Though he carried about him, as does every man of like calibre and experience, a heavy load of fragments of inquiry begun but never finished, and as heavy a load of ideas for promising investigations never so much as even touched, though his love of science and belief in it might never have wavered, though he never doubted the value of the results which further research would surely bring him, there was something working within him which made his hand, when turned to anatomical science, so heavy that he could not lift it. Not even that which was so strong within him, the duty of fulfilling a promise, could bring him to the work. In his room at South Kensington, where for a quarter of a century he had laboured with such brilliant effect, there lay on his working table for months, indeed for years, partly dissected specimens of the rare and little studied marine animal, Spirula, of which he had promised to contribute an account to the Reports of the "Challenger" Expedition, and hard by lay the already engraven plates; there was still wanted nothing more than some further investigation and the working out of the results. But it seemed as if some hidden hands were always being stretched out to keep him from the task; and eventually another labourer had to complete it. (Ibid.)

The remaining letters of this year include several to Dr. Dohrn, which show the continued interest my father took in the great project of the Biological Station at Naples, which was carried through in spite of many difficulties. He had various books and proceedings of learned societies sent out at Dr. Dohrn's request (I omit the details), and proposed a scheme for raising funds towards completing the building when the contractor failed. The scheme, however, was not put into execution.]

4 Marlborough Place, February 24, 1873.

My dear Dohrn,

I was very glad to receive the fine sealed letter, and to get some news of you—though to be sure there is not much of you in the letter, but all is "Station, Station."

I congratulate you heartily on your success with your undertaking, and I only wish I could see England represented among the applicants for tables. But you see England is so poor, and the present price of coals obliges her to economise.

I envy you your visit from "Pater Anchises" Baer, and rejoice to hear that the grand old man is well and strong enough to entertain such a project. I wish I could see my way to doing the like. I have had a long bout of illness—ever since August—but I am now very much better, indeed, I hope I may say quite well. The weariness of all this has been complicated by the trouble of getting into a new house, and in addition a lawsuit brought by a knavish neighbour, in the hope of extracting money out of me.

I am happy to say, however, that he has just been thoroughly and effectually defeated. It has been a new experience for me, and I hope it may be my last as well as my first acquaintance with English law, which is a luxury of the most expensive character.

If Dr. Kleinenberg is with you, please to tell him, with my compliments and thanks for the copy of his Memoir, that I went over his Hydra paper pretty carefully in the summer, and satisfied myself as to the correctness of his statements about the structure of the ectoderm and about the longitudinal fibres. About the Endoderm I am not so clear, and I often found indications of delicate circular fibres in close apposition with the longitudinal ones. However, I had not time to work all this out, and perhaps might as well say nothing about it.

Pray make my very kind remembrances to Mr. Grant. I trust that his dramas may have a brilliant reception.

The Happy Family flourishes. But we shall look to your coming to see us. The house is big enough now to give you a bedroom, and you know you will have no lack of welcome.

I have said nothing about my wife (who has been in a state not only of superhuman, but of superfeminine, activity for the last three months) meaning to leave her the last page to speak for herself.

With best compliments to the "ladies downstairs," ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, October 17, 1873.

My dear Dohrn,

Your letter reached me nearly a week ago, and I have been turning over its contents in my mind as well as I could, but have been able to come to no clear conclusion until now. I have been incessantly occupied with other things.

I will do for you, and gladly, anything I would do for myself, but I could not apply on my own behalf to any of those rich countrymen of mine, unless they were personally well known to me, and I had the opportunity of feeling my way with them. But if you are disposed to apply to any of the people you mention, I shall be only too glad to back your application with all the force I am master of. You may make use of my name to any extent as guarantor of the scientific value and importance of your undertaking and refer any one to whom you may apply to me. It may be, in fact, that this is all you want, but as you have taken to the caprice of writing in my tongue instead of in that vernacular, idiomatic and characteristically Dohrnian German in which I delight, I am not so sure about your meaning. There is a rub for you. If you write to me in English again I will send the letter back without paying the postage.

In any case let me have a precise statement of your financial position. I may have a chance of talking to some Croesus, and the first question he is sure to ask me is—How am I to know that this is a stable affair, and that I am not throwing my money into the sea?...

[Referring to an unpleasant step it seemed necessary to take]...you must make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation...

I hope you are physically better. Look sharply after your diet, take exercise and defy the blue-devils, and you will weather the storm.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Tyndall, who had not attended the 1873 meeting of the British Association, had heard that some local opposition had been offered to his election as President for the Belfast meeting in 1874, and had written:—

I wish to have an you had not persuaded me to accept that Belfast duty. They do not want me...but Spottiswoode assures me that no individual offered the slightest support to the two unscientific persons who showed opposition.

The following was written in reply:—]

4 Marlborough Place, September 25, 1873.

My dear Tyndall,

I am sure you are mistaken about the Belfast people. That blundering idiot of — wanted to make himself important and get up a sort of "Home Rule" agitation in the Association, but nobody backed him and he collapsed. I am at your disposition for whatever you want me to do, as you know, and I am sure Hooker is of the same mind. We shall not be ashamed when we meet our enemies in the gate.

The grace of god cannot entirely have deserted you since you are aware of the temperature of that ferocious epistle. Reeks [The late Trenham Reeks, Registrar of the School of Mines, and Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology.], whom I saw yesterday, was luxuriating in it, and said (confound his impudence) that it was quite my style. I forgot to tell him, by the bye, that I had resigned in your favour ever since the famous letter to Carpenter. Well, so long as you are better after it there is no great harm done.

Somebody has sent me the two numbers of Scribner with Blauvelt's articles on "Modern Skepticism." They seem to be very well done, and he has a better appreciation of the toughness of the job before him than any of the writers of his school with whom I have met. But it is rather cool of you to talk of his pitching into Spencer when you are chief target yourself. I come in only par parenthese, and I am glad to see that people are beginning to understand my real position, and to separate me from such raging infidels as you and Spencer.

Ever thine,

T.H. Huxley.

[He was unable to attend the opening of Owens College this autumn, and having received but a scanty account of the proceedings, wrote as follows:—]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., October 16, 1873.

My dear Roscoe,

I consider myself badly used. Nobody has sent me a Manchester paper with the proceedings of the day of inauguration, when, I hear, great speeches were made.

I DID get TWO papers containing your opening lecture, and the "Fragment of a Morality," for which I am duly grateful, but two copies of one days' proceedings are not the same thing as one copy of two days' proceedings, and I consider it is very disrespectful to a Governor (large G) not to let him know what went on.

By all accounts which have reached me it was a great success, and I congratulate you heartily. I only wish that I could have been there to see.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The autumn brought a slow improvement in health—]

I am travelling [he writes] between the two stations of dyspepsia and health thus [illustrated by a zigzag with "mean line ascending".

[The sympathy of the convalescent appears in various letters to friends who were ill. Thus, in reply to Mr. Hyde Clarke, the philologist and, like himself, a member of the Ethnological Society, he writes:—]

November 18, 1873.

I am glad to learn two things from your note—first, that you are getting better; second, that there is hope of some good coming out of that Ashantee row, if only in the shape of rare vocables.

My attention is quite turned away from Anthropological matters at present, but I will bear your question in mind if opportunity offers.

[A letter to Professor Rolleston at Oxford gives a lively account of his own ailments, which could only have been written by one now recovering from them, while the illness of another friend raised a delicate point of honour, which he laid before the judgment of Mr. Darwin, more especially as the latter had been primarily concerned in the case.]

4 Marlborough Place, October 16, 1873.

My dear Rolleston,

A note which came from Mrs. Rolleston to my wife the other day, kindly answering some inquiries of ours about the Oxford Middle Class Examination, gave us but a poor account of your health.

This kind of thing won't do, you know. Here is — ill, and I doing all I can to persuade him to go away and take care of himself, and now comes ill news of you.

Is it dyspeps again? If so follow in my steps. I mean to go about the country, with somebody who can lecture, as the "horrid example"—cured. Nothing but gross and disgusting intemperance, Sir, was the cause of all my evil. And now that I have been a teetotaller for nine months, and have cut down my food supply to about half of what I used to eat, the enemy is beaten.

I have carried my own permissive bill, and no canteen (except for my friends who still sit in darkness) is allowed on the premises. And as this is the third letter I have written before breakfast (a thing I never could achieve in the days when I wallowed in the stye of Epicurus), you perceive that I am as vigorous as ever I was in my life.

Let me have news of you, and believe me,

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Athenaeum Club, November 3, 1873.

My dear Darwin,

You will have heard (in fact I think I mentioned the matter when I paid you my pleasant visit the other day) that — is ill and obliged to go away for six months to a warm climate. It is a great grief to me, as he is a man for whom I have great esteem and affection, apart from his high scientific merits, and his symptoms are such as cause very grave anxiety. I shall be happily disappointed if that accursed consumption has not got hold of him.

The college authorities have behaved as well as they possibly could to him, and I do not suppose that his enforced retirement for a while gives him the least pecuniary anxiety, as his people are all well off, and he himself has an income apart from his college pay. Nevertheless, under such circumstances, a man with half a dozen children always wants all the money he can lay hands on; and whether he does or no, he ought not to be allowed to deprive himself of any, which leads me to the gist of my letter. His name was on your list as one of those hearty friends who came to my rescue last year, and it was the only name which made me a little uneasy, for I doubted whether it was right for a man with his responsibilities to make sacrifices of this sort. However, I stifled that feeling, not seeing what else I could do without wounding him. But now my conscience won't let me be, and I do not think that any consideration ought to deter me from getting his contribution back to him somehow or other. There is no one to whose judgment on a point of honour I would defer more readily than yours, and I am quite sure you will agree with me. I really am quite unhappy and ashamed to think of myself as vigorous and well at the expense of his denying himself any rich man's caprice he might take a fancy to.

So, my dear, good friend, let me know what his contribution was, that I may get it back to him somehow or other, even if I go like Nicodemus privily and by night to his bankers.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 2.5.

1874.

[My father's health continued fairly good in 1874, and while careful to avoid excessive strain he was able to undertake nearly as much as before his illness outside his regular work at South Kensington, the Royal Society, and on the Royal Commission. To this year belong three important essays, educational and philosophical. From February 25 to March 3 he was at Aberdeen, staying first with Professor Bain, afterwards with Mr. Webster, in fulfilment of his first duty as Lord Rector to deliver an address to the students. (It may be noted that between 1860 and 1890 he and Professor Bain were the only Lord Rectors of Aberdeen University elected on non-political grounds.) Taking as his subject "Universities, Actual and Ideal," he then proceeded to vindicate, historically and philosophically, the claims of natural science to take the place from which it had so long been ousted in the universal culture which a University professes to give. More especially he demanded an improved system of education in the medical school, a point to which he gave practical effect in the Council of the University.]

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a University the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. [("Collected Essays" 3 189 sqq.)

As for the "so-called 'conflict of studies,'" he exclaims:—]

One might as well inquire which of the terms of a Rule of Three sum one ought to know in order to get a trustworthy result. Practical life is such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your capacity and divided by your circumstances gives you the fourth term in the proportion, which is your deserts, with great accuracy.

[The knowledge on which medical practice should be based is] "the sort of practical, familiar, finger-end knowledge which a watchmaker has of a watch," [the knowledge gained in the dissecting-room and laboratory.]

Until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physiology has become an organic part of your minds—until you would know them if you were roused and questioned in the middle of the night, as a man knows the geography of his native place and the daily life of his home. That is the sort of knowledge which, once obtained, is a lifelong possession. Other occupations may fill your minds—it may grow dim and seem to be forgotten—but there it is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which comes out when you warm it.

[Hence the necessity to concentrate the attention on these cardinal truths, and to discard a number of extraneous subjects commonly supposed to be requisite whether for general culture of the medical student or to enable him to correct the possible mistakes of druggists. Against this "Latin fetish" in medical education, as he used to call it, he carried on a lifelong campaign, as may be gathered from his published essays on medical education, and from letters given in later chapters of this book. But there is another side to such limitation in professional training. Though literature is an essential in the preliminary, general education, culture is not solely dependent upon classics.]

Moreover, I would urge that a thorough study of Human Physiology is in itself an education broader and more comprehensive than much that passes under that name. There is no side of the intellect which it does not call into play, no region of human knowledge into which either its roots or its branches do not extend; like the Atlantic between the Old and New Worlds, its waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter and of mind; its tributary streams flow from both; through its waters, as yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if such there be, from the one to the other; far away from that North-west Passage of mere speculation, in which so many brave souls have been hopelessly frozen up.

[Of the address he writes to his wife, February 27:—]

I have just come back from the hall in which the address was delivered, somewhat tired. The hall was very large, and contained, I suppose, a couple of thousand people, and the students made a terrific row at intervals, though they were quiet enough at times. As the address took me an hour and a half to deliver, and my voice has been very shaky ever since I have been here, I did not dare to put too much strain upon it, and I suspect that the people at the end of the hall could have heard very little. However, on the whole, it went off better than I expected.

[And to Professor Baynes:—]

I am very glad you liked my address. The students were abnormally quiet for the first half-hour, and then made up for their reticence by a regular charivari for the rest of the time. However, I was consoled by hearing that they were much quieter than usual.

Dr. John Muir's appreciation is worth having. It did not occur to me that what I had to say would interest people out of Britain, but to my surprise I had an application from a German for permission to translate the address the other day.

[Again to his wife, March 1:—]

...I was considerably tired after my screed on Friday, but Bain and I took a long walk, and I was fresh again by dinner-time. I dined with the Senators at a hotel in the town, and of course had to make a speech or two. However I cut all that as fast as I could. They were all very apologetic for the row the students made. After the dinner one of the Professors came to ask me if I would have any objection to attend service in the College Chapel on Sunday, as the students would like it. I said I was quite ready to do anything it was customary for the Rector to do, and so this morning in half an hour's time I shall be enduring the pains and penalties of a Presbyterian service.

There was to have been another meeting of the University Court yesterday, but the Principal was suffering so much from an affection of the lungs that I adjourned the meeting till to-morrow. Did I tell you that I carried all my resolutions about improving the medical curriculum? Fact, though greatly to my astonishment. To-morrow we go in for some reforms in the arts curriculum, and I expect that the job will be tougher.

I send you a couple of papers—"Scotsman," with a very good leading article, and the "Aberdeen Herald" also with a leading article, which is as much favourable as was to be expected...The Websters are making me promise to bring you and one of the children here next autumn. They are wonderfully kind people.

March 2.

My work here finishes to-day. There is a meeting of the Council at one o'clock, and before that I am to go and look over laboratories and collections with sundry Professors. Then there is the supper at half-past eight and the inevitable speeches, for which I am not in the least inclined at present. I went officially to the College Chapel yesterday, and went through a Presbyterian service for the first time in my life. May it be the last!

Then to lunch at Professor Struthers' and back here for a small dinner-party. I am standing it all well, for the weather is villainous and there is no getting any exercise. I shall leave here by the twelve o'clock train to-morrow.

[On August 2 he delivered an address on "Joseph Priestley" ("Collected Essays" 3 1) at Birmingham, on the occasion of the presentation of a statue of Priestley to that town. The biography of this pioneer of science and of political reform, who was persecuted for opinions that have in less than a century become commonplaces of orthodox thought, suggested a comparison between those times and this, and evoked a sincere if not very enthusiastic tribute to one who had laboured to better the world, not for the sake of worldly honour, but for the sake of truth and right.

As the way to Birmingham lay through Oxford, he was asked by Professor Ray Lankester, then a Fellow of Exeter College, if he could not break his journey there, and inspect the results of his investigations on Lymnaeus. The answer was as follows:—]

We go to Birmingham on Friday by the three o'clock train, but there is no chance of stopping at Oxford either going or coming, so that unless you bring a Lymnaeus or two (under guise of periwinkles for refreshment) to the carriage door I shall not be able to see them.

[The following letters refer both to this address on Priestley, and to the third of the important addresses of this year, that "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History" ("Collected Essays" 1 199, see also below). The latter was delivered at Belfast before the British Association under Tyndall's presidency. It appears that only a month before, he had not so much as decided upon his subject—indeed, was thinking of something quite different.

The first allusion in these letters is to a concluding phase of Tyndall's controversy upon the claims of the late Principal Forbes in the matter of Glacier theory:—]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., June 24, 1874.

My dear Tyndall,

I quite agree with your Scotch friend in his estimate of Forbes, and if he were alive and the controversy beginning, I should say draw your picture in your best sepia or lampblack. But I have been thinking over this matter a good deal since I received your letter, and my verdict is, leave that tempting piece of portraiture alone.

The world is neither was nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental, and the more severely true your portrait might be the more loud would be the outcry against it. I should say publish a new edition of your "Glaciers of the Alps," make a clear historical statement of all the facts showing Forbes' relations to Rendu and Agassiz, and leave the matter to the judgment of your contemporaries. That will sink in and remain when all the hurly-burly is over.

I wonder if that address is begun, and if you are going to be as wise and prudent as I was at Liverpool. When I think of the temptation I resisted on that occasion, like Clive when he was charged with peculation, "I marvel at my own forbearance!" Let my example be a burning and a shining light to you. I declare I have horrid misgivings of your kicking over the traces.

The "x" comes off on Saturday next, so let your ears burn, for we shall be talking about you. I have just begun my lectures to Schoolmasters, and I wish they were over, though I am very well on the whole.

Griffith [for many years secretary to the British Association.] wrote to ask for the title of my lecture at Belfast, and I had to tell him I did not know yet. I shall not begin to think of it till the middle of July when these lectures are over.

The wife would send her love, but she has gone to Kew to one of Hooker's receptions, taking Miss Jewsbury, who is staying with us. [Miss Geraldine Jewsbury (1812-1880) the novelist, and friend of the Carlyles. After 1866 she lived at Sevenoaks.] I was to have gone to the College of Physicians' dinner to-night, but I was so weary when I got home that I made up my mind to send an excuse. And then came the thought that I had not written to you.

Ever yours sincerely,

T.H. Huxley.

[The next letter is in reply to Tyndall, who had written as follows from Switzerland on July 15:—

I confess to you that I am far more anxious about your condition than about my own; for I fear that after your London labour the labour of this lecture will press heavily upon you. I wish to Heaven it could be transferred to other shoulders.

I wish I could get rid of the uncomfortable idea that I have drawn upon you at a time when your friend and brother ought to be anxious to spare you every labour...

PS.—Have just seen the Swiss "Times"; am intensely disgusted to find that while I was brooding over the calamities possibly consequent on your lending me a hand, that you have been at the Derby Statue, and are to make an oration apropos of the Priestley Statue in Birmingham on the 1st August!!!]

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., July 22, 1874.

My dear Tyndall,

I hope you have been taking more care of your instep than you did of your leg in old times. Don't try mortifying the flesh again.

I was uncommonly amused at your disgustful wind-up after writing me such a compassionate letter. I am as jolly as a sandboy so long as I live on a minimum and drink no alcohol, and as vigorous as ever I was in my life. But a late dinner wakes up my demoniac colon and gives me a fit of blue devils with physical precision.

Don't believe that I am at all the places in which the newspapers put me. For example, I was not at the Lord Mayor's dinner last night. As for Lord Derby's statue, I wanted to get a lesson in the art of statue unveiling. I help to pay Dizzie's salary, so I don't see why I should not get a wrinkle from that artful dodger.

I plead guilty to having accepted the Birmingham invitation [to unveil the statue of Joseph Priestley]. I thought they deserved to be encouraged for having asked a man of science to do the job instead of some noble swell, and, moreover, Satan whispered that it would be a good opportunity for a little ventilation of wickedness. I cannot say, however, that I can work myself up into much enthusiasm for the dry old Unitarian who did not go very deep into anything. But I think I may make him a good peg whereon to hang a discourse on the tendencies of modern thought.

I was not at the Cambridge pow-wow—not out of prudence, but because I was not asked. I suppose that decent respect towards a Secretary of the Royal Society was not strong enough to outweigh University objections to the incumbent of that office. It is well for me that I expect nothing from Oxford or Cambridge, having burned my ships so far as they were concerned long ago.

I sent your note on to Knowles as soon as it arrived, but I have heard nothing from him. I wrote to him again to-night to say he had better let me see it in proof if he is going to print it. I am right glad you find anything worth reading again in my old papers. I stand by the view I took of the origin of species now as much as ever.

Shall I not see the address? It is tantalising to hear of your progress, and not to know what is in it.

I am thinking of taking Development for the subject of my evening lecture, the concrete facts made out in the last thirty years without reference to Evolution. [I.e. at the British Association; he actually took "Animals as Automata."] If people see that it is Evolution, that is Nature's fault, and not mine.

We are all flourishing, and send our love.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The paper on Animal Automatism is in effect an enlargement of a short paper read before the Metaphysical Society in 1871, under the title of "Has a Frog a Soul?" It begins with a vindication of Descartes as a great physiologist, doing for the physiology of motion and sensation that which Harvey had done for the circulation of the blood. A series of propositions which constitute the foundation and essence of the modern physiology of the nervous system are fully expressed and illustrated in the writings of Descartes. Modern physiological research, which has shown that many apparently purposive acts are performed by animals, and even by men, deprived of consciousness, and therefore of volition, is at least compatible with the theory of automatism in animals, although the doctrine of continuity forbids the belief that] "such complex phenomena as those of consciousness first make their appearance in man." [And if the volitions of animals do not enter into the chain of causation of their actions at all, the fact lays at rest the question] "How is it possible to imagine that volition, which is a state of consciousness, and, as such, has not the slightest community of nature with matter in motion, can act upon the moving matter of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do in voluntary acts?"

[As for man, the argumentation, if sound, holds equally good. States of consciousness are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance, and our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which take place automatically in the organism.

As for the bugbear of the] "logical consequences" [of this conviction,] "I may be permitted to remark [he says] that logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men." [And if St. Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards have held in substance the view that men are conscious automata, to hold this view does not constitute a man a fatalist, a materialist, nor an atheist. And he takes occasion once more to declare that he ranks among none of these philosophers.]

Not among fatalists, for I take the conception of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical foundation; not among materialists, for I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in which to picture that existence; not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.

[This essay was delivered as an evening address on August 24, the Monday of the Association week. A vast stir had been created by the treatment of deep-reaching problems in Professor Tyndall's presidential address; interest was still further excited by this unexpected excursion into metaphysics. "I remember," writes Sir M. Foster, "having a talk with him about the lecture before he gave it. I think I went to his lodgings—and he sketched out what he was going to say. The question was whether, in view of the Tyndall row, it was wise in him to take the line he had marked out. In the end I remember his saying,] 'Grasp your nettle, that is what I have got to do.'" [But apart from the subject, the manner of the address struck the audience as a wonderful tour de force. The man who at first disliked public speaking, and always expected to break down on the platform, now, without note or reference of any kind, discoursed for an hour and a half upon a complex and difficult subject, in the very words which he had thought out and afterwards published.

This would have been a remarkable achievement if he had planned to do so and had learned up his speech; but the fact was that he was compelled to speak offhand on the spur of the moment. He describes the situation in a letter of February 6, 1894, to Professor Ray Lankester:—]

I knew that I was treading on very dangerous ground, so I wrote out uncommonly full and careful notes, and had them in my hand when I stepped on to the platform.

Then I suddenly became aware of the bigness of the audience, and the conviction came upon me that, if I looked at my notes, not one half would hear me. It was a bad ten seconds, but I made my election and turned the notes face downwards on the desk.

To this day, I do not exactly know how the thing managed to roll itself out; but it did, as you say, for the best part of an hour and a half.

There's a story pour vous encourager if you are ever in a like fix.

[He writes home on August 20:—]

Johnny's address went off exceedingly well last night. There was a mighty gathering in the Ulster Hall, and he delivered his speech very well. The meeting promises to be a good one, as there are over 1800 members already, and I daresay they will mount up to 2000 before the end. The Hookers' arrangements [i.e. for the members of the x club and their wives to club together at Belfast] all went to smash as I rather expected they would, but I have a very good clean lodging well outside the town where I can be quiet if I like, and on the whole I think that is better, as I shall be able to work up my lectures in peace...

August 21.

Everything is going on very well here. The weather is delightful, and under these circumstances my lodgings here with John Ball for a companion turns out to be a most excellent arrangement. Ca va sans dire, though, by the way, that is a bull induced by the locality. I am not going on any of the excursions on Sunday. I am going to have a quiet day here when everybody will suppose that I have accepted everybody else's invitation to be somewhere else. The Ulster Hall, in which the addresses are delivered, seems to me to be a terrible room to speak in, and I mean to nurse my energies all Monday. I sent you a cutting from one of the papers containing an account of me that will amuse you. The writer is evidently disappointed that I am not a turbulent savage.

August 25.

...My work is over and I start for Kingstown, where I mean to sleep to-night, in an hour. I have just sent you a full and excellent report of my lecture. ["On Animals as Automata": see above.] I am glad to say it was a complete success. I never was in better voice in my life, and I spoke for an hour and a half without notes, the people listening as still as mice. There has been a great row about Tyndall's address, and I had some reason to expect that I should have to meet a frantically warlike audience. But it was quite otherwise, and though I spoke my mind with very great plainness, I never had a warmer reception. And I am not without hope that I have done something to allay the storm, though, as you may be sure, I did not sacrifice plain speaking to that end...I have been most creditably quiet here, and have gone to no dinners or breakfasts or other such fandangoes except those I accepted before leaving home. Sunday I spent quietly here, thinking over my lecture and putting my peroration, which required a good deal of care, into shape. I wandered out into the fields in the afternoon, and sat a long time thinking of all that had happened since I was here a young beginner, two and twenty, and...you were largely in my thoughts, which were full of blessings and tender memories.

I had a good night's work last night. I dined with the President of the College, and then gave my lecture. After that I smoked a bit with Foster till eleven o'clock, and then I went to the "Northern Whig" office to see that the report of my lecture was all right. It is the best paper here, and the Editor had begged me to see to the report, and I was anxious myself that I should be rightly represented. So I sat there till a quarter past one having the report read and correcting it when necessary. Then I came home and got to bed about two. I have just been to the section and read my paper there to a large audience who cannot have understood ten words of it, but who looked highly edified, and now I have done. Our lodging has turned out admirably, and Ball's company has been very pleasant. So that the fiasco of our arrangements was all for the best.

[I take the account of this last-mentioned paper in Section D from the report in "Nature":—

Professor Huxley opened the last day of the session with an account of his recent observations on the development of the Columella auris in Amphibia. (He described it as an outgrowth of the periotic capsule, and therefore unconnected with any visceral arch.)...

In the absence of Mr. Parker there was no one competent to criticise the paper from personal knowledge; but a word dropped as to the many changes in the accepted homologies of the ossicula auditus, elicited a masterly and characteristic exposition of the series of new facts, and the modifications of the theory they have led to, from Reichert's first observations down to the present time. The embryonic structures grew and shaped themselves on the board, and shifted their relations in accordance with the views of successive observers, until a graphic epitome of the progress of knowledge on the subject was completed.

He and Parker indeed (to whom he signs himself, "Ever yours amphibially") had been busy, not only throughout 1874, but for several years earlier, examining the development of the Amphibia, with a particular view to the whole theory of the vertebrate skull, for which he had done similar work in 1857 and 1858. Thus on May 4, 1870, he writes to Parker:—]

I read all the most important part of your Frog-paper last night, and a grand piece of work it is—more important, I think, in all its bearings than anything you have done yet.

From which premisses I am going to draw a conclusion which you do not expect, namely, that the paper must by no manner of means go into the Royal Society in its present shape. And for the reasons following:—

In the first place, the style is ultra-Parkerian. From a literary point of view, my dear friend, you remind me of nothing so much as a dog going home. He has a goal before him which he will certainly reach sooner or later, but first he is on this side the road, and now on that; anon, he stops to scratch at an ancient rat-hole, or maybe he catches sight of another dog, a quarter of a mile behind, and bolts off to have a friendly, or inimical sniff. In fact, his course is...(here a tangled maze is drawn) not —. In the second place, you must begin with an earlier stage...That is the logical starting-point of the whole affair.

Will you come and dine at 6 on Saturday, and talk over the whole business?

If you have drawings of earlier stages you might bring them. I suspect that what is wanted might be supplied in plenty of time to get the paper in.

[In 1874 he re-dissects the skull of Axolotl to clear up the question as to the existence of the] "ventral head or pedicle" [which Parker failed to observe:] "If you disbelieve in that pedicle again, I shall be guilty of an act of personal violence." [Later,] "I am benevolent to all the world, being possessed of a dozen live axolotls and four or five big dead mesobranchs. Moreover, I am going to get endless Frogs and Toads by judicious exchange with Gunther. [Dr. A.C.L.G. Gunther, of the British Museum, where he was appointed Keeper of the Department of Zoology in 1875.] We will work up the Amphibia as they have not been done since they were crea— I mean evolved."

[The question of the pedicle comes up again when he simplifies some of Parker's results as to the development of the Columella auris in the Frog.] "Your suprahyomandibular is nothing but the pedicle of the suspensorium over again. It has nothing whatever to do with the Columella auris...The whole thing will come out as simply as possible without any of your coalescences and combotherations. How you will hate me and the pedicle."

[Tracing the development of the columella was a long business, but it grew clearer as young frogs of various ages were examined.] "Don't be aggravated with yourself," [he writes to Parker in July,] "it's tough work, this here Frog." [And on August 5:] "I have worked over Toad and I have worked over Frog, and I tell an obstinate man that s.h.m. [suprahyomandibular] is a figment—or a vessel, whichever said obstinate man pleases." [The same letter contains what he calls his final views on the columella, but by the end of the year he has gone further, and writes:—]

Be prepared to bust-up with all the envy of which your malignant nature is capable. The problem of the vertebrate skull is solved. Fourteen segments or thereabouts in Amphioxus; all but one (barring possibilities about the ear capsule) aborted in higher vertebrata. Skull and brain of Amphioxus shut up like an opera-hat in higher vertebrata. So! (Sketch in illustration.)

P.S.—I am sure you will understand the whole affair from this. Probably published it already in "Nature!"

[A letter to the "Times" of July 8, 1874, on women's education, was evoked by the following circumstances. Miss Jex Blake's difficulties in obtaining a medical education have already been referred to. A further discouragement was her rejection at the Edinburgh examination. Her papers, however, were referred to Huxley, who decided that certain answers were not up to the standard.]

As Miss Jex Blake may possibly think that my decision was influenced by prejudice against her cause, allow me to add that such prejudice as I labour under lies in the opposite direction. Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of vigour and capacity.

We have heard a great deal lately about the physical disabilities of women. Some of these alleged impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their organisation, but nine-tenths of them are artificial—the products of their modes of life. I believe that nothing would tend so effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness, weariness, and that "over-stimulation of the emotions" which, in plainer-spoken days, used to be called wantonness, than a fair share of healthy work, directed towards a definite object, combined with an equally fair share of healthy play, during the years of adolescence; and those who are best acquainted with the acquirements of an average medical practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt to reach that standard is like to prove exhausting to an ordinarily intelligent and well-educated young woman.

[The Marine Biological Station at Naples was still struggling for existence, and to my father's interest in it is do you the following letter, one of several to Dr. Dohrn, whose marriage took place this summer:—]

4 Marlborough Place, June 24, 1874.

My dear Dohrn,

Are you married yet or are you not? It is very awkward to congratulate a man upon what may not have happened to him, but I shall assume that you are a benedict, and send my own and my wife's and all the happy family's good wishes accordingly. May you have as good a wife and as much a "happy family" as I have, though I would advise you—the hardness of the times being considered—to be satisfied with fewer than seven members thereof.

I hear excellent accounts of the progress of the Station from Lankester, and I hope that it is now set on its legs permanently. As for the English contribution, you must look upon it simply as the expression of the hearty goodwill of your many friends in the land of fogs, and of our strong feeling that where you had sacrificed so much for the cause of science, we were, as a matter of duty,—quite apart from goodwill to you personally—bound to do what we could, each according to his ability.

Darwin is, in all things, noble and generous—one of those people who think it a privilege to let him help. I know he was very pleased with what you said to him. He is working away at a new edition of the "Descent of Man," for which I have given him some notes on the brain question.

And apropos of that, how is your own particular brain? I back la belle M— against all the physicians in the world—even against mine own particular Aesculapius, Dr. Clark—to find the sovereignest remedy against the blue devils.

Let me hear from you—most abominable of correspondents as I am. And why don't you send Madame's photograph that you have promised?

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Pray give my kind remembrances to your father.

4 Marlborough Place, March 31, 1874.

My dear Darwin,

The brain business is more than half done, and I will soon polish it off and send it to you. [A note on the brain in man and the apes for the second edition of the "Descent of Man."] We are going down to Folkestone for a week on Thursday, and I shall take it with me.

I do not know what is doing about Dohrn's business at present. Foster took it in hand, but the last time I heard he was waiting for reports from Dew and Balfour.

You have been very generous as always; and I hope that other folk may follow your example, but like yourself I am not sanguine.

I have had an AWFULLY tempting offer to go to Yankee-land on a lecturing expedition, and I am seriously thinking of making an experiment next spring.

The chance of clearing two or three thousand pounds in as many months is not to be sneezed at by a pere de famille. I am getting sick of the state of things here.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I have heard no more about the spirit photographs!

4 Marlborough Place, April 16, 1874.

My dear Darwin,

Put my contribution into the smallest type possible, for it will be read by none but anatomists; and never mind where it goes.

I am glad you agree with me about the hand and foot and skull question. As Ward [W.G. Ward.] said of Mill's opinions, you can only account for the views of Messrs. — and Co. on the supposition of "grave personal sin" on their part.

I had a letter from Dohrn a day or two ago in which he tells me he has written to you. I suspect he has been very ill.

Let us know when you are in town, and believe me,

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The allusion in the letter of March 31 to certain "spirit photographs" refers to a series of these wonderful productions sent to him by a connection of Mr. Darwin's, who was interested in these matters, and to whom he replied, showing how the effect might have been produced by simple mechanical means.

It was at this gentleman's house that in January a carefully organised seance was held, at which my father was present incognito, so far as the medium was concerned, and on which he wrote the following report to Mr. Darwin, referred to in his "Life," volume 3 page 187.

It must be noted that he had had fairly extensive experience of spiritualism; he had made regular experiments with Mrs. Haydon at his brother George's house (the paper on which these are recorded is undated, but it must have been before 1863); he was referred to as a disbeliever in an article in the "Pall Mall Gazette" during January 1869, as a sequel to which a correspondent sent him an account of the confessions of the Fox girls, who had started spiritualism forty years before. At the houses of other friends, he had attended seances and met mediums by whom he was most unfavourably impressed.

Moreover, when invited to join a committee of investigation into spiritualistic manifestations, he replied:—]

I regret that I am unable to accept the invitation of the Committee of the Dialectical Society to cooperate with a committee for the investigation of "Spiritualism"; and for two reasons. In the first place, I have not time for such an inquiry, which would involve much trouble and (unless it were unlike all inquiries of that kind I have known) much annoyance. In the second place, I take no interest in the subject. The only case of "Spiritualism" I have had the opportunity of examining into for myself, was as gross an imposture as ever came under my notice. But supposing the phenomena to be genuine—they do not interest me. If anybody would endow me with the faculty of listening to the chatter of old women and curates in the nearest cathedral town, I should decline the privilege, having better things to do. And if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk more wisely and sensibly than their friends report them to do, I put them in the same category. The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of "Spiritualism" is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a "medium" hired at a guinea a seance. [(Quoted from a review in the "Daily News," October 17, 1871, of the Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London Dialectical Society.)

To the report above-mentioned, Professor G. Darwin, who also was present, added one or two notes and corrections.]

REPORT ON SEANCE.

January 27, 1874.

We met in a small room at the top of the house with a window capable of being completely darkened by a shutter and curtains opposite the door. A small light table with two flaps and four legs, unsteady and easily moved, occupied the middle of the room, leaving not much more than enough space for the chairs at the sides. There was a chair at each end, two chairs on the fireplace side, and one on the other. Mr. X (the medium) was seated in the chair at the door end, Mr. Y (the host) in the opposite chair, Mr. G. Darwin on the medium's right, Mr. Huxley on his left, Mr. Z between Mr. Huxley and Mr. (Darwin) Y. The table was small enough to allow these five people to rest their hands on it, linking them together. On the table was a guitar which lay obliquely across it, an accordion on the medium's side of the guitar, a couple of paper horns, a Japanese fan, a matchbox, and a candlestick with a candle.

At first the room was slightly darkened (leaving plenty of light from the window, however) and we all sat round for half an hour. My right foot was against the medium's left foot, and two fingers of my right hand had a good grip of the little finger of his left hand. I compared my hand (which is NOT small and IS strong) with his, and was edified by its much greater massiveness and strength. (No, we didn't link until the darkness. G.D.)

G.D.'s left hand was, as I learn, linked with medium's right hand, and left foot on medium's (left) right foot.]

We sat thus for half an hour as aforesaid and nothing happened.

The room was next thoroughly darkened by shutting the shutters and drawing the curtains. Nevertheless, by great good fortune I espied three points of light, coming from the lighted passage outside the door. One of these came beneath the door straight to my eye, the other two were on the wall (or on a press) obliquely opposite. By still greater good fortune, these three points of light had such a position in reference to my eye that they gave me three straight lines traversing and bounding the space in which the medium sat, and I at once saw that if Medium moved his body forwards or backwards he must occult one of my three rays. While therefore taking care to feel his foot and keep a good grip of his hand, I fixed my eyes intently on rays A and B. For I felt sure that I could trust to G.D. keeping a sharp look-out on the right hand and foot; and so no instrument of motion was left to the medium but his body and head, the movements of which could not have been discernible in absolute darkness. Nothing happened for some time. At length a very well executed muscular twitching of the arm on my side began, and I amused myself by comparing it with the convulsions of a galvanised frog's leg, but at the same time kept a very bright look-out on my two rays A and B.

The twitchings ceased, and then after a little time A was shut out. B then became obscure, and A became visible. "Hoho!" thought I, "Medium's head is well over the table. Now we are going to have some manifestations." Immediately followed a noise obviously produced by the tumbling over of the accordion and some shifting of the position of the guitar. Next came a twanging—very slight, but of course very audible—of some of the strings, during which B was invisible. By and by B and A became visible again, and Medium's voice likewise showed that he had got back to his first position. But after he had returned to this position there was a noise of the guitar and other things on the table being stirred, and creeping noises like something light moving over the table. But no more actual twanging.

To my great disgust, G.D. now began to remark that he saw two spots of light, which I suppose must have had the same origin as my rays A and B, and, moreover, that something occasionally occulted one or other of them. [Note: no, not till we changed places. G.H.D.] I blessed him for spoiling my game, but the effect was excellent. Nothing more happened. By and by, after some talk about these points of light, the medium suggested that this light was distracting, and that we had better shut it out. The suggestion was very dexterously and indirectly made, and was caught up more strongly [I think by Mr. Z). Anyhow, we agreed to stop out all light. The circle was broken, and the candle was lighted for this purpose. I then took occasion to observe that the guitar was turned round into the position noted in the margin, the end being near my left hand. On examining it I found a longish end of one of the catgut strings loose, and I found that by sweeping this end over the strings I could make quite as good twangs as we heard. I could have done this just as well with my mouth as with my hand—and I could have pulled the guitar about by the end of the catgut in my mouth and so have disturbed the other things—as they were disturbed.

Before the candle was lighted some discussion arose as to why the spirits would not do any better (started by Mr. Y and Mr. Z, I think), in which the medium joined. It appeared that (in the opinion of the spirits as interpreted by the medium) we were not quite rightly placed. When the discussion arose I made a bet with myself that the result would be that either I or G.D. Would have to change places with somebody else. And I won my wager (I have just paid it with the remarkably good cigar I am now smoking). G.D. Had to come round to my side, Mr. Z went to the end, and Mr. Y took G.D.'s place. "Good, Medium," said I to myself. "Now we shall see something." We were in pitch darkness, and all I could do was to bring my sense of touch to bear with extreme tension upon the medium's hand—still well in my grip.

Before long Medium became a good deal convulsed at intervals, and soon a dragging sound was heard, and Mr. Y told us that the arm-chair (mark its position) had moved up against his leg, and was shoving against him. By degrees the arm-chair became importunate, and by the manner of Mr. Y's remarks it was clear that his attention was entirely given to its movements.

Then I felt the fingers of the medium's left hand become tense—in such a manner as to show that the muscles of the left arm were contracting sympathetically with those of the other arm, on which a considerable strain was evidently being put. Mr. Y's observations upon the eccentricities of the arm-chair became louder—a noise was heard as of the arm-chair descending on the table and shoving the guitar before it (while at the same time, or just before, there was a crash of a falling thermometer), and the tension of the left arm ceased. The chair had got on to the table. Says the medium to Mr. Y, "Your hand was against mine all the time." "Well, no," replied Mr. Y, "not quite. For a moment as the chair was coming up I don't think it was." But it was agreed that this momentary separation made no difference. I said nothing, but, like the parrot, thought the more. After this nothing further happened. But conversation went on, and more than once the medium was careful to point out that the chair came upon the table while his hand was really in contact with Mr. Y's.

G.D. will tell you if this is a fair statement of the facts. I believe it is, for my attention was on the stretch for those mortal two hours and a half, and I did not allow myself to be distracted from the main points in any way. My conclusion is that Mr. X is a cheat and an imposter, and I have no more doubt that he got Mr. Y to sit on his right hand, knowing from the turn of his conversation that it would be easy to distract his attention, and that he then moved the chair against Mr. Y with his leg, and finally coolly lifted it on to the table, than that I am writing these lines.

T.H. Huxley.

As Mr. G. Darwin wrote of the seance, "it has given me a lesson with respect to the worthlessness of evidence which I shall always remember, and besides will make me very diffident in trusting myself. Unless I had seen it, I could not have believed in the evidence of any one with such perfect bona fides as Mr. Y being so worthless."

[On receiving this report Mr. Darwin wrote ("Life" 2 page 188):—

Though the seance did tire you so much, it was, I think, really worth the exertion, as the same sort of things are done at all the seances...and now to my mind an enormous weight of evidence would be requisite to make me believe in anything beyond mere trickery.

The following letter to Mr. Morley, then editor of the "Fortnightly Review," shows that my father was already thinking of writing upon Hume, though he did not carry out this intention till 1878.

The article referred to in the second letter is that on Animals as Automata.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 4, 1874.

My dear Mr. Morley,

I assure you that it was a great disappointment to me not to be able to visit you, but we had an engagement of some standing for Oxford.

Hume is frightfully tempting—I thought so only the other day when I saw the new edition advertised—and now I would gladly write about him in the "Fortnightly" if I were only sure of being able to keep any engagement to that effect I might make.

But I have yet a course of lectures before me, and an evening discourse to deliver at the British Association—to say nothing of opening the Manchester Medical School in October—and polishing off a lot of scientific work. So you see I have not a chance of writing about Hume for months to come, and you had much better not trust to such a very questionable reed as I am.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 15, 1874.

My dear Morley,

Many thanks for your abundantly sufficient cheque—rather too much, I think, for an article which had been gutted by the newspapers.

I am always very glad to have anything of mine in the "Fortnightly," as it is sure to be in good company; but I am becoming as spoiled as a maiden with many wooers. However, as far as the "Fortnightly" which is my old love, and the "Contemporary" which is my new, are concerned, I hope to remain as constant as a persistent bigamist can be said to be.

It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and December 1 will suit me excellently well.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[The year winds up with a New Year's greeting to Professor Haeckel.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., December 28, 1874.

My dear Haeckel,

This must reach you in time to wish you and yours a happy New Year in English fashion. May your shadow never be less, and may all your enemies, unbelieving dogs who resist the Prophet of Evolution, be defiled by the sitting of jackasses upon their grandmothers' graves! an oriental wish appropriate to an ex-traveller in Egypt.

I have written a notice of the "Anthropogenie" for the Academy, but I am so busy that I am afraid I should never have done it—but for being put into a great passion—by an article in the "Quarterly Review" for last July, which I read only a few days ago. My friend Mr. —, to whom I had to administer a gentle punishment some time ago, has been at the same tricks again, but much worse than his former performance—you will see that I have dealt with him as you deal with a "Pfaffe." [Parson.] There are "halb-Pfaffen" as well as "halb-Affen." [Lit. Half-apes; the Prosimiae and Lemurs.] So if what I say about "Anthropogenie" seems very little—to what I say about the "Quarterly Review"—do not be offended. It will all serve the good cause.

I have been working very hard lately at the lower vertebrata, and getting out results which will interest you greatly. Your suggestion that Rathke's canals in Amphioxus [The Lancelet.] are the Wolffian ducts was a capital shot, but it just missed the mark because Rathke's canals do not exist. Nevertheless there are two half canals, the dorsal walls of which meet in the raphe described by Stieda, and the plaited lining of this wall (a) is, I believe, the renal organ. Moreover, I have found the skull and brain of Amphioxus, both of which are very large (like a vertebrate embryo's) instead of being rudimentary as we all have thought, and exhibit the primitive segmentation of the "Urwirbelthier" skull. [Primitive vertebrate.]

Thus the skull of Petromyzon answers to about fourteen segments of the body of Amphioxus, fused together and indistinguishable in even the earliest embryonic state of the higher vertebrata.

Does this take your breath away? Well, in due time you shall be convinced. I sent in a brief notice to the last meeting of the Royal Society, which will soon be in your hands.

I need not tell you of the importance of all this. It is unlucky for Semper that he has just put Amphioxus out of the Vertebrata altogether—because it is demonstratable that Amphioxus is nearer than could have been hoped to the condition of the primitive vertebrate—a far more regular and respectable sort of ancestor than even you suspected. For you see "Acrania" will have to go.

I think we must have an English translation of the "Anthropogenie." There is great interest in these questions now, and your book is very readable, to say nothing of its higher qualities.

My wife (who sends her kindest greetings) and I were charmed with the photograph. [As for our] publication in that direction, the seven volumes are growing into stately folios. You would not know them.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

How will you read this scrawl now that Gegenbaur is gone?

[In the article here referred to, a review of a book by Professor G.H. Darwin, a personal attack of an unjustifiable character was made upon him, and through him, upon Charles Darwin. The authorship of the review in question had come to be known, and Huxley writes to his friend:—]

I entirely sympathise with your feeling about the attack on George. If anybody tries that on with my boy L., the old wolf will show all the fangs he has left by that time, depend upon it...

You ought to be like one of the blessed gods of Elysium, and let the inferior deities do battle with the infernal powers. Moreover, the severest and most effectual punishment for this sort of moral assassination is quietly to ignore the offender and give him the cold shoulder. He knows why he gets it, and society comes to know why, and though society is more or less of a dunderhead, it has honourable instincts, and the man in the cold finds no cloak that will cover him.

CHAPTER 2.6.

1875-1876.

[In the year 1875 the bitter agitation directed against experimental physiology came to a head. It had existed in England for several years. In 1870, when President of the British Association, Huxley had been violently attacked for speaking in defence of Brown Sequard, the French physiologist. The name of vivisection, indifferently applied to all experiments on animals, whether carried out by the use of the knife or not, had, as Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Smith put it, the opposite effect on many minds to that of the "blessed word Mesopotamia." Misrepresentation was rife even among the most estimable and well-meaning of the opponents of vivisection, because they fancied they saw traces of the practice everywhere, all the more, perhaps, for not having sufficient technical knowledge for proper discrimination. One of the most flagrant instances of this kind of thing was a letter in the "Record" charging Huxley with advocating vivisections before children, if not by them. Passages from the Introduction to his "Elementary Physiology," urging that beginners should be shown the structures under discussion, examples for which could easily be provided from the domestic animals, were put side by side with later passages in the book, such, for instance, as statements of fact as to the behaviour of severed nerves under irritation. A sinister inference was drawn from this combination, and published as fact without further verification. Of this he remarks emphatically in his address on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology," 1877 ("Collected Essays" 3 300):]

It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal contradiction to the silly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by the fanatics who not only ought to know, but do know, that their assertions are untrue, that I have advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline which is absolutely indispensable to the professed physiologist, into elementary teaching.

[Moreover, during the debates on the Vivisection Bill in 1876, the late Lord Shaftesbury made use of this story. Huxley was extremely indignant, and wrote home:—]

Did you see Lord Shaftesbury's speech in Tuesday's "Times?" I saw it by chance, and have written a sharp letter to the "Times." [(Being in Edinburgh, he had been reading the Scotch papers, and] "the reports of the Scotch papers as to what takes place in Parliament are meagre.")

[This letter appeared on May 26, when he wrote again:—]

You will have had my note, and know all about Lord Shaftesbury and his lies by this time. Surely you could not imagine on any authority that I was such an idiot as to recommend boys and girls to perform experiments which are difficult to skilled anatomists, to say nothing of other reasons.

LETTER TO THE "TIMES."

In your account of the late debate in the House of Lords on the Vivisection Bill, Lord Shaftesbury is reported to have said that in my "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," it is strongly insisted that such experiments as those subjoined shall not merely be studied in the manual, but actually repeated, either by the boys and girls themselves or else by the teachers in their presence, as plainly appears from the preface to the second edition.

I beg leave to give the most emphatic and unqualified contradiction to this assertion, for which there is not a shadow of justification either in the preface to the second edition of my "Lessons" or in anything I have ever said or written elsewhere. The most important paragraph of the preface which is the subject of Lord Shaftesbury's misquotation and misrepresentation stands as follows:—

"For the purpose of acquiring a practical, though elementary, acquaintance with physiological anatomy and histology, the organs and tissues of the commonest domestic animals afford ample materials. The principal points in the structure and mechanism of the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, or the eye of man may be perfectly illustrated by the corresponding parts of a sheep; while the phenomena of the circulation, and many of the most important properties of living tissues are better shown by the common frog than by any of the higher animals."

If Lord Shaftesbury had the slightest theoretical or practical acquaintance with the subject about which he is so anxious to legislate, he would know that physiological anatomy is not exactly the same thing as experimental physiology; and he would be aware that the recommendations of the paragraph I have quoted might be fully carried into effect without the performance of even a solitary "vivisection." The assertion that I have ever suggested or desired the introduction of vivisection into the teaching of elementary physiology in schools is, I repeat, contrary to fact.

[On the next day (May 27) appeared a reply from Lord Shaftesbury, in which his entire good faith is equally conspicuous with his misapprehension of the subject.

LORD SHAFTESBURY'S REPLY.

The letter from Professor Huxley in the "Times" of this morning demands an immediate reply.

The object that I supposed the learned professor had in view was gathered from the prefaces to the several editions of his work on "Elementary Physiology."

The preface to the first edition states that "the following lessons in elementary physiology are, primarily, intended to serve the purpose of a text-book for teachers and learners in boys' and girls' schools."

It was published, therefore, as a manual for the young, as well as the old.

Now, any reader of the preface to the first edition would have come to the conclusion that teachers and learners could acquire something solid, and worth having, from the text-book before them. But the preface to the second edition nearly destroys that expectation. Here is the passage:—"It will be well for those who attempt to study elementary physiology to bear in mind the important truth that the knowledge of science which is attainable by mere reading, though infinitely better than ignorance, is knowledge of a very different kind from that which arises from direct contact with fact."

"Direct contact with fact!" What can that mean (so, at least, very many ask) but a declaration, on high authority, to teachers and learners that vivisection alone can give them any real and effective instruction?

But the subsequent passage is still stronger, for it states "that the worth of the pursuit of science, as an intellectual discipline, is almost lost by those who only seek it in books."

Is not language like this calculated to touch the zeal and vanity of teachers and learners at the very quick, and urge them to improve their minds and stand well in the eyes of the profession and the public by positive progress in experimental physiology? Ordinary readers, most people would think, could come to no other conclusion.

But a disclaimer from Professor Huxley is enough; I am sorry to have misunderstood him; and I must ask his pardon. I sincerely rejoice to have received such an assurance that his great name shall never be used for such a project as that which excited our fears.

On this he wrote:—]

You will have seen Lord Shaftesbury's reply to my letter. I thought it frank and straightforward, and I have written a private letter to the old boy of a placable and proper character. ["Huxley, the Professor, has written me a very civil, nay kind, letter. I replied in the same spirit." (Lord Shaftesbury, "Life and Work" 3 373 June 3, 1876.)

In 1874 he had also had a small passage of arms with the late Mr. W.E. Forster, then Vice-President of the Council, upon the same subject. Mr. Forster was about to leave office, and when he gave his official authorisation for summer courses of lectures at South Kensington on Biology, Chemistry, Geology, etc., he did so with the special proviso that there be no vivisection experiments in any of the courses, and further, appended a Memorandum, explaining the reasons on which he acted.

Now, although Huxley was mentioned by name as having taken care to avoid inflicting pain in certain previous experiments which had come to Mr. Forster's knowledge, the memorandum evoked from him a strong protest to the Lord President, to whom, as Mr. Forster expressly intimated, an appeal might properly be made.

To begin with, the memorandum contained a mistake in fact, referring to his regular course at South Kensington experiments which had taken place two years before at one of the Courses to Teachers. This course was non-official; Huxley's position in it was simply that of a private person to whom the Department offered a contract, subject to official control and criticism, so far as touched that course, and entirely apart from his regular position at the School of Mines. The experiments of 1872 were performed, as he had reason to believe, with the full sanction of the Department. If the Board chose to go back upon what had happened two years before, he was of course subject to their criticism, but then he ought in justice to be allowed to explain in what these experiments really consisted. What they were appears from a note to Sir J. Donnelly:—]

My dear Donnelly,

It will be the best course, perhaps, if I set down in writing what I have to say respecting the vivisections for physiological purposes which have been performed here, and concerning which you made me a communication from the Vice-President of the Council this morning.

I have always felt it my duty to defend those physiologists who, like Brown Sequard, by making experiments on living animals, have added immensely not only to scientific physiology, but to the means of alleviating human suffering, against the often ignorant and sometimes malicious clamour which has been raised against them.

But personally, indeed I may say constitutionally, the performance of experiments upon living and conscious animals is extremely disagreeable to me, and I have never followed any line of investigation in which such experiments are required.

When the course of instruction in Physiology here was commenced, the question of giving experimental demonstrations became a matter of anxious consideration with me. It was clear that, without such demonstrations, the subject could not be properly taught. It was no less clear from what had happened to me when, as President of the British Association, I had defended Brown Sequard, that I might expect to meet with every description of abuse and misrepresentation if such demonstrations were given.

It did not appear to me, however, that the latter consideration ought to weigh with me, and I took such a course as I believe is defensible against everything but misrepresentation.

I gave strict instructions to the Demonstrators who assisted me that no such experiments were to be performed, unless the animal were previously rendered insensible to pain either by destruction of the brain or by the administration of anaesthetics, and I have every reason to believe that my instructions were carried out. I do not see what I can do beyond this, or how I can give Mr. Forster any better guarantee than is given in my assurance that my dislike to the infliction of pain both as a matter of principle and of feeling is quite as strong as his own can be.

If Mr. Forster is not satisfied with this assurance, and with its practical result that our experiments are made only on non-sentient animals, then I am afraid that my position as teacher of Physiology must come to an end.

If I am to act in that capacity I cannot consent to be prohibited from showing the circulation in a frog's foot because the frog is made slightly uncomfortable by being tied up for that purpose; nor from showing the fundamental properties of nerves, because extirpating the brain of the same animal inflicts one-thousandth part of the prolonged suffering which it undergoes when it makes its natural exit from the world by being slowly forced down the throat of a duck, and crushed and asphyxiated in that creature's stomach.

I shall be very glad to wait upon Mr. Forster if he desires to see me. Of course I am most anxious to meet his views as far as I can, consistently with my position as a person bound to teach properly any subject in which he undertakes to give instruction. But I am quite clear as to the amount of freedom of action which it is necessary I should retain, and if you will kindly communicate the contents of this letter to the Vice-President of the Council, he will be able to judge for himself how far his sense of what is right will leave me that freedom, or render it necessary for me to withdraw from what I should regard as a false position.

[But there was a further and more vital question. He had already declared through Major (now Sir John) Donnelly, that he would only undertake a course which involved no vivisection. Further to require an official assurance that he would not do that which he had explicitly affirmed he did not intend to do, affected him personally, and he therefore declined the proposal made to him to give the course in question.

It followed from the fact that experiments on animals formed no part of his official course, and from his refusal under the circumstances to undertake the non-official course, that his opinions and present practises in regard to the question of vivisection did not come under their Lordships' jurisdiction, and he protested against the introduction of his name, and of the approbation or disapprobation of his views, into an official document relating to a matter with which he had nothing to do.

In an intermediate paragraph of the same document, he could not resist asking for an official definition of vivisection as forbidden, in its relation to the experiments he had made to the class of teachers.]

I should have to ask whether it means that the teacher who has undertaken to perform no "vivisection experiments" is thereby debarred from inflicting pain, however slight, in order to observe the action of living matter; for it might be said to be unworthy quibbling, if, having accepted the conditions of the minute, he thought himself at liberty to inflict any amount of pain, so long as he did not actually cut.

But if such is the meaning officially attached to the word "vivisection," the teacher would be debarred from showing the circulation in a frog's foot or in a tadpole's tail; he must not show an animalcule, uncomfortably fixed under the microscope, nor prick his own finger for the sake of obtaining a drop of living blood. The living particles which float in that liquid undoubtedly feel as much (or as little) as a frog under the influence of anaesthetics, or deprived of its brain, does; and the teacher who shows his pupils the wonderful phenomena exhibited by dying blood, might be charged with gloating over the agonies of the colourless corpuscles, with quite as much justice as I have been charged with inciting boys and girls to cruelty by describing the results of physiological experiments, which they are as likely to attempt as they are to determine the longitude of their schoolroom.

However, I will not trouble your Lordship with any further indication of the difficulties which, as I imagine, will attend the attempt to carry the Minute into operation, if instruction is to be given in Physiology, or even in general Biology.

[The upshot of the matter was that the Minute was altered so as to refer solely to future courses, and on February 20 he wrote to Mr. Forster:—]

I cannot allow you to leave office without troubling you with the expression of my thanks for the very great kindness and consideration which I have received from you on all occasions, and particularly in regard to the question of vivisection, on which I ventured to some extent, though I think not very widely or really, to differ from you.

The modification which you were good enough to make in your minute removed all my objections to undertaking the Summer Course.

And I am sure that if that course had happened to be a physiological one I could do all I want to do in the way of experiment, without infringing the spirit of your minute, though I confess that the letter of it would cause me more perplexity.

[As to his general attitude to the subject, it must be noted, as said above in the letter to Sir J. Donnelly, that he never followed any line of research involving experiments on living and conscious animals. Though, as will be seen from various letters, he considered such experiments justifiable, his personal feelings prevented him from performing them himself. Like Charles Darwin, he was very fond of animals, and our pets in London found in him an indulgent master.

But if he did not care to undertake such experiments personally, he held it false sentiment to blame others who did disagreeable work for the good of humanity, and false logic to allow pain to be inflicted in the cause of sport while forbidding it for the cause of science. (See his address on "Instruction in Elementary Physiology" "Collected Essays" 3 300 seq.) Indeed, he declared that he trusted to the fox-hunting instincts of the House of Commons rather than to any real interest in science in that body, for a moderate treatment of the question of vivisection.

The subject is again dealt with in "The Progress of Science," 1887 ("Collected Essays" 1 122 seq.) from which I may quote two sentences:—]

The history of all branches of science proves that they must attain a considerable stage of development before they yield practical "fruits"; and this is eminently true of physiology.

Unless the fanaticism of philozoic sentiment overpowers the voice of humanity, and the love of dogs and cats supersedes that of one's neighbour, the progress of experimental physiology and pathology will, indubitably, in course of time, place medicine and hygiene upon a rational basis.

[The dangers of prohibition by law are discussed in a letter to Sir W. Harcourt:—]

You wish me to say what, in my opinion, would be the effect of the total suppression of experiments on living animals on the progress of physiological science in this country.

I have no hesitation in replying that it would almost entirely arrest that progress. Indeed, it is obvious that such an effect must follow the measure, for a man can no more develop a true conception of living action out of his inner consciousness than he can that of a camel. Observation and experiment alone can give us a real foundation for any kind of Natural Knowledge, and any one who is acquainted with the history of science is aware that not a single one of all the great truths of modern physiology has been established otherwise than by experiment on living things.

Happily the abolition of physiological experiment in this country, should such a fatal legislative mistake ever be made, will be powerless to arrest the progress of science elsewhere. But we shall import our physiology as we do our hock and our claret from Germany and France; those of our young physiologists and pathologists who can afford to travel will carry on their researches in Paris and in Berlin, where they will be under no restraint whatever, or it may be that the foreign laboratories will carry out the investigations devised here by the few persons who have the courage, in spite of all obstacles, to attempt to save British science from extinction.

I doubt if such a result will contribute to the diminution of animal suffering. I am sure that it will do as much harm as anything can do to the English school of Physiology, Pathology, and Pharmacology, and therefore to the progress of rational medicine.

[Another letter on the subject may be given, which was written to a student at a theological college, in reply to a request for his opinion on vivisection, which was to be discussed at the college debating society.]

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, September 29, 1890.

Dear Sir,

I am of the opinion that the practice of performing experiments on living animals is not only reconcilable with true humanity, but under certain circumstances is imperatively demanded by it.

Experiments on living animals are of two kinds. First, those which are made upon animals which, although living, are incapable of sensation, in consequence of the destruction or the paralysis of the sentient machinery.

I am not aware that the propriety of performing experiments of this kind is seriously questioned, except in so far as they may involve some antecedent or subsequent suffering. Of course those who deny that under any circumstances it can be right to inflict suffering on other sentient beings for our own good, must object to even this much of what they call cruelty. And when they prove their sincerity by leaving off animal food; by objecting to drive castrated horses, or indeed to employ animal labour at all; and by refusing to destroy rats, mice, fleas, bugs and other sentient vermin, they may expect sensible people to listen to them, and sincere people to think them other than sentimental hypocrites.

As to experiments of the second kind, which do not admit of the paralysis of the sentient mechanism, and the performance of which involves severe prolonged suffering to the more sensitive among the higher animals, I should be sorry to make any sweeping assertion. I am aware of a strong personal dislike to them, which tends to warp my judgment, and I am prepared to make any allowance for those who, carried away by still more intense dislike, would utterly prohibit these experiments.

But it has been my duty to give prolonged and careful attention to this subject, and putting natural sympathy aside, to try and get at the rights and wrongs of the business from a higher point of view, namely, that of humanity, which is often very different from that of emotional sentiment.

I ask myself—suppose you knew that by inflicting prolonged pain on 100 rabbits you could discover a way to the extirpation of leprosy, or consumption, or locomotor ataxy, or of suicidal melancholia among human beings, dare you refuse to inflict that pain? Now I am quite unable to say that I dare. That sort of daring would seem to me to be extreme moral cowardice, to involve gross inconsistency.

For the advantage and protection of society, we all agree to inflict pain upon man—pain of the most prolonged and acute character—in our prisons, and on our battlefields. If England were invaded, we should have no hesitation about inflicting the maximum of suffering upon our invaders for no other object than our own good.

But if the good of society and of a nation is a sufficient plea for inflicting pain on men, I think it may suffice us for experimenting on rabbits or dogs.

At the same time, I think that a heavy moral responsibility rests on those who perform experiments of the second kind.

The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to forget that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of inflicting pain per se.

I am, sir, yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[So far back as 1870 a committee had been appointed by the British Association, and reported upon the conditions under which they considered experiments on living animals justifiable. In the early spring of 1875 a bill to regulate physiological research was introduced into the Upper House by Lord Hartismere, but not proceeded with. When legislation seemed imminent Huxley, in concert with other men of science, interested himself in drawing up a petition to Parliament to direct opinion on the subject and provide a fair basis for future legislation, which indeed took shape immediately after in a bill introduced by Dr. Lyon Playfair (afterwards Lord Playfair), Messrs. Walpole and Ashley. This bill, though more just to science, did not satisfy many scientific men, and was withdrawn upon the appointment of a Royal Commission.

The following letters to Mr. Darwin bear on this period:—]

4 Marlborough Place, January 22, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

I quite agree with your letter about vivisection as a matter of right and justice in the first place, and secondly as the best method of taking the wind out of the enemy's sails. I will communicate with Burdon Sanderson and see what can be done.

My reliance as against — and her fanatical following is not in the wisdom and justice of the House of Commons, but in the large number of fox-hunters therein. If physiological experimentation is put down by law, hunting, fishing, and shooting, against which a much better case can be made out, will soon follow.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

South Kensington, April 21, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

The day before yesterday I met Playfair at the club, and he told me that he had heard from Miss Elliott that I was getting up what she called a "Vivisector's Bill," and that Lord Cardwell was very anxious to talk with some of us about the matter.

So you see that there is no secret about our proceedings. I gave him a general idea of what was doing, and he quite confirmed what Lubbock said about the impossibility of any action being taken in Parliament this session.

Playfair said he should like very much to know what we proposed doing, and I should think it would be a good thing to take him into consultation.

On my return I found that Pfluger had sent me his memoir with a note such as he had sent to you.

I read it last night, and I am inclined to think that it is a very important piece of work.

He shows that frogs absolutely deprived of oxygen give off carbonic acid for twenty-five hours, and gives very strong reasons for believing that the evolution of carbonic acid by living matter in general is the result of a process of internal rearrangement of the molecules of the living matter, and not of direct oxidation.

His speculations about the origin of living matter are the best I have seen yet, so far as I understand them. But he plunges into the depths of the higher chemistry in which I am by no means at home. Only this I can see, that the paper is worth careful study.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

31 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, May 19, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

Playfair has sent a copy of his bill to me, and I am sorry to find that its present wording is such as to render it very unacceptable to all teachers of physiology. In discussing the draught with Litchfield I recollect that I insisted strongly on the necessity of allowing demonstrations to students, but I agreed that it would be sufficient to permit such demonstrations only as could be performed under anaesthetics.

The second clause of the bill, however, by the words "for the purpose of new scientific discovery and for no other purpose," absolutely prohibits any kind of demonstration. It would debar me from showing the circulation in the web of a frog's foot or from exhibiting the pulsations of the heart in a decapitated frog.

And by its secondary effect it would prohibit discovery. Who is to be able to make discoveries unless he knows of his own knowledge what has been already made out? It might as well be ruled that a chemical student should begin with organic analysis.

Surely Burdon Sanderson did not see the draft of the bill as it now stands. The Professors here are up in arms about it, and as the papers have associated my name with the bill I shall have to repudiate it publicly unless something can be done. But what in the world is to be done? I have not written to Playfair yet, and shall wait to hear from you before I do. I have an excellent class here, 340 odd, and like the work. Best regards to Mrs. Darwin.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

31 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, June 5, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

I see I have forgotten to return Playfair's letter, which I enclose. He sent me a copy of his last letter to you, but it did not reach me till some days after my return from London. In the meanwhile I saw him and Lord Cardwell at the House of Commons on Friday (last week).

Playfair seems rather disgusted at our pronunciamento against the bill, and he declares that both Sanderson and Sharpey assented to it. What they were dreaming about I cannot imagine. To say that no man shall experiment except for purpose of original discovery is about as reasonable as to ordain that no man shall swim unless he means to go from Dover to Calais.

However the Commission is to be issued, and it is everything to gain time and let the present madness subside a little. I vowed I would never be a member of another Commission if I could help it, but I suppose I shall have to serve on this.

I am very busy with my lectures, and am nearly half through. I shall not be sorry when they are over, as I have been grinding away now since last October.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[He was duly asked to serve on the Commission. Though his lectures in Edinburgh prevented him from attending till the end of July no difficulty was made over this, as the first meetings of the Commission, which began on June 30, were to be devoted to taking the less controversial evidence. In accepting his nomination he wrote to Mr. Cross (afterwards Lord Cross), at that time Home Secretary:—]

If I can be of any service I shall be very glad to act on the Commission, sympathising as I do on the one hand with those who abhor cruelty to animals, and, on the other, with those who abhor the still greater cruelty to man which is involved in any attempt to arrest the progress of physiology and of rational medicine.

[The other members of the Commission were Lords Cardwell and Winmarleigh, Mr. W.E. Forster, Sir J.B. Karslake, Professor Erichssen, and Mr. R.H. Hutton.

The evidence given before the Commission bore out the view that English physiologists inflicted no more pain upon animals than could be avoided; but one witness, not an Englishman, and not having at that time a perfect command of the English language, made statements which appeared to the Commission at least to indicate that the witness was indifferent to animal suffering. Of this incident Huxley writes to Mr. Darwin at the same time as he forwarded a formal invitation for him to appear as a witness before the Commission:—]

4 Marlborough Place, October 30, 1875.

My dear Darwin,

The inclosed tells its own story. I have done my best to prevent your being bothered, but for various reasons which will occur to you I did not like to appear too obstructive, and I was asked to write to you. The strong feeling of my colleagues (and my own I must say also) is that we ought to have your opinions in our minutes. At the same time there is a no less strong desire to trouble you as little as possible, and under no circumstances to cause you any risk of injury to health.

What with occupation of time, worry and vexation, this horrid Commission is playing the deuce with me. I have felt it my duty to act as counsel for Science, and was well satisfied with the way things were going. But on Thursday when I was absent at the Council of the Royal Society — was examined, and if what I hear is a correct account of the evidence he gave I may as well throw up my brief.

I am told that he openly professed the most entire indifference to animal suffering, and said he only gave anaesthetics to keep animals quiet!

I declare to you I did not believe the man lived who was such an unmitigated cynical brute as to profess and act upon such principles, and I would willingly agree to any law which would send him to the treadmill.

The impression his evidence made on Cardwell and Forster is profound, and I am powerless (even if I had the desire which I have not) to combat it. He has done more mischief than all the fanatics put together.

I am utterly disgusted with the whole business.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Of course keep the little article on Species. It is in some American Encyclopaedia published by Appleton. And best thanks for your book. I shall study it some day, and value it as I do every line you have written. Don't mention what I have told you outside the circle of discreet Darwindom.