me that slavery means, for the white man, bad political economy; bad social morality; bad internal political organisation, and a bad influence upon free labour and freedom all over the world. For the sake of the white man, therefore, for your children and grandchildren, directly, and for mine, indirectly, I wish to see this system ended. [Cf. "Reader," February 27 onwards, where these general arguments against slavery appear in a controversy arising from his ninth Hunterian Lecture, in which, while admitting negro inferiority, he refutes those who justify slavery on the ground that physiologically the negro is very low in the scale.] Would that the south had had the wisdom to initiate that end without this miserable war!

All this must jar upon you sadly, and I grieve that it does so; but I could not pretend to be other than I am, even to please you. Let us agree to differ upon this point. If I were in your place I doubt not I should feel as you do; and, when I think of you, I put myself in your place and feel with you as your brother Tom. The learned gentleman who has public opinions for which he is responsible is another "party" who walks about in T's clothes when he is not thinking of his sister.

If this were not my birthday I should not feel justified in taking a morning's holiday to write this long letter to you. The ghosts of undone pieces of work are dancing about me, and I must come to an end.

Give my love to your husband. I am glad to hear he wears so well. And don't forget to give your children kindly thoughts of their uncle. Dr. Wright gives a great account of my namesake, and says he is the handsomest youngster in the Southern States. That comes of his being named after me, you know how renowned for personal beauty I always was.

I asked Dr. Wright if you had taken to spectacles, and he seemed to think not. I had a pain about my eyes a few months ago, but I found spectacles made this rather worse and left them off again. However, I do catch myself holding a newspaper further off than I used to do.

Now don't let six months go by without writing again. If our little venture succeeds this time, we shall send again. [I.e. a package of various presents to the family.] Ever, my dearest Lizzie, your affectionate brother,

T.H. Huxley.

[He writes to his wife, who had taken the children to Margate:—]

September 22.

I am now busy over a paper for the Zoological Society; after that there is one for the Ethnological which was read last session though not written...Don't blaspheme about going into the bye-ways. They are both in the direct road of the book, only over the hills instead of going over the beaten path.

October 6.

I heard from Darwin last night jubilating over an article of mine which is published in the last number of the "Natural History Review," and which he is immensely pleased with...My lectures tire me, from want of practice, I suppose. I shall soon get into swing.

[The article in question was the "Criticisms of the 'Origin of Species'" of which he writes to Darwin:—]

Jermyn Street, October 5, 1864.

My dear Darwin,

I am very glad to see your handwriting (in ink) again, and none the less on account of the pretty words into which it was shaped.

It is a great pleasure to me that you like the article, for it was written very hurriedly, and I did not feel sure when I had done that I had always rightly represented your views.

Hang the two scalps up in your wigwam!

Flourens I could have believed anything of, but how a man of Kolliker's real intelligence and ability could have so misunderstood the question is more than I can comprehend.

It will be a thousand pities, however, if any review interferes with your saying something on the subject yourself. Unless it should give you needless work I heartily wish you would.

Everybody tells me I am looking so exceedingly well that I am ashamed to say a word to the contrary. But the fact is, I get no exercise, and a great deal of bothering work on our Commission's Cruise; and though much fatter (indeed a regular bloater myself), I am not up to the mark. Next year I will have a real holiday. [At the end of the year, as so often, he went off for a ploy with Tyndall, this time into Derbyshire, walking vigorously over the moors.]

I am a bachelor, my wife and belongings being all at that beautiful place, Margate. When I came back I found them all looking so seedy that I took them off bag and baggage to that, as the handiest place, before a week was over. They are wonderfully improved already, my wife especially being abundantly provided with her favourite east wind. Your godson is growing a very sturdy fellow, and I begin to puzzle my head with thinking what he is and what he is not to be taught.

Please to remember me very kindly to Mrs. Darwin, and believe me, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following illustrates the value he set upon public examinations as to a practical means for spreading scientific education, and upon first-rate examiners as a safeguard of proper methods of teaching.]

October 6, 1864.

My dear Hooker,

Donnelly told me to-day that you had been applied to by the Science and Tarts Department to examine for them in botany, and that you had declined.

Will you reconsider the matter? I have always taken a very great interest in the science examinations, looking upon them, as I do, as the most important engine for forcing science into ordinary education.

The English nation will not take science from above, so it must get it from below.

Having known these examinations from the beginning, I can assure you that they are very genuine things, and are working excellently. And what I have regretted from the first is that the botanical business was not taken in hand by you, instead of by —.

Now, like a good fellow, think better of it. The papers are necessarily very simple, and one of Oliver's pupils could look them over for you. Let us have your co-operation and the advantage of that reputation for honesty and earnestness which you have contrived (Heaven knows how) to get.

I have come back fat and seedy for want of exercise. All my belongings are at Margate. Hope you don't think my review of Darwin's critics too heretical if you have seen it.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

When is our plan for getting some kind of meeting during the winter to be organised?

[The next two letters refer to the award of the Copley Medal to Mr. Darwin. Huxley was exceedingly indignant at an attempt on the part of the president to discredit the "Origin" by a side wind:—]

Jermyn Street, November 4, 1864.

My dear Darwin,

I write two lines which are NOT TO BE ANSWERED, just as to say how delighted I am at the result of the doings of the Council of the Royal Society yesterday. Many of us were somewhat doubtful of the result, and the more ferocious sort had begun to whet their beaks and sharpen their claws in preparation for taking a very decided course of action had there been any failure of justice this time. But the affair was settled by a splendid majority, and our ruffled feathers are smoothed down.

Your well-won reputation would not have been lessened by the lack of the Copley, but it would have been an indelible reproach to the Royal Society not to have given it to you, and a good many of us had no notion of being made to share that ignominy.

But quite apart from all these grand public-spirited motives and their results, you ought as a philanthropist to be rejoiced in the great satisfaction the award has given to your troops of friends, to none more than my wife (whom I woke up to tell the news when I got home late last night).

Yours ever,

T.H. Huxley.

Please remember us kindly to Mrs. Darwin, and make our congratulations to her on owning a Copley medallist.

Jermyn Street, December 3, 1864.

My dear Hooker,

I wish you had been at the Anniversary Meeting and Dinner, because the latter was very pleasant, and the former, to me, very disagreeable. My distrust of Sabine is as you know chronic, and I went determined to keep careful watch on his address, lest some crafty phrase injurious to Darwin should be introduced. My suspicious were justified. The only part of the address to Darwin written by Sabine himself contained the following passage:—

"Speaking generally and collectively, we have expressly omitted it (Darwin's theory) from the grounds of our award."

Of course this would be interpreted by everybody as meaning that, after due discussion, the council had formally resolved not only to exclude Darwin's theory from the grounds of the award, but to give public notice through the president that they had done so, and furthermore, that Darwin's friends had been base enough to accept an honour for him on the understanding that in receiving it he should be publicly insulted!

I felt that this would never do, and therefore when the resolution for printing the address was moved, I made a speech which I took care to keep perfectly cool and temperate, disavowing all intention of interfering with the liberty of the president to say what he pleased, but exercising my constitutional right of requiring the minutes of council making the award to be read, in order that the Society might be informed whether the conditions implied by Sabine had been imposed or not.

The resolution was read, and of course nothing of the kind appeared. Sabine didn't exactly like it, I believe. Both Busk and Falconer remonstrated against the passage to him, and I hope it will be withdrawn when the address is printed. [The passage stands in the published address, but followed by another passage which softens it down.]

If not there will be an awful row, and I for one will show no mercy.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The foundation of the x Club towards the earth 1864 was a notable event for Huxley and his circle of scientific friends. It was growing more and more difficult for them to see one another except now and again at meetings of the learned societies, and even that was quite uncertain. The pressure of Huxley's own work may be inferred from his letters at this time (especially to Darwin, July 2, 1863, and January 16, 1864). Not only society, but societies had to be almost entirely given up. Moreover, the distance from one another at which some of these friends lived, added another difficulty, so that Huxley writes to Hooker in his] "remote province" [of Kew:] "I wonder if we are ever to meet again in this world." [Accordingly in January 1864, Hooker gladly embraced a proposal of Huxley's to organise some kind of regular meeting, a proposal which bore fruit in the establishment of the x Club. On November 3, 1864, the first meeting was held at St. George's Hotel, Albemarle Street, where they resolved to dine regularly "except when Benham cannot have us, in which case dine at the Athenaeum." In the latter eighties, however, the Athenaeum became the regular place of meeting, and it was here that the "coming of age" of the club was celebrated in 1885.

Eight members met at the first meeting; the second meeting brought their numbers up to nine by the addition of W. Spottiswoode, but the proposal to elect a tenth member was never carried out. On the principle of lucus a non lucendo, this lent an additional appropriateness to the symbol x, the origin of which Huxley thus describes in his reminiscences of Tyndall in the "Nineteenth Century" for January 1894:—]

At starting, our minds were terribly exercised over the name and constitution of our society. As opinions on this grave matter were no less numerous than the members—indeed more so—we finally accepted the happy suggestion of our mathematicians to call it the x Club; and the proposal of some genius among us, that we should have no rules, save the unwritten law not to have any, was carried by acclamation.

[Besides Huxley, the members of the club were as follows:—

George Busk, F.R.S. (1807-87), then secretary of the Linnean Society, a skilful anatomist. (He served as surgeon to the hospital ship "Dreadnought" at Greenwich till 1856, when he resigned and, retiring from practice, devoted himself to scientific pursuits, and was elected President of the College of Surgeons in 1871.)

Edward Frankland (1825-1899), Foreign Secretary R.S., K.C.B., then Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution, and afterwards at the Royal College of Science.

Thomas Archer Hirst, F.R.S., then mathematical master at University College School. (In 1865 appointed Professor of Physics; in 1867, of Pure Mathematics, at University College, London; and from 1873 to 1883 Director of Naval Studies at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich; an old Marburg student, and intimate friend of Tyndall, whom he had succeeded at Queenwood College in 1853. He died in 1892.)

Joseph Dalton Hooker, F.R.S., K.C.S.I., President of the Royal Society 1873, the great botanist, then Assistant Director at Kew Gardens to his father, Sir William Hooker.

Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., M.P., the youngest of the nine, who had already made his mark in archeology, and was then preparing to bring out his "Prehistoric Times."

Herbert Spencer, who had already published "Social Statics," "Principles of Psychology," and "First Principles."

William Spottiswoode (1825-1883), F.R.S., Treasurer and afterwards President of the Royal Society 1878, who carried on the business of the Queen's printer as well as being deeply versed in mathematics, philosophy, and languages.

John Tyndall, F.R.S., (1820-1893), who had been for the last eleven years Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, where he succeeded Faraday as superintendent.

The one object, then, of the club was to afford a certain meeting-ground for a few friends who were bound together by personal regard and community of scientific interests, yet were in danger of drifting apart under the stress of circumstances. They dined together on the first Thursday in each month, except July, August, and September, before the meeting of the Royal Society, of which all were members excepting Mr. Spencer, the usual dining hour being six, so that they should be in good time for the society's meeting at eight; and a minute of December 5, 1885, when Huxley was treasurer and revived the ancient custom of making some note of the conversation, throws light on the habits of the club. "Got scolded," he writes, "for dining at 6.30. Had to prove we have dined at 6.30 for a long time by evidence of waiter." (At the February meeting, however, "agreed to fix dinner hour six hereafter.") "Talked politics, scandal, and the three classes of witnesses—liars, d—d liars, and experts. Huxley gave account of civil list pension. Sat to the unexampled hour of 10 p.m., except Lubbock who had to go to Linnean."

For some time there was a summer meeting, which consisted of a week-end excursion of members and their wives (x's + yv's, as the correct formula ran) to some place like Burnham or Maidenhead, Oxford or Windsor; but this grew increasingly difficult to arrange, and dropped before very long.

Guests were not excluded from the dinners of the club; men of science or letters of almost every nationality dined with the x at one time or another; Darwin, W.K. Clifford, Colenso, Strachey, Tollemache, Helps; Professors Bain, Masson, Robertson Smith, and Bentham the botanist, Mr. John Morley, Sir D. Galton, Mr. Jodrell, the founder of several scientific lectureships; Dr. Klein; the Americans Marsh, Gilman, A. Agassiz, and Youmans, the latter of whom met here several of the contributors to the "International Science Series" organised by him; and continental representatives, as Helmholtz, Laugel, and Cornu.

Small as the club was, the members of it were destined to play a considerable part in the history of English science. Five of them received the Royal Medal; three the Copley; one the Rumford, six were Presidents of the British Association; three Associates of the Institute of France; and from amongst them the Royal Society chose a Secretary, a Foreign Secretary, a Treasurer, and three successive Presidents.]

I think, originally [writes Huxley, l.c.] there was some vague notion of associating representatives of each branch of science; at any rate, the nine who eventually came together could have managed, among us, to contribute most of the articles to a scientific Encyclopaedia.

[They included leading representatives of half a dozen branches of science:—mathematics, physics, philosophy, chemistry, botany, and biology; and all were animated by similar ideas of the high function of science, and of the great Society which should be the chief representative of science in this country. However unnecessary, it was perhaps not unnatural that a certain jealousy of the club and its possible influence grew up in some quarters. But whatever influence fell to it as it were incidentally—and earnest men with such opportunities of mutual understanding and such ideals of action could not fail to have some influence on the progress of scientific organisation—it was assuredly not sectarian nor exerted for party purposes during the twenty-eight years of the club's existence.]

I believe that the x [continues Huxley] had the credit of being a sort of scientific caucus, or ring, with some people. In fact, two distinguished scientific colleagues of mine once carried on a conversation (which I gravely ignored) across me, in the smoking-room of the Athenaeum, to this effect, "I say, A., do you know anything about the x Club?" "Oh, yes, B., I have heard of it. What do they do?" "Well, they govern scientific affairs, and really, on the whole, they don't do it badly." If my good friends could only have been present at a few of our meetings, they would have formed a much less exalted idea of us, and would, I fear, have been much shocked at the sadly frivolous tone of our ordinary conversation.

[The x club is probably unique in the smallness of its numbers, the intellectual eminence of its members, and the length of its unchanged existence. The nearest parallel is to be found in "The Club." (Of which Huxley was elected a member in 1884. Tyndall and Hooker were also members.) Like the x, "The Club" began with eight members at its first meeting, and of the original members Johnson lived twenty years, Reynolds twenty-eight, Burke thirty-three, and Bennet Langton thirty-seven. But the ranks were earlier broken. Within ten years Goldsmith died, and he was followed in a twelvemonth by Nugent, and five years later by Beauclerk and Chamier. Moreover, the eight were soon increased to twelve; then to twenty and finally to forty, while the gaps were filled up as they occurred.

In the x, on the contrary, nearly nineteen years passed before the original circle was broken by the death of Spottiswoode. From 1864 to Spottiswoode's death in 1883 the original circle remained unbroken; the meetings "were steadily continued for some twenty years, before our ranks began to thin; and one by one, geistige Naturen such as those for which the poet so willingly paid the ferryman, silent but not unregarded, took the vacated places."

(Nimm dann Fuhrmann, Nimm die Miethe Die Ich gerne dreifach biete; Zwei, die eben uberfuhren Waren geistige Naturen.)

The peculiar constitution of the club scarcely seemed to admit of new members; not, at all events, without altering the unique relation of friendship joined to common experience of struggle and success which had lasted so long. After the death of Spottiswoode and Busk, and the ill-health of other members, the election of new members was indeed mooted, but the proposal was ultimately negatived. Huxley's opinion on this point appears from letters to Sir E. Frankland in 1886 and to Sir J.D. Hooker in 1888.]

As for the filling up the vacancies in the x, I am disposed to take Tyndall's view of the matter. Our little club had no very definite object beyond preventing a few men who were united by strong personal sympathies from drifting apart by the pressure of busy lives.

Nobody could have foreseen or expected twenty odd years ago when we first met, that we were destined to play the parts we have since played, and it is in the nature of things impossible that any of the new members proposed (much as we may like and respect them all), can carry on the work which has so strangely fallen to us.

An axe with a new head and a new handle may be the same axe in one sense, but it is not the familiar friend with which one has cut one's way through wood and brier.

[And in the other letter:—]

What with the lame dog condition of Tyndall and Hirst and Spencer and my own recurrent illnesses, the x is not satisfactory. But I don't see that much will come from putting new patches in. The x really has no raison d'etre beyond the personal attachment of its original members. Frankland told me of the names that had been mentioned, and none could be more personally welcome to me...but somehow or other they seem out of place in the x.

However, I am not going to stand out against the general wish, and I shall agree to anything that is desired.

[Again:—]

The club has never had any purpose except the purely personal object of bringing together a few friends who did not want to drift apart. It has happened that these cronies had developed into big-wigs of various kinds, and therefore the club has incidentally—I might say accidentally—had a good deal of influence in the scientific world. But if I had to propose to a man to join, and he were to say, Well, what is your object? I should have to reply like the needy knife-grinder, "Object, God bless you, sir, we've none to show."

[As he wrote elsewhere (loc. cit.):—]

Later on, there were attempts to add other members, which at last became wearisome, and had to be arrested by the agreement that no proposition of that kind should be entertained, unless the name of the new may be suggested contained all the consonants absent from the names of the old ones. In the lack of Slavonic friends this decision put an end to the possibility of increase.

[After the death, in February 1892, of Hirst, a most devoted supporter of the club, who "would, I believe, represent it in his sole person rather than pass the day over," only one more meeting took place, in the following month. With five of the six survivors domiciled far from town, meeting after meeting fell through, until the treasurer wrote, "My idea is that it is best to let it die out unobserved, and say nothing about its decease to anyone."

Thus it came to pass that the March meeting of the club in 1893 remained its last. No ceremony ushered it out of existence. Its end exemplified a saying of Sir J. Hooker's "At our ages clubs are an anachronism." It had met 240 times, yet, curious to say, although the average attendance up to 1883 was seven out of nine, the full strength of the club only met on twenty-seven occasions.

CHAPTER 1.19.

1865.

[The progress of the American civil war suggested to Huxley in 1865 the text for an article, "Emancipation, Black and White," the emancipation of the negro in America and the emancipation of women in England, which appeared in the "Reader" of May 20 ("Collected Essays" 3 66). His main argument for the emancipation of the negro was that already given in his letter to his sister; namely, that in accordance with the moral law that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another without grievous damage to his own nature, the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man. And just as the negro will never take the highest places in civilisation yet need not to be confined to the lowest, so, he argues, it will be with women.] "Nature's old salique law will never be repealed, and no change of dynasty will be effected," [although] "whatever argument justifies a given education for all boys justifies its application to girls as well."

[With this may be compared his letter to the "Times" of July 8, 1874 (Chapter 28).

No scientific monographs were published in 1865 by Huxley, but his lectures of the previous winter to working-men on "The various Races of Mankind" are an indication of his continued interest in Ethnology, which, set going, as has been said, by the promise to revise the woodcuts for Lyell's book, found expression in such papers as the "Human Remains in the Shell Mounds," 1863; the "Neanderthal Remains" of 1864; the "Methods and Results of Ethnology" of 1865; his Fullerian Lectures of 1866-67; papers on "Two Widely Contrasted Forms of the Human Cranium" of 1866 and 1868; the "Patagonian Skulls" of 1868; and "Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology" of 1871:—

His published ethnological papers (says Sir Michael Foster) are not numerous, nor can they be taken as a measure of his influence on this branch of study. In many ways he has made himself felt, not the least by the severity with which on the one hand he repressed the pretensions of shallow persons who, taking advantage of the glamour of the Darwinian doctrine, talked nonsense in the name of anthropological science, and on the other hand, exposed those who in the structure of the brain or of other parts, saw an impassable gulf between man and the monkey. The episode of the "hippocampus" stirred for a while not only science but the general public. He used his influence, already year by year growing more and more powerful, to keep the study of the natural history of man within its proper lines, and chiefly with this end in view held the Presidential Chair of the Ethnological Society in 1869-70. It was mainly through his influence that this older Ethnological Society was, a year later, in 1871, amalgamated with a newer rival society, the Anthropological, under the title of "The Anthropological Institute."