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4 Marlborough Place, November 2, 1875.
My dear Darwin,
Our secretary has telegraphed to you to Down, and written to Queen Anne Street.
But to make sure, I send this note to say that we expect you at 13 Delahay Street [Where the Commission was sitting.] at 2 o'clock to-morrow. And that I have looked out the highest chair that was to be got for you. [Mr. Darwin was long in the leg. When he came to our house the biggest hassock was always placed in an arm-chair to give it the requisite height for him.]
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The Commission reported early in 1876, and a few months after Lord Carnarvon introduced a bill intituled "An Act to amend the law relating to Cruelty to Animals." It was a more drastic measure than was demanded. As a writer in "Nature" (1876 page 248) puts it: "The evidence on the strength of which legislation was recommended went beyond the facts, the report went beyond the evidence, the recommendations beyond the report, and the bill can hardly be said to have gone beyond the recommendations, but rather to have contradicted them."
As to the working of the law, Huxley referred to it the following year in the address, already cited, on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology" ("Collected Essays" 3 310).]
But while I should object to any experimentation which can justly be called painful, and while as a member of a late Royal Commission I did my best to prevent the infliction of needless pain for any purpose, I think it is my duty to take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition of the law which permits a boy to troll for pike or set lines with live frog bait for idle amusement, and at the same time lays the teacher of that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment if he uses the same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful and instructive of physiological spectacles—the circulation in the web of the foot. No one could undertake to affirm that a frog is not inconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag and having his toes tied out, and it cannot be denied that inconvenience is a sort of pain. But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated animal for scientific purposes (though you may do a good deal in that way for gain or for sport) without due licence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act.
So it comes about that, in this year of grace 1877, two persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe about in that condition for hours; the other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The first offender says, "I did it because I find fishing very amusing," and the magistrate bids him depart in peace—nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, "I wanted to impress a scientific truth with a distinctness attainable in no other way on the minds of my scholars," and the magistrate fines him five pounds.
I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly creditable state of things.
CHAPTER 2.7.
1875-1876.
[Huxley only delivered one address outside his regular work in 1875, on "Some Results of the 'Challenger' Expedition," given at the Royal Institution on January 29. For all through the summer he was away from London, engaged upon the summer course of lectures on Natural History at Edinburgh. This was due to the fact that Professor (afterwards Sir) Wyville Thomson was still absent on the "Challenger" expedition, and Professor Victor Carus, who had acted as his substitute before, was no longer available. Under these circumstances the Treasury granted Huxley leave of absence from South Kensington. His course began on May 3, and ended on July 23, and he thought it a considerable feat to deal with the whole Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures. No doubt both he and his students worked at high pressure, especially when the latter came scantily prepared for the task, like the late Joseph Thomson, afterwards distinguished as an African traveller, who has left an account of his experience in this class. Thomson's particular weak point was his Greek, and the terminology of the lectures seems to have been a thorn in his side. This account, which actually tells of the 1876 course, occurs on pages 36 and 37 of his "Life."
The experience of studying personally under Huxley was a privilege to which he had been looking forward with eager anticipation; for he had already been fascinated with the charm of Huxley's writings, and had received from them no small amount of mental stimulus. Nor were his expectations disappointed. But he found the work to be unexpectedly hard, and very soon he had the sense of panting to keep pace with the demands of the lecturer. It was not merely that the texture of scientific reasoning in the lectures was so closely knit,—although that was a very palpable fact,—but the character of Huxley's terminology was entirely strange to him. It met him on his weakest side, for it presupposed a knowledge of Greek (being little else than Greek compounds with English terminations) and of Greek he had none.
Huxley's usual lectures, he writes, are something awful to listen to. One half of the class, which numbers about four hundred, have given up in despair from sheer inability to follow him. The strain on the attention of each lecture is so great as to be equal to any ordinary day's work. I feel quite exhausted after them. And then to master his language is something dreadful. But, with all these drawbacks, I would not miss them, even if they were ten times as difficult. They are something glorious, sublime!
Again he writes:—
Huxley is still very difficult to follow, and I have been four times in his lectures completely stuck and utterly helpless. But he has given us eight or nine beautiful lectures on the frog...If you only heard a few of the lectures you would be surprised to find that there were so few missing links in the chain of life, from the amoeba to the genus homo.
It was a large class, ultimately reaching 353 and breaking the record of the Edinburgh classes without having recourse to the factitious assistance proposed in the letter of May 16.
His inaugural lecture was delivered under what ought to have been rather trying circumstances. On the way from London he stopped a night with his old friends, John Bruce and his wife (one of the Fannings), at their home, Barmoor Castle, near Beal. He had to leave at 6 next morning, reaching Edinburgh at 10, and lecturing at 2.] "Nothing," [he writes,] "could be much worse, but I am going through it with all the cheerfulness of a Christian martyr."
[On May 3 he writes to his wife from the Bruce's Edinburgh house, which they had lent him.]
I know that you will be dying to hear how my lecture went off to-day—so I sit down to send you a line, though you did hear from me to-day.
The theatre was crammed. I am told there were 600 auditors, and I could not have wished for more thorough attention. But I had to lecture in gown and Doctor's hood and the heat was awful. The Principal and the chief professors were present, and altogether it was a state affair. I was in great force, although I did get up at six this morning and travelled all the way from Barmoor. But I won't do that sort of thing again, it's tempting Providence.
May 5.
Fanny and her sisters and the Governess flit to Barmoor to-day and I shall be alone in my glory. I shall be very comfortable and well cared for, so make your mind easy, and if I fall ill I am to send for Clark. He expressly told me to do so as I left him!
I gave my second lecture yesterday to an audience filling the theatre. The reason of this is that everybody who likes—comes for the first week and then only those who have tickets are admitted. How many will become regular students I don't know yet, but there is promise of a big class. The Lord send three extra—to make up for...[(a sudden claim upon his purse before he left home.)
And he writes of this custom to Professor Baynes on June 12:—]
My class is over 350 and I find some good working material among them. Parsons mustered strong in the first week, but I fear they came to curse and didn't remain to pay.
[He was still Lord Rector of Aberdeen University, and on May 10 writes how he attended a business meeting there:—]
I have had my run to Aberdeen and back—got up at 5, started from Edinburgh at 6.25, attended the meeting of the Court at 1. Then drove out with Webster to Edgehill in a great storm of rain and was received with their usual kindness. I did not get back till near 8 o'clock last night and, thanks to "The Virginians" and a good deal of Virginia, I passed the time pleasantly enough...There are 270 tickets gone up to this date, so I suppose I may expect a class of 300 men. 300 x 4 = 1200. Hooray.
To his eldest daughter:—]
Edinburgh, May 16, 1875.
My dearest Jess,
Your mother's letter received this morning reminds me that I have not written to "Cordelia" (I suppose she means Goneril) by a message from that young person—so here is reparation.
I have 330 students, and my class is the biggest in the University—but I am quite cast down and discontented because it is not 351,—being one more than the Botany Class last year—which was never so big before or since.
I am thinking of paying 21 street boys to come and take the extra tickets so that I may crow over all my colleagues.
Fanny Bruce is going to town next week to her grandmother's and I want you girls to make friends with her. It seems to me that she is very nice—but that is only a fallible man's judgment, and Heaven forbid that I should attempt to forestall Miss Cudberry's decision on such a question. Anyhow she has plenty of energy and, among other things, works very hard at German.
M— says that the Roottle-Tootles have a bigger drawing-room than ours. I should be sorry to believe these young beginners guilty of so much presumption, and perhaps you will tell them to have it made smaller before I visit them.
A Scotch gentleman has just been telling me that May is the worst month in the year, here; so pleasant! but the air is soft and warm to-day, and I look out over the foliage to the castle and don't care.
Love to all, and specially M—. Mind you don't tell her that I dine out to-day and to-morrow—positively for the first and last times.
Ever your loving father,
T.H. Huxley.
[However, the class grew without such adventitious aid, and he writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer on June 15:—]
...I have a class of 353, and instruct them in dry facts—particularly warning them to keep free of the infidel speculations which are current under the name of evolution.
I expect an "examiner's call" from a Presbytery before the course is over, but I am afraid that the pay is not enough to induce me to forsake my "larger sphere of influence" in London.
[In the same letter he speaks of a flying visit to town which he was about to make on the following Thursday, returning on the Saturday for lack of a good Sunday train:—]
May hap I may chance to see you at the club—but I shall be torn to pieces with things to do during my two days' stay.
If Moses had not existed I should have had three days in town, which is a curious concatenation of circumstances.
[As for health during this period, it maintained, on the whole, a satisfactory level, thanks to the regime of which he writes to Professor Baynes:—]
I am very sorry to hear that you have been so seriously ill. You will have to take to my way of living—a mutton chop a day and no grog, but much baccy. Don't begin to pick up your threads too fast.
No wonder you are uneasy if you have crabs on your conscience. [I.e. an article for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica."] Thank Heaven they are not on mine!
I am glad to hear you are getting better, and I sincerely trust that you may find all the good you seek in the baths.
As to coming back a "new man," who knows what that might be? Let us rather hope for the old man in a state of complete repair—A1 copper bottomed.
Excuse my nautical language.
[The following letters also touch on his Edinburgh lectures:—]
Cragside, Morpeth, August 11, 1875.
My dear Foster,
We are staying here with Sir W. Armstrong—the whole brood—Miss Matthaei and the majority of the chickens being camped at a farm-house belonging to our host about three miles off. It is wetter than it need be, otherwise we are very jolly.
I finished off my work in Edinburgh on the 23rd and positively polished off the Animal Kingdom in 54 lectures. French without a master in twelve lessons is nothing to this feat. The men worked very well on the whole, and sent in some creditable examination papers. I stayed a few days to finish up the abstracts of my lectures for the "Medical Times"; then picked up the two elder girls who were at Barmoor and brought them on here to join the wife and the rest.
How is it that Dohrn has been and gone? I have been meditating a letter to him for an age. He wanted to see me, and I did not know how to manage to bring about a meeting.
Edinburgh is greatly exercised in its mind about the vivisection business and "Vagus" "swells wisibly" whenever the subject is mentioned. I think there is an inclination to regard those who are ready to consent to legislation of any kind as traitors, or at any rate, trimmers. It sickens me to reflect on the quantity of time and worry I shall have to give to that subject when I get back.
I see that — has been blowing the trumpet at the Medical Association. He has about as much tact as a flyblown bull.
I have just had a long letter from Wyville Thomson. The "Challenger" inclines to think that Bathybius is a mineral precipitate! in which case some enemy will probably say that it is a product of my precipitation. So mind, I was the first to make that "goak." Old Ehrenberg suggested something of the kind to me, but I have not his letter here. I shall eat my leek handsomely, if any eating has to be done. They have found pseudopodia in Globerigina.
With all good wishes from ours to yours.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Cragside, Morpeth, August 13, 1875.
My dear Tyndall,
I find that in the midst of my work in Edinburgh I omitted to write to De Vrij, so I have just sent him a letter expressing my pleasure in being able to co-operate in any plan for doing honour to old Benedict [Spinoza, a memorial to whom was being raised in Holland.], for whom I have a most especial respect.
I am not sure that I won't write something about him to stir up the Philistines.
My work at Edinburgh got itself done very satisfactorily, and I cleared about 1000 pounds by the transaction, being one of the few examples known of a Southron coming north and pillaging the Scots. However, I was not sorry when it was all over, as I had been hard at work since October and began to get tired.
The wife and babies from the south, and I from the north, met here a fortnight ago and we have been idling very pleasantly ever since. The place is very pretty and our host kindness itself. Miss Matthaei and five of the bairns are at Cartington—a moorland farmhouse three miles off—and in point of rosy cheeks and appetites might compete with any five children of their age and weight. Jess and Mady are here with us and have been doing great execution at a ball at Newcastle. I really don't know myself when I look at these young women, and my hatred of possible sons-in-law is deadly. All send their love.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Wish you joy of Bristol.
[The following letter to Darwin was written when the Polar Expedition under Sir George Nares was in preparation. It illustrates the range of observation which his friends had learned to expect in him:—]
Athenaeum Club, January 22, 1875.
My dear Darwin,
I write on behalf of the Polar Committee of the Royal Society to ask for any suggestions you may be inclined to offer us as instructions to the naturalists who are to accompany the new expedition.
The task of drawing up detailed instructions is divided among a lot of us; but you are as full of ideas as an egg is full of meat, and are shrewdly suspected of having, somewhere in your capacious cranium, a store of notions which would be of great value to the naturalists.
All I can say is, that if you have not already "collated facts" on this topic, it will be the first subject I ever suggested to you on which you had not.
Of course we do not expect you to put yourself to any great trouble—nor ask for such a thing—but if you will jot down any notes that occur to you we shall be thankful.
We must have everything in hand for printing by March 15.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following letter dates from soon after the death of Charles Kingsley:—]
Science Schools, South Kensington, October 22, 1875.
Dear Miss Kingsley,
I sincerely trust that you believe I have been abroad and prostrated by illness, and have thereby accounted for receiving no reply to your letter of a fortnight back.
The fact is that it has only just reached me, owing to the neglect of the people in Jermyn Street, who ought to have sent it on here.
I assure you I have not forgotten the brief interview to which you refer, and I have often regretted that the hurry and worry of life (which increases with the square of your distance from youth) never allowed me to take advantage of your kind father's invitation to become better acquainted with him and his. I found his card in Jermyn Street when I returned last year, with a pencilled request that I would call on him at Westminster.
I meant to do so, but the whirl of things delayed me until, as I bitterly regret, it was too late.
I am not sure that I have any important letter of your father's but one, written to me some fifteen years ago, on the occasion of the death of a child who was then my only son. It was in reply to a letter of my own written in a humour of savage grief. Most likely he burned the letter, and his reply would be hardly intelligible without it. Moreover, I am not at all sure that I can lay my hands upon your father's letter in a certain chaos of papers which I have never had the courage to face for years. But if you wish I will try.
I am very grieved to hear of Mrs. Kingsley's indisposition. Pray make my kindest remembrances to her, and believe me your very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—By the way, letters addressed to my private residence,
4 Marlborough Place, N.W.,
are sure not to be delayed. And I have another reason for giving the address—the hope that when you come to Town you will let my wife and daughters make your acquaintance.
[His continued interest in the germ-theory and the question of the origin of life ("Address at the British Association" 1870 see 2 page 14, sq.), appears from the following:—]
4 Marlborough Place, October 15, 1875.
My dear Tyndall,
Will you bring with you to the x to-morrow a little bottle full of fluid containing the bacteria you have found developed in your infusions? I mean a good characteristic specimen. It will be useful to you, I think, if I determine the forms with my own microscope, and make drawings of them which you can use.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
I can't tell you how delighted I was with the experiments.
[Throughout this period, and for some time later, he was in frequent communication with Thomas Spencer Baynes, Professor of Logic and English Literature at St. Andrews University, the editor of the new "Encyclopaedia Britannica," work upon which was begun at the end of 1873. From the first Huxley was an active helper, both in classifying the biological subjects which ought to be treated of, suggesting the right men to undertake the work, and himself writing several articles, notably that on Evolution. (Others were "Actinozoa," "Amphibia," "Animal Kingdom," and "Biology.")
Extracts from his letters to Professor Baynes between the years 1873 and 1884, serve to illustrate the work which he did and the relations he maintained with the genial and learned editor.]
November 2, 1873.
I have been spending my Sunday morning in drawing up a list of headings, which will I think exhaust biology from the Animal point of view, and each of which does not involve more than you are likely to get from one man. In many cases, i.e. "Insecta," "Entomology," I have subdivided the subjects, because, by an unlucky peculiarity of workers in these subjects, men who understand zoology from its systematic side are often ignorant of anatomy, and those who know fossils are often weak in recent forms.
But of course the subdivision does not imply that one man should not take the whole if he is competent to do so. And if separate contributors supply articles on these several subdivisions, somebody must see that they work in harmony.
[But with all the good will in the world, he was too hard pressed to get his quota done as quickly as he wished. He suggests at once that "Hydrozoa" and "Actinozoa," in his list, should be dealt with by the writer of the article "Coelenterata."]
Shunting "Actinozoa" to "Coelenterata" would do no harm, and would have the great merit of letting me breathe a little. But if you think better that "Actinozoa" should come in its place under A, I will try what I can do.
December 30, 1873.
As to "Anthropology," I really am afraid to promise. At present I am plunged in "Amphibia," doing a lot of original work to settle questions which have been hanging vaguely in my mind for years. If "Amphibia" is done by the end of January it is as much as it will be.
In February I must give myself—or at any rate my spare self—up to my Rectorial Address [His Rectorial Address at Aberdeen, see above.], which (tell it not in Gath) I wish at the bottom of the Red Sea. And I do not suppose I shall be able to look seriously at either "Animal Kingdom" or "Anthropology" before the address is done with. And all depends on the centre of my microcosm—intestinum colon—which plays me a trick every now and then.
I will do what I can if you like, but if you trust me it is at your proper peril.
February 8, 1874.
How astonished folks will be if eloquent passages out of the address get among the "Amphibia," and comments on Frog anatomy into the address. As I am working at both just now this result is not improbable.
[Meanwhile the address and the ten days' stay at Aberdeen had been] "playing havoc with the "Amphibia," [but on returning home, he went to work upon the latter, and writes on March 12:—]
I did not care to answer your last letter until I had an instalment of "Amphibia" ready. Said instalment was sent off to you, care of Messrs. Black, yesterday, and now I feel like Dick Swiveller, when happy circumstances having enabled him to pay off an old score he was able to begin running up another.
June 8.
I have had sundry proofs and returned them. My writing is lamentable when I am in a hurry, but I never provoked a strike before! I declare I think I write as well as the editor, on ordinary occasions.
[He was pleased to find someone who wrote as badly as, or worse than, himself, and several times rallies Baynes on that score. Thus, when Mrs. Baynes had acted as her husband's amanuensis, he writes (February 11, 1878):—]
My respectful compliments to the "mere machine," whose beautiful calligraphy (if that isn't a tautology) leaves no doubt in my mind that whether the writing of your letters by that agency is good for you or not it is admirable for your correspondents.
Why people can't write a plain legible hand I can't imagine. [(NB.—This sentence is written purposely in a most illegible hand.)
And on another occasion he adds a postcript to say,] "You write worse than ever. So do I."
[However, the article got finished in course of time:—]
August 5.
I have seen and done with all "Amphibia" but the last sheet, and that only waits revise. Considering it was to be done in May, I think I am pretty punctual.
[The next year, immediately before taking Sir Wyville Thomson's lectures at Edinburgh, he writes about another article which he had in hand:—]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., March 16, 1875.
My dear Baynes,
I am working against time to get a lot of things done—amongst others BIOLOGY—before I go north. I have written a large part of said article, and it would facilitate my operation immensely if what is done were set up and I had two or three proofs, one for Dyer, who is to do part of the article.
Now, if I send the manuscript to North Bridge will you swear by your gods (0—1—3—1 or any greater number as the case may be) that I shall have a proof swiftly and not be kept waiting for weeks till the whole thing has got cold, and I am at something else a hundred miles away from Biology?
If not I will keep the manuscript till it is all done, and you know what that means.
Ever yours very truly,
T.H. Huxley.
Cragside, Morpeth, August 12, 1875.
My dear Baynes,
The remainder of the proof of "Biology" is posted to-day—"Praise de Lor'."
I have a dim recollection of having been led by your soft and insinuating ways to say that I would think (only THINK) about some other article. What the deuce was it?
I have told the Royal Society people to send you a list of Fellows, addressed to Black's.
We have had here what may be called bad weather for England, but it has been far better than the best Edinburgh weather known to my experience.
All my friends are out committing grouse-murder. As a vivisection Commissioner I did not think I could properly accompany them.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Cragside, Morpeth, August 24, 1875.
My dear Baynes,
I think — is like enough to do the "Coelenterata" well if you can make sure of his doing it at all. He is a man of really great knowledge of the literature of Zoology, and if it had not been for the accident of being a procrastinating impracticable ass, he could have been a distinguished man. But he is a sort of Balaam-Centaur with the asinine stronger than the prophetic moiety.
I should be disposed to try him, nevertheless.
I don't think I have had final revise of Biology yet.
I do not know that "Coelenterata" is Lankester's speciality. However, he is sure to do it well if he takes it up.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., October 12, 1875.
My dear Baynes,
Do you remember my telling you that I should before long be publishing a book, of which general considerations on Biology would form a part, and that I should have to go over the same ground as in the article for the Encyclopaedia?
Well, that prediction is about to be verified, and I want to know what I am to do.
You see, as I am neither dealing with Theology, nor History, nor Criticism, I can't take a fresh departure and say something entirely different from what I have just written.
On the other hand, if I republish what stands in the article, the Encyclopaedia very naturally growls.
What do the sweetest of Editors and the most liberal of Proprietors say ought to be done under the circumstances?
I pause for a reply.
I have carried about Stanley's note in my pocket-book until I am sorry to say the flyleaf has become hideously stained. [The Dean's handwriting was proverbial.]
The wife and daughters could make nothing of it, but I, accustomed to the manuscript of certain correspondents, have no doubt as to the fourth word of the second sentence. It is "Canterbury." [The writing of this word is carefully slurred until it is almost as illegible as the original.] Nothing can be plainer.
Hoping the solution is entirely satisfactory,
Believe me, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Though he refused to undertake the article on "Distribution," he managed to write that on "Evolution" (republished in "Collected Essays" 2 187). Thus on July 28, 1877, he writes:—]
I ought to do "Evolution," but I mightn't and I shouldn't. Don't see how it is practicable to do justice to it with the time at my disposal, though I really should like to do it, and I am at my wits' end to think of anybody who can be trusted with it.
Perhaps something may turn up, and if so I will let you know.
[The something in the world of more time did turn up by dint of extra pressure, and the article got written in the course of the autumn, as appears from the following of December 29, 1877:—]
I send you the promised skeleton (with a good deal of the flesh) of Evolution. It is costing me infinite labour in the way of reading, but I am glad to be obliged to do the work, which will be a curious and instructive chapter in the history of Science.
[The lawyer-like faculty of putting aside a subject when done with, which is indicated in the letter of March 16, 1875, reappears in the following:—]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., March 18, 1878.
My dear Baynes,
Your printers are the worst species of that diabolic genus I know of. It is at least a month since I sent them a revise of "Evolution" by no means finished, and from that time to this I have had nothing from them.
I shall forget all about the subject, and then at the last moment they will send me a revise in a great hurry, and expect it back by return of post.
But if they get it, may I go to their Father!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Later on, the pressure of work again forbade him to undertake further articles on "Harvey," "Hunter," and "Instinct."]
I am sorry to say that my hands are full, and I have sworn by as many gods as Hume has left me, to undertake nothing more for a long while beyond what I am already pledged to do, a small book anent Harvey being one of these things.
[And on June 9:—]
After nine days' meditation (directed exclusively to the Harvey and Hunter question) I am not any "forrarder," as the farmer said after his third bottle of Gladstone claret. So perhaps I had better mention the fact. I am very glad you have limed Flower for "Mammalia" and "Horse"—nobody could be better.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., July 1, 1879.
My dear Baynes,
On Thursday last I sought for you at the Athenaeum in the middle of the day, and told them to let me know if you came in the evening when I was there again. But I doubt not you were plunged in dissipation.
My demonstrator Parker showed me to-day a letter he had received from Black's, asking him to do anything in the small Zoology way between H and L.
He is a modest man, and so didn't ask what the H—L he was to do, but he looked it.
Will you enlighten him or me, and I will convey the information on?
I had another daughter married yesterday. She was a great pet and it is very hard lines on father and mother. The only consolation is that she has married a right good fellow, John Collier the artist.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
July 19, 1879.
Many thanks for your and Mrs. Baynes' congratulations. I am very well content with my son-in-law, and have almost forgiven him for carrying off one of my pets, which shows a Christian spirit hardly to be expected of me.
South Kensington, July 2, 1880.
My dear Baynes,
I have been thinking over the matter of Instinct, and have come to the conclusion that I dare not undertake anything fresh.
There is an address at Birmingham in the autumn looming large, and ghosts of unfinished work flitter threateningly.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 2.8.
1876.
[The year 1876 was again a busy one, almost as busy as any that went before. As in 1875, his London work was cut in two by a course of lectures in Edinburgh, and sittings of the Royal Commission on Scottish Universities, and furthermore, by a trip to America in his summer vacation.
In the winter and early spring he gave his usual lectures at South Kensington; a course to working men "On the Evidence as to the Origin of Existing Vertebrated Animals," from February to April ("Nature" volumes 13 and 14); a lecture at the Royal Institution (January 28) "On the Border Territory between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms" ("Collected Essays" 8 170); and another at Glasgow (February 15) "On the Teleology and Morphology of the Hand."
In this lecture, which he never found time to get into final shape for publication, but which was substantially repeated at the Working Men's College in 1878, he touched upon one of the philosophic aspects of the theory of evolution, namely, how far is it consistent with the argument from design?
Granting provisionally the force of Paley's argument in individual cases of adaptation, and illustrating it by the hand and its representative in various of the Mammalia, he proceeds to show by the facts of morphology that the argument, as commonly stated, fails; that each mechanism, each animal, was not specially made to suit the particular purpose we find it serving, but was developed from a single common type. Yet in a limited and special sense he finds teleology to be not inconsistent with morphology. The two sets of facts flow from a common cause, evolution. Descent by modification accounts for similarity of structure; the process of gradual adaptation to conditions accounts for the existing adaptation to purpose. To be a teleologist and yet accept evolution it is only necessary] "to suppose that the original plan was sketched out—that the purpose was foreshadowed in the molecular arrangements out of which the animals have come."
[This was no new view of his. While, ever since his first review of the "Origin" in 1859 ("Collected Essays" 2 6), he had declared the commoner and coarser forms of teleology to find their most formidable opponent in the theory of evolution, and in 1869, addressing the Geological Society, had spoken of] "those final causes, which have been named barren virgins, but which might be more fitly termed the hetairae of philosophy, so constantly have they led men astray" [(ib. 8 80; cp. 2 21, 36), he had, in his "Criticism of the Origin" (1864 2 86), and the "Genealogy of Animals" (1869 2 109 sqq.), shown how] "perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of teleology and morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both which his views offer...the wider teleology, which is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution."
[His notebook shows that he was busy with Reptilia from Elgin and from India; and with his "Manual of Invertebrate Anatomy," which was published the next year; while he refused to undertake a course of ten lectures at the Royal Institution, saying that he had already too much other work to do, and would have no time for original work.
About this time, also, in answer to a request from a believer in miracles,] "that those who fail to perceive the cogency of the evidence by which the occurrence of miracles is supported, should not confine themselves to the discussion of general principles, but should grapple with some particular case of an alleged miracle," [he read before the Metaphysical Society a paper dealing with the evidence for the miracle of the resurrection. (See volume 1.)
Some friends wished him to publish the paper as a contribution to criticism; but his own doubts as to the opportuneness of so doing were confirmed by a letter from Mr. John Morley, then editor of the "Fortnightly Review," to which he replied (January 18):—]
To say truth, most of the considerations you put so forcibly had passed through my mind—but one always suspects oneself of cowardice when one's own interests may be affected.
[At the beginning of May he went to Edinburgh. He writes home on May 8:—]
I am in hopes of being left to myself this time, as nobody has called but Sir Alexander Grant the Principal, Crum Brown, whom I met in the street just now, and Lister, who has a patient in the house. I have been getting through an enormous quantity of reading, some tough monographs that I brought with me, the first volume of Forster's "Life of Swift," "Goodsir's Life," and a couple of novels of George Sand, with a trifle of Paul Heyse. You should read George Sand's "Cesarine Dietrich" and "La Mare au Diable" that I have just finished. She is bigger than George Eliot, more flexible, a more thorough artist. It is a queer thing, by the way, that I have never read "Consuelo." I shall get it here. When I come back from my lecture I like to rest for an hour or two over a good story. It freshens me wonderfully.
[However, social Edinburgh did not leave him long to himself, but though he might thus lose something of working time, this loss was counterbalanced by the dispelling of some of the fits of depression which still assailed him from time to time.
On May 25 he writes:—]
The General Assembly is sitting now, and I thought I would look in. It was very crowded and I had to stand, so I was soon spied out and invited to sit beside the Lord High Commissioner, who represents the Crown in the Assembly, and there I heard an ecclesiastical row about whether a certain church should be allowed to have a cover with IHS on the Communion Table or not. After three hours' discussion the IHSers were beaten. I was introduced to the Commissioner Lord Galloway, and asked to dine to-night. So I felt bound to go to the special levee at Holyrood with my colleagues this morning, and I shall have to go to my Lady Galloway's reception in honour of the Queen's birthday to-morrow. Luckily there will be no more of it. Vanity of Vanities! Saturday afternoon I go out to Lord Young's place to spend Sunday. I have been in rather a hypochondriacal state of mind, and I will see if this course of medicine will drive the seven devils out.
[One of the chief friendships which sprang from this residence in Edinburgh was that with Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Skelton, widely known under his literary pseudonym of "Shirley." A Civil servant as well as a man of letters, he united practical life with literature, a combination that appealed particularly to Huxley, so that he was a constant visitor at Dr. Skelton's picturesque house, the Hermitage of Braid, near Edinburgh. A number of letters addressed to Skelton from 1875 to 1891 show that with him Huxley felt the stimulus of an appreciative correspondent.]
4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, June 23, 1876.
My dear Skelton,
I do not understand how it is that your note has been so long in reaching me; but I hasten to repel the libellous insinuation that I have vowed a vow against dining at the Hermitage.
I wish I could support that repudiation by at once accepting your invitation for Saturday or Sunday, but my Saturdays and Sundays are mortgaged to one or other of your judges (good judges, obviously).
Shall you be at home on Monday or Tuesday? If so, I would put on a kilt (to be as little dressed as possible), and find my way out and back; happily improving my mind on the journey with the tracts you mention.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, July 1, 1876.
My dear Skelton,
Very many thanks for the copy of the "Comedy of the Noctes," which reached me two or three days ago. Turning over the pages I came upon the Shepherd's "Terrible Journey of Timbuctoo," which I enjoyed as much as when I first read it thirty odd years ago.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On June 23 he writes home:—]
Did you read Gilman's note asking me to give the inaugural discourse at the Johns Hopkins University, and offering 100 pounds sterling on the part of the trustees? I am minded to do it on our way back from the south, but don't much like taking money for the performance. Tell me what you think about this at once, as I must reply.
[This visit to America had been under discussion for some time. It is mentioned as a possibility in a letter to Darwin two years before. Early in 1876 Mr. Frederic Harrison was commissioned by an American correspondent—who, by the way, had named his son Thomas Huxley—to give my father the following message:—"The whole nation is electrified by the announcement that Professor Huxley is to visit us next fall. We will make infinitely more of him than we did of the Prince of Wales and his retinue of lords and dukes." Certainly the people of the States gave him an enthusiastic welcome; his writings had made him known far and wide; as the manager of the Californian department at the Philadelphia Exhibition told him, the very miners of California read his books over their camp fires; and his visit was so far like a royal progress, that unless he entered a city disguised under the name of Jones or Smith, he was liable not merely to be interviewed, but to be called upon to "address a few words" to the citizens.
Leaving their family under the hospitable care of Sir W. and Lady Armstrong at Cragside, my father and mother started on July 27 on board the "Germanic," reaching New York on August 5. My father sometimes would refer, half-jestingly, to the trip as his second honeymoon, when, for the first time in twenty years, he and my mother set forth by themselves, free from all family cares. And indeed, there was the underlying resemblance that this too came at the end of a period of struggle to attain, and marked the beginning of a more settled period. His reception in America may be said to emphasise his definite establishment in the first rank of English thinkers. It was a signal testimony to the wide extent of his influence, hardly suspected, indeed, by himself; an influence due above all to the fact that he did not allow his studies to stand apart from the moving problems of existence, but brought the new and regenerating ideas into contact with life at every point, and that his championship of the new doctrines had at the same time been a championship of freedom and sincerity in thought and word against shams and self-deceptions of every kind. It was not so much the preacher of new doctrines who was welcomed, as the apostle of veracity—not so much the student of science as the teacher of men.
Moreover, another sentiment coloured this holiday visit. He was to see again the beloved sister of his boyhood. She had always prophesied his success, and now after thirty years her prophesy was fulfilled by his coming, and, indeed, exceeded by the manner of it.
Mr. Smalley, then London correspondent of the "New York Tribune," was a fellow passenger of his on board the "Germanic," and tells an interesting anecdote of him:—
Mr. Huxley stood on the deck of the "Germanic" as she steamed up the harbour of New York, and he enjoyed to the full that marvellous panorama. At all times he was on intimate terms with Nature and also with the joint work of Nature and Man; Man's place in Nature being to him interesting from more points of view than one. As we drew near the city—this was in 1876, you will remember—he asked what were the tall tower and tall building with a cupola, then the two most conspicuous objects. I told him the Tribune and the Western Union Telegraph buildings. "Ah," he said, "that is interesting; that is American. In the old World the first things you see as you approach a great city are steeples; here you see, first, centres of intelligence." Next to those the tug-boats seemed to attract him as they tore fiercely up and down and across the bay. He looked long at them and finally said,] "If I were not a man I think I should like to be a tug." [They seemed to him the condensation and complete expression of the energy and force in which he delighted.
The personal welcome he received from the friends he visited was of the warmest. On the arrival of the "Germanic" the travellers were met by Mr. Appleton the publisher, and carried off to his country house at Riverdale. While his wife was taken to Saratoga to see what an American summer resort was like, he himself went on the 9th to New Haven, to inspect the fossils at Yale College, collected from the Tertiary deposits of the Far West by Professor Marsh, with great labour and sometimes at the risk of his scalp. Professor Marsh told me how he took him to the University, and proposed to begin by showing him over the buildings. He refused.] "Show me what you have got inside them; I can see plenty of bricks and mortar in my own country." [So they went straight to the fossils, and as Professor Marsh writes ("American Journal of Science" volume 1 August 1895.):—
One of Huxley's lectures in New York was to be on the genealogy of the horse, a subject which he had already written about, based entirely upon European specimens. My own explorations had led me to conclusions quite different from his, and my specimens seemed to me to prove conclusively that the horse originated in the New World and not in the Old, and that its genealogy must be worked out here. With some hesitation, I laid the whole matter frankly before Huxley, and he spent nearly two days going over my specimens with me, and testing each point I made.
At each inquiry, whether he had a specimen to illustrate such and such a point or exemplify a transition from earlier and less specialised forms to later and more specialised ones, Professor Marsh would simply turn to his assistant and bid him fetch box number so and so, until Huxley turned upon him and said,] "I believe you are a magician; whatever I want, you just conjure it up."
[The upshot of this examination was that he recast a great part of what he meant to say at New York. When he had seen the specimens, and thoroughly weighed their import, continues Professor Marsh:—
He then informed me that all this was new to him, and that my facts demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and for the first time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing animal. With the generosity of true greatness, he gave up his own opinions in the face of new truth, and took my conclusions as the basis of his famous New York lecture on the horse. He urged me to prepare without delay a volume on the genealogy of the horse, based upon the specimens I had shown him. This I promised, but other work and new duties have thus far prevented.
A letter to his wife describes his visit to Yale:—]
My excellent host met me at the station, and seems as if he could not make enough of me. I am installed in apartments which were occupied by his uncle, the millionaire Peabody, and am as quiet as if I were in my own house. We have had a preliminary canter over the fossils, and I have seen some things which were worth all the journey across.
This is the most charmingly picturesque town, with the streets lined by avenues of elm trees which meet overhead. I have never seen anything like it, and you must come and look at it. There is fossil work enough to occupy me till the end of the week, and I have arranged to go to Springfield on Monday to examine the famous footprints of the Connecticut Valley.
The Governor has called upon me, and I shall have to go and do pretty-behaved chez lui to-morrow. An application has come for an autograph, but I have not been interviewed!
[This immunity, however, did not last long. He appears to have been caught by the interviewer the next day, for he writes on the 11th:—]
I have not seen the notice in the "World" you speak of. You will be amused at the article written by the interviewer. He was evidently surprised to meet with so little of the "high falutin" philosopher in me, and says I am "affable" and of "the commercial or mercantile" type. That is something I did not know, and I am rather proud of it. We may be rich yet.
[As to his work at Yale Museum, he writes in the same letter:—]
We are hard at work still. Breakfast at 8.30—go over to the Museum with Marsh at 9 or 10—work till 1.30—dine—go back to Museum to work till 6. Then Marsh takes me for a drive to see the views about the town, and back to tea about half-past eight. He is a wonderfully good fellow, full of fun and stories about his Western adventures, and the collection of fossils is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. I wish I could spare three weeks instead of one to study it.
To-morrow evening were are to have a dinner by way of winding up, and he has asked a lot of notables to meet me. I assure you I am being "made of," as I thought nobody but the little wife was foolish enough to do.
[On the 16th he left to join Professor Alexander Agassiz at Newport, whence he wrote the following letters:—]
Newport, August 17, 1876.
My dear Marsh,
I really cannot say how much I enjoyed my visit to New Haven. My recollections are sorting themselves out by degrees and I find how rich my store is. The more I think of it the more clear it is that your great work is the settlement of the pedigree of the horse.
My wife joins with me in kind regards. I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[To Mr. Clarence King.]
Newport, August 19, 1876.
My dear Sir,
In accordance with your wish, I very willingly put into writing the substance of the opinion as to the importance of Professor Marsh's collection of fossils which I expressed to you yesterday. As you are aware, I devoted four or five days to the examination of this collection, and was enabled by Professor Marsh's kindness to obtain a fair conception of the whole.
I am disposed to think that whether we regard the abundance of material, the number of complete skeletons of the various species, or the extent of geological time covered by the collection, which I had the good fortune to see at New Haven, there is no collection of fossil vertebrates in existence, which can be compared with it. I say this without forgetting Montmartre, Siwalik, or Pikermi—and I think that I am quite safe in adding that no collection which has been hitherto formed approaches that made by Professor Marsh, in the completeness of the chain of evidence by which certain existing mammals are connected with their older tertiary ancestry.
It is of the highest importance to the progress of Biological Science that the publication of this evidence, accompanied by illustrations of such fulness as to enable paleontologists to form their own judgment as to its value, should take place without delay.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Breaking their journey at Boston, they went from Newport to Petersham, in the highlands of Worcester County, where they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. John Fiske, at their summer home. Among the other visitors were the eminent musical composer Mr. Paine, the poet Cranch, and daughters of Hawthorne and Longfellow, so that they found themselves in the midst of a particularly cheerful and delightful party. From Petersham they proceeded to Buffalo, the meeting-place that year of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which my father had promised to attend. Here they stayed with Mr. Marshall, a leading lawyer, who afterwards visited them in England.
Awake was spent at Niagara, partly in making holiday, partly in shaping the lectures which had to be delivered at the end of the trip. As to the impression made upon him by the Falls—an experience which, it is generally presumed, every traveller is bound to record—I may note that after the first disappointment at their appearance, inevitable wherever the height of a waterfall is less than the breadth, he found in them an inexhaustible charm and fascination. As in duty bound, he, with my mother, completed his experiences by going under the wall of waters to the "Cave of the Winds." But of all things nothing pleased him more than to sit of an evening by the edge of the river, and through the roar of the cataract to listen for the under-sound of the beaten stones grinding together at its foot.
Leaving Niagara on September 2, they travelled to Cincinnati, a 20-hours' journey, where they rested a day; on the 4th another 10 hours took them to Nashville, where they were to meet his sister, Mrs. Scott. Though 11 years his senior, she maintained her vigour and brightness undimmed, as indeed she did to the end of her life, surviving him by a few weeks. As she now stood on the platform at Nashville, Mrs. Huxley, who had never seen her, picked her out from among all the people by her piercing black eyes, so like those of her mother as described in the Autobiographical sketch ("Collected Essays" 1).
Nashville, her son's home, had been chosen as the meeting-place by Mrs. Scott, because it was not so far south nor so hot as Montgomery, where she was then living. Nevertheless in Tennessee the heat of the American summer was very trying, and the good people of the town further drew upon the too limited opportunities of their guest's brief visit by sending a formal deputation to beg that he would either deliver an address, or be entertained at a public dinner, or "state his views"—to an interviewer I suppose. He could not well refuse one of the alternatives; and the greater part of one day was spent in preparing a short address on the geology of Tennessee, which was delivered on the evening of September 7. He spoke for twenty minutes, but had scarcely any voice, which was not to be wondered at, as he was so tired that he had kept his room the whole day, while his wife received the endless string of callers.
The next day they returned to Cincinnati; and on the 9th went on to Baltimore, where they stayed with Mr. Garrett, then President of the Baltimore and Ohio railway.
The Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, for which he was to deliver the opening address, had been instituted by its founder on a novel basis. It was devoted to post-graduate study; the professors and lecturers received incomes entirely independent of the pupils they taught. Men came to study for the sake of learning, not for the sake of passing some future examination. The endowment was devoted in the first place to the furtherance of research; the erection of buildings was put into the background.] "It has been my fate," [commented Huxley,] "to see great educational funds fossilise into mere bricks and mortar in the petrifying springs of architecture, with nothing left to work them. A great warrior is said to have made a desert and called it peace. Trustees have sometimes made a palace and called it a university."
[Half the fortune of the founder had gone to this university; the other half to the foundation of a great and splendidly equipped hospital for Baltimore. This was the reason why the discussion of medical training occupies fully half of the address upon the general principles of education, in which, indeed, lies the heart of his message to America, a message already delivered to the old country, but specially appropriate for the new nation developing so rapidly in size and physical resources.]
I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is, what are you going to do with all these things?...
The one condition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth and intellectual clearness of the individual citizen. Education cannot give these, but it can cherish them and bring them to the front in whatever station of society they are to be found, and the universities ought to be and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the nation.
[This address was delivered under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The day before, an expedition had been made to Washington, from which Huxley returned very tired, only to be told that he was to attend a formal dinner and reception the same evening.] "I don't know how I shall stand it," [he remarked. Going to his room, he snatched an hour or two of rest, but was then called upon to finish his address before going out. It seems that it had to be ready for simultaneous publication in the New York papers. Now the lecture was not written out; it was to be given from notes only. So he had to deliver it in extenso to the reporter, who took it down in shorthand, promising to let him have a longhand copy in good time the next morning. It did not come till the last moment. Glancing at it on his way to the lecture theatre, he discovered to his horror that it was written upon "flimsy," from which he would not be able to read it with any success. He wisely gave up the attempt, and made up his mind to deliver the lecture as best he could from memory. The lecture as delivered was very nearly the same as that which he had dictated the night before, but with some curious discrepancies between the two accounts, which, he used to say, occurring as they did in versions both purporting to have been taken down from his lips, might well lead the ingenious critic of the future to pronounce them both spurious, and to declare that the pretended original was never delivered under the circumstances alleged. (Cp. the incident at Belfast.)
There was an audience of some 2000, and I am told that when he began to speak of the time that would come when they too would experience the dangers of over-population and poverty in their midst, and would then understand what Europe had to contend with more fully than they did, a pin could have been heard to drop. At the end of the lecture, amid the enthusiastic applause of the crowd, he made his way to the front of the box where his hosts and their party were, and received their warm congratulations. But he missed one voice amongst them, and turning to where his wife sat in silent triumph almost beyond speech, he said,] "And have you no word for me?" [then, himself also deeply moved, stooped down and kissed her.
This address was delivered on Tuesday, September 12. On the 14th he went to Philadelphia, and on the 15th to New York, where he delivered his three lectures on Evolution on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, September 18, 20, and 22.
These lectures are very good examples of the skill with which he could present a complicated subject in a simple form, the subject seeming to unroll itself by the force of its own naked logic, and carrying conviction the further through the simplicity of its presentation. Indeed, an unfriendly critic once paid him an unintended compliment, when trying to make out that he was no great speaker; that all he did was to set some interesting theory unadorned before his audience, when such success as he attained was due to the compelling nature of the subject itself.
Since his earlier lectures to the public on evolution, the paleontological evidences had been accumulating; the case could be stated without some of the reservations of former days; and he brings forward two telling instances in considerable detail, the one showing how the gulf between two such apparently distinct groups as Birds and Reptiles is bridged over by ancient fossils intermediate in form; the other illustrating from Professor Marsh's new collections the lineal descent of the specialised Horse from the more general type of quadruped.
The farthest back of these was a creature with four toes on the front limb and three on the hind limb. Judging from the completeness of the series or forms so far, he ventured to indulge in a prophecy.]
Thus, thanks to these important researches, it has become evident that, so far as our present knowledge extends, the history of the horse-type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation that when the still lower Eocene deposits, and those which belong to the Cretaceous epoch, have yielded up their remains of ancestral equine animals, we shall find, first, a form with four complete toes and a rudiment of the innermost or first digit in front, with, probably, a rudiment of the fifth digit in the hind foot; while, in still older forms, the series of the digits will be more and more complete, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which, if the doctrine of evolution is well founded, the whole series must have taken its origin.
[Seldom has prophecy been sooner fulfilled. Within two months, Professor Marsh had discovered a new genus of equine mammals, Eohippus, from the lowest Eocene deposits of the West, which corresponds very nearly to the description given above.
He continues:—]
That is what I mean by demonstrative evidence of evolution. An inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it. If that is not scientific proof, there are no merely inductive conclusions which can be said to be proved. And the doctrine of evolution, at the present time, rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as the Copernican theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies did at the time of its promulgation. Its logical basis is of precisely the same character—the coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements.
[He left New York on September 23.] "I had a very pleasant trip in Yankee-land," [he writes to Professor Baynes,] "and did NOT give utterance to a good deal that I am reported to have said there." [He reached England in good time for the beginning of his autumn lectures, and his ordinary busy life absorbed him again. He did not fail to give his London audiences the results of the recent discoveries in American paleontology, and on December 4, delivered a lecture at the London Institution, "On Recent Additions to the Knowledge of the Pedigree of the Horse." In connection with this he writes to Professor Marsh:—]
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., December 27, 1876.
My dear Marsh,
I hope you do not think it remiss of me that I have not written to you since my return, but you will understand that I plunged into a coil of work, and will forgive me. But I do not mean to let you slip away without sending you all our good wishes for its successor—which I hope will not vanish without seeing you among us.
I blew your trumpet the other day at the London Institution in a lecture about the Horse question. I did not know then that you had got another step back as I see you have by the note to my last lecture, which Youmans has just sent me.
I must thank you very heartily for the pains you have taken over the woodcuts of the lectures. It is a great improvement to have the patterns of the grinders.
I promised to give a lecture at the Royal Institution on the 21st January next, and I am thinking of discoursing on the Birds with teeth. Have you anything new to tell on that subject? I have implicit faith in the inexhaustibility of the contents of those boxes.
Our voyage home was not so successful as that out. The weather was cold and I got a chill which laid me up for several days, in fact I was not well for some weeks after my return. But I am vigorous again now.
Pray remember me kindly to all New Haven friends. My wife joins with me in kindest regards and good wishes for the new year. "Tell him we expect to see him next year."
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On December 16 he delivered a lecture "On the Study of Biology," in connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington ("Collected Essays" 3 262), dealing with the origin of the name Biology, its relation to Sociology—] "we have allowed that province of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you to recollect that this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist apparently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; or meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part of his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken"]—how to learn biology, the use of Museums, and above all, the utility of biology, as helping to give right ideas in this world, which] "is after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas."
[This lecture on Biology was first published among the "American Addresses" in 1877.
It was about this time that an extremely Broad Church divine was endeavouring to obtain the signatures of men of science to a document he had drawn up protesting against certain orthodox doctrines. Huxley, however, refused to sign the protest, and wrote the following letter of explanation, a copy of which he sent to Mr. Darwin.]
November 18, 1876.
Dear Sir,
I have read the "Protest," with a copy of which you have favoured me, and as you wish that I should do so, I will trouble you with a brief statement of my reasons for my inability to sign it.
I object to clause 2 on the ground long since taken by Hume that the order of the universe such as we observe it to be, furnishes us with the only data upon which we can base any conclusion as to the character of the originator thereof.
As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins affect endless generations of their progeny. Men are tempted, men are punished for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own; and they are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their consciousness lasts.
The theological doctrines to which you refer, therefore, are simply extensions of generalisations as well based as any in physical science. Very likely they are illegitimate extensions of these generalisations, but that does not make them wrong in principle.
And I should consider it waste of time to "protest" against that which is.
As regards clause 3 I find that as a matter of experience, erroneous beliefs are punished, and right beliefs are rewarded—though very often the erroneous belief is based upon a more conscientious study of the facts than the right belief. I do not see why this should not be as true of theological beliefs as any others. And as I said before, I do not care to protest against that which is.
Many thanks for your congratulations. My tour was very pleasant and taught me a good deal.
I am yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
P.S.—You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.
4 Marlborough Place, November 19, 1876.
My dear Darwin,
I confess I have less sympathy with the half-and-half sentimental school which he represents than I have with thoroughgoing orthodoxy.
If we are to assume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words, than that he is malevolent and unjust. Infinite benevolence need not have invented pain and sorrow at all—infinite malevolence would very easily have deprived us of the large measure of content and happiness that falls to our lot. After all, Butler's "Analogy" is unassailable, and there is nothing in theological dogmas more contradictory to our moral sense, than is to be found in the facts of nature. From which, however, the Bishop's conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn't follow.
With best remembrances to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This incident suggests the story of a retort he once made upon what he considered an unseasonable protest in church, a story which exemplifies, by the way, his strong sense of the decencies of life, appearing elsewhere in his constant respect for the ordinary conventions of his dislike for mere Bohemianism as such.
Once in a country house he was sitting at dinner next to his hostess, a lady who, as will sometimes happen, liked to play the part of Lady Arbitress of the whole neighbourhood. She told him how much she disapproved of the Athanasian Creed, and described how she had risen and left the village church when the parson began to read it; and thinking to gain my father's assent, she turned to him and said graciously, "Now Mr. Huxley, don't you think I was quite right to mark my disapproval?"]
"My dear Lady —" [he replied,] "I should as soon think of rising and leaving your table because I disapproved of one of the entrees."
CHAPTER 2.9.
1877.
[In this year he delivered lectures and addresses on the "Geological History of Birds," at the Zoological Society's Gardens, June 7; on "Starfishes and their Allies," at the Royal Institution, March 7; at the London Institution, December 17, on "Belemnites" (a subject on which he had written in 1864, and which was doubtless suggested anew by his autumn holiday at Whitby, where the Lias cliffs are full of these fossils); at the Anthropological Conference, May 22, on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology" ("Collected Essays" 3 294), with special reference to the recent legislation as to experiments on living animals; and on "Technical Education" to the Working Men's Club and Institute, December 1 ("Collected Essays" 3 404): a perilous subject, indeed, considering, as he remarks, that] "any candid observer of the phenomena of modern society will readily admit that bores must be classed among the enemies of the human race; and a little consideration will probably lead him to the further admission, that no species of that extensive genus of noxious creatures is more objectionable than the educational bore...In the course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I have ventured to speak of education; indeed, the only part of this wide region into which, as yet, I have not adventured, is that into which I propose to intrude to-day."
[The choice of subject for this address was connected with a larger campaign for the establishment of technical education on a proper footing, which began with his work on the School Board, and was this year brought prominently before the public by another address delivered at the Society of Arts. The Clothworkers Company had already been assisting the Society of Arts in their efforts for the spread of technical education; and in July 1877 a special committee of the Guilds applied to him, amongst half a dozen others, to furnish them with a report as to the objects and methods of a scheme of technical education. This paper fills sixteen pages in the Report of the Livery Companies' Committee for 1878. The fundamental principles on which he bases his practical recommendations are contained in the following paragraph:—]
It appears to me that if every person who is engaged in an industry had access to instruction in the scientific principles on which that industry is based; in the mode of applying these principles to practice; in the actual use of the means and appliances employed; in the language of the people who know as much about the matter as we do ourselves; and lastly, in the art of keeping accounts, Technical Education would have done all that can be required of it.
[And his suggestions about buildings was at once adopted by the Committee, namely, that they should be erected at a future date, regard being had primarily rather to what is wanted in the inside than what will look well from the outside.
Now the Guilds formed a very proper body to set such a scheme on foot, because only such wealthy and influential members of the first mercantile city in the world could afford to let themselves be despised and jeered at for professing to teach English manufacturers and English merchants that they needed to be taught; and to spend 25,000 pounds a year towards that end for some time without apparent result.
That they eventually succeeded, is due no little to the careful plans drawn out by Huxley. He may be described as "really the engineer of the City and Guilds Institute; for without his advice," declared one of the leading members, "we should not have known what to have done."
At the same time he warned them against indiscriminate zeal;] "though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse." [The aim of the Livery Companies should specially be to aid the PRACTICAL teaching of science, so that at bottom the question turns mainly on the supply of teachers.
On December 11, 1879, he found a further opportunity of urging the cause of Technical Education. A lecture on Apprenticeships was delivered before the Society of Arts by Professor Silvanus Thompson. Speaking after the lecturer (see report in "Nature" 1879 page 139) he discussed the necessity of supplying the place of the old apprenticeships by educating children in the principles of their particular crafts, beyond the time when they were forced to enter the workshops. This could be done by establishing schools in each centre of industry, connected with a central institution, such as was to be found in Paris or Zurich. As for complaints of deficient teaching of handicrafts in the Board Schools, it was more important for them to make intelligent men than skilled workmen, as again was indicated in the French system.
As President of the Royal Society, he was on the above-mentioned Committee of the Guilds from 1883 to 1885, and on December 10, 1883, distributed the prizes in connection with the institution in the Clothworkers' Hall. After sketching the inception of the whole scheme, he referred to the Central Institute, then in course of building (begun in 1882, it was finished in 1884; the Technical College, Finsbury, was older by a year), and spoke of the difficulties in the way of organising such an institution:—]
That building is simply the body, not the flesh and bones, but the bricks and stones, of the Central Institute, and the business upon which Sir F. Bramwell and my other colleagues on the Committee have been so much occupied, is the making a soul for this body; and I can assure you making a soul for anything is an amazingly difficult operation. You are always in danger of doing as the man in the story of Frankenstein did, and making something which will eventually devour you instead of being useful to you.
[And here I may give a letter which refers to the movement for technical education, and the getting the City Companies under way in the matter. In the words of Mr. George Howell, M.P. (who sent it to the "Times" (July 3, 1895) just after Huxley's death), it has an additional interest "as indicating the nature of his own epitaph"; as a man "whose highest ambition ever was to uplift the masses of the people and promote their welfare intellectually, socially, and industrially."]
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 2, 1880.
Dear Mr. Howell,
Your letter is a welcome New Year's gift. There are two things I really care about—one is the progress of scientific thought, and the other is the bettering of the condition of the masses of the people by bettering them in the way of lifting themselves out of the misery which has hitherto been the lot of the majority of them. Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive to me, but, if I am to be remembered at all, I would rather it should be as "a man who did his best to help the people" than by other title. So you see it is no small pleasure and encouragement to me to find that I have been, and am, of any use in this direction.
Ever since my experience on the School Board, I have been convinced that I should lose rather than gain by entering directly into politics...But I suppose I have some ten years of activity left in me, and you may depend upon it I shall lose no chance of striking a blow for the cause I have at heart. I thought the time had come the other day at the Society of Arts, and the event proves I was not mistaken. The animal is moving, and by a judicious exhibition of carrots in front and kicks behind, we shall get him into a fine trot presently. In the meantime do not let the matter rest...The (City) companies should be constantly reminded that a storm is brewing. There are excellent men among them, who want to do what is right, and need help against the sluggards and reactionaries. It will be best for me to be quiet for a while, but you will understand that I am watching for the turn of events.
I am, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This summer, too, he delivered a course on Biology for Teachers at South Kensington, and published not only his "American Addresses," but also the "Physiography," founded upon the course delivered seven years before. The book, of which 3386 copies were sold in the first six weeks, was fruitful in two ways; it showed that a geographical subject could be invested with interest, and it set going what was almost a new branch of teaching in natural science, even in Germany, the starting place of most educational methods, where it was immediately proposed to bring out an adaptation of the book, substituting, e.g. the Elbe for the Thames, as a familiar example of river action.
He was immensely pleased by a letter from Mr. John Morley, telling how his step-son, a boy of non-bookish tastes, had been taken with it. "My step-son was reading it the other night. I said, 'isn't it better to read a novel before going to bed, instead of worrying your head over a serious book like that?' 'Oh,' said he, 'I'm at an awfully interesting part, and I can't leave off.'" It was, Mr. Morley continued, "the way of making Nature, as she comes before us every day, interesting and intelligible to young folks."
To this he replied on December 14:—]
I shall get as vain as a peacock if discreet folk like you say such pretty things to me as you do about the "Physiography."
But it is very pleasant to me to find that I have succeeded in what I tried to do. I gave the lectures years ago to show what I thought was the right way to lead young people to the study of nature—but nobody would follow suit—so now I have tried what the book will do.
Your step-son is a boy of sense, and I hope he may be taken as a type of the British public!
[A good deal of time was taken up in the first half of the year by the Scottish Universities Commission, which necessitated his attendance in Edinburgh the last week in February, the first week in April, and the last week in July. He had hoped to finish off the necessary business at the first of these meetings, but no sooner had he arrived in Edinburgh, after a pleasant journey down with J.A. Froude, than he learned that] "the chief witness we were to have examined to-day, and whose due evisceration was one of the objects of my coming, has telegraphed to say he can't be here." [Owing to this and to the enforced absence of the judges on the Commission from some of the sittings, it was found necessary to have additional meetings at Easter, much to his disgust. He writes:—]
I am sorry to say I shall have to come here again in Easter week. It is the only time the Lord President is free from his courts, and although we all howled privately, there was no help for it. Whether we finish then or not will depend on the decision of the Government, as to our taking up the case of you troublesome women, who want admission into the University (very rightly too I think). If we have to go into this question it will involve the taking of new evidence and no end of bother. I find my colleagues very reasonable, and I hope some good may be done, that is the only consolation.
I went out with Blackie last evening to dine with the Skeltons, at a pretty place called the Hermitage, about three miles from here...Blackie and I walked home with snow on the ground and a sharp frost. I told you it would turn cold as soon as I got here, but I am none the worse.
[It was just the same in April:—]
It is quite cold here as usual, and there was ice on the ponds we passed this morning...I am much better lodged than I was last time, for the same thanks to John Bruce, but I do believe that the Edinburgh houses are the coldest in the universe. In spite of a good breakfast and a good fire, the half of me that is writing to you is as cold as charity.
April 4.
We toil at the Commission every day, and don't make any rapid progress. An awful fear creeps over me that we shall not finish this bout.
[While he was in Edinburgh for the third time, his attention was called to an article in the "Echo," the organ of the anti-vivisection party. He writes:—]
The "Echo" is pretty. It is one of a long series of articles from the same hand, but I don't think they hurt anybody and they evidently please the writer. For some reason or other they have not attacked me yet, but I suppose my turn will come.
[Again:—]
Thank you for sending me John Bright's speeches. They are very good, but hardly up to his old mark of eloquence. Some parts are very touching.
[His health was improving, as he notes with satisfaction:—]
Every day this week we have had about four hours of the Commission, and I have dined out four days out of the six. But I'm no the waur, and the late dinners have not been visited by fits of morning blue devils. So I am in hopes that I am getting back to the normal state that Clark prophesied for me.
4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., April 29, 1877.
My dear Skelton,
Best thanks for your second edition. You paint the system (i.e. of Scotch education.) in such favourable colours, that I am thinking of taking advantage of it for my horde of "young barbarians." I am sure Scotch air would be of service to them—and in after-life they might have the inestimable advantage of a quasi-Scotch nationality—that greatest of all practical advantages in Britain.
We are to sit again in the end of July when Mrs. Skelton and you, if you are wise, will be making holiday.
Your invitation is most tempting, and if I had no work to do I should jump at it.
But alas! I shall have a deal of work, and I must go to my Patmos in George Street. Ingrained laziness is the bane of my existence; and you don't suppose that with the sun shining down into your bosky dell, and Mrs. Skelton radiant, and Froude and yourself nicotiant, I am such a Philistine as to do a stroke of work?
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[From Edinburgh he went to St. Andrews to make arrangements for his elder son to go to the University there as a student the following winter. Then he paid a visit to Sir W. Armstrong in Northumberland, afterwards spending a month at Whitby. His holiday work consisted in a great part of the article on "Evolution" for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," which is noted as finished on October 24, though not published till the next year.
In November the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Charles Darwin at Cambridge,] "a great step for Cambridge, though it may not seem much in itself," [he writes to Dohrn, November 21. In the evening after the public ceremony there was a dinner of the Philosophical Club, at which he spoke in praise of Darwin's services to science. Darwin himself was unable to be present, but received an enthusiastic account of the proceedings from his son, and wrote to thank Huxley, who replied:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 21, 1877.
My dear Darwin,
Nothing ever gave me greater pleasure than the using the chance of speaking my mind about you and your work which was afforded me at the dinner the other night. I said not a word beyond what I believe to be strictly accurate; and, please Sir, I didn't sneer at anybody. There was only a little touch of the whip at starting, and it was so tied round with ribbons that it took them some time to find out where the flick had hit.
T.H. Huxley.
[He writes to his wife:—]
I will see if I can recollect the speech. I made a few notes sitting in Dewar's room before the dinner. But as usual I did not say some things I meant to say and said others that came up on the spur of the moment.
[And again:—]
Please I didn't say that Reaumur was the other greatest scientific man since Aristotle. But I said that in a certain character of his work he was the biggest man between Aristotle and Darwin. I really must write out an "authorised version" of my speech. I hear the Latin oration is to be in "Nature" this week, and Lockyer wanted me to give him the heads of my speech, but I did not think it would be proper to do so, and refused. I have written out my speech as well as I can recollect it. I do not mind any friend seeing it, but you must not let it get about as the dinner was a private one.
[The notes of his speech run as follows:—]
Mr. President,
I rise with pleasure and with alacrity to respond to the toast which you have just proposed, and I may say that I consider one of the greatest honours which have befallen me, to be called upon to represent my distinguished friend Mr. Darwin upon this occasion. I say to represent Mr. Darwin, for I cannot hope to personate him, or to say all that would be dictated by a mind conspicuous for its powerful humility and strong gentleness.
Mr. Darwin's work had fully earned the distinction you have to-day conferred upon him four-and-twenty years ago; but I doubt not that he would have found in that circumstance an exemplification of the wise foresight of his revered intellectual mother. Instead of offering her honours when they ran a chance of being crushed beneath the accumulated marks of approbation of the whole civilised world, the University has waited until the trophy was finished, and has crowned the edifice with the delicate wreath of academic appreciation.
This is what I suppose Mr. Darwin might have said had he been happily able to occupy my place. Let me now speak in my own person and in obedience to your suggestion, let me state as briefly as possible what appear to me to be Mr. Darwin's distinctive merits.
From the time of Aristotle to the present day I know of but one man who has shown himself Mr. Darwin's equal in one field of research—and that is Reaumur. In the breadth of range of Mr. Darwin's investigations upon the ways and works of animals and plants, in the minute patient accuracy of his observations, and in the philosophical ideas which have guided them, I know of no one who is to be placed in the same rank with him except Reaumur.
Secondly, looking back through the same long period of scientific history, I know of but one man, Lyonnet, who not being from his youth a trained anatomist, has published such an admirable minute anatomical research as is contained in Mr. Darwin's work on the Cirripedes.
Thirdly, in that region which lies between Geology and Biology, and is occupied by the problem of the influence of life on the structure of the globe, no one, so far as I know, has done a more brilliant and far-reaching piece of work than the famous book upon Coral Reefs.
I add to these as incidental trifles the numerous papers on Geology, and that most delightful of popular scientific books, the "Journal of a Naturalist," and I think I have made out my case for the justification of to-day's proceedings.
But I have omitted something. There is the "Origin of Species," and all that has followed it from the same marvellously fertile brain.
Most people know Mr. Darwin only as the author of this work, and of the form of evolutional doctrine which it advocates. I desire to say nothing about that doctrine. My friend Dr. Humphry has said that the University has by to-day's proceedings committed itself to the doctrine of evolution. I can only say "I am very glad to hear it." But whether that doctrine be true or whether it be false, I wish to express the deliberate opinion, that from Aristotle's great summary of the Biological knowledge of his time down to the present day, there is nothing comparable to the "Origin of Species," as a connected survey of the phenomena of life permeated and vivified by a central idea. In remote ages the historian of science will dwell upon it as the starting-point of the Biology of his present and our future.
My friend Dr. Humphry has adverted to somebody about whom I know nothing, who says that the exact and critical studies pursued in this University are ill-calculated to preserve a high tone of mind.
I presume that this saying must proceed from some one wholly unacquainted with Cambridge. Whoever he may be, I beg him, if he can, to make the acquaintance of Charles Darwin.
In Mr. Darwin's name I beg leave to thank you for the honour you have done him.
[It happened that the quadrennial election of a Lord Rector at St. Andrews University fell in this year, and on behalf of a number of students, Huxley received a telegram from his son, now newly entered at St. Andrews, asking him to stand. He writes to his wife:—]
That boy of yours has just sent me a telegram, which I enclose. I sent back message to say that as a Commissioner on the Scotch Universities I could not possibly stand. The cockerel is beginning to crow early. I do believe that to please the boy I should have assented to it if it had not been for the Royal Commission.
[Apropos of controversies (November 23)]
We had a grand discussion at the Royal Society last night between Tyndall and Burdon Sanderson. The place was crammed, and we had a late sitting. I'm not sure, however, that we had got much further at the end than at the beginning, which is a way controversies have.
[The following story is worth recording, as an illustration not only of the way in which Huxley would give what help was in his power to another man of science in distress, but of the ready aid proffered on this, as on many other occasions, by a wealthy northern merchant who was interested in science. A German scientific worker in England, whom we will call H., had fallen into distress, and applied to him for help, asking if some work could not be put in his way. Huxley could think of nothing immediate but to suggest some lessons in German literature to his children, though in fact they were well provided for with a German governess; nevertheless he thought it a proper occasion to avail himself of his friend's offer to give help in deserving cases. He writes to his wife:—]
I made up my mind to write to X. the day before yesterday; this morning by return of post he sends me a cheque not only for the 60 pounds which I said H. needed, but 5 pounds over for his present needs with a charming letter.
It came in the nick of time, as H. came an hour or two after it arrived, and with many apologies told me he was quite penniless. The poor old fellow was quite overcome when I told him of how matters stood, and it was characteristic that as soon as he got his breath again, he wanted to know when he would begin teaching the children! I sent him to get an order on the Naples bank for discharge of his debt there. X.'s express stipulation was that his name should not be mentioned, so mind you say not a word about his most kind and generous act.
[The following letters of miscellaneous interest were written in this year:—]
4 Marlborough Place, November 21, 1877.
My dear Morley,
I am always at the command of the "Fortnightly" so long as you are editor, but I don't think that the Belemnite business would do for you. [The lecture at the London Institution mentioned above.] The story would hardly be intelligible without illustrations.
There are two things I am going to do which may be more to the purpose. One is a screed on Technical Education which I am going to give to the Working Men's Union on the 1st December.
The other is a sort of Eloge on Harvey at the Royal Institution in March apropos of his 300th birthday—which was Allfools Day.
You shall have either of these you like, but I advise Harvey; as if I succeed in doing what I shall aim at it will be interesting.
Why the deuce do you live at Brighton? St. John's Wood is far less cockneyfied, and its fine and Alpine air would be much better for you, and I believe for Mrs. Morley, than the atmosphere of the melancholy main, the effects of which on the human constitution have been so well expounded by that eminent empiric, Dr. Dizzy.
Anyhow, I wish we could see something of you now and then.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Darwin got his degree with great eclat on Saturday. I had to return thanks for his health at the dinner of the Philosophical Society; and oh! I chaffed the dons so sweetly.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 27, 1877.
My dear Morley,
You shall have both the articles—if it is only that I may enjoy the innocent pleasure of Knowles' face when I let him know what has become of them. [The rival editor. Cp. above.]
Stormy ocean, forsooth! I back the storm and rain through which I came home to-night against anything London-super-mare has to show.
I will send the manuscript to Virtue as soon as it is in a reasonable state.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 8, 1878.
My dear Morley,
Many thanks for the cheque. In my humble judgment it is quite as much as the commodity is worth.
It was a great pleasure to us all to have you with us on New Year's Day. My wife claims it as her day, and I am not supposed to know anything about the guests except Spencer and Tyndall. None but the very elect are invited to the sacred feast—so you see where you stand among the predestined who cannot fall away from the state of grace.
I have not seen Spencer in such good form and good humour combined for an age.
I am working away at Harvey, and will send the manuscript to Virtue's as soon as I am sufficiently forward.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
4 Marlborough Place, December 9, 1877.
My dear Tyndall,
I am so sorry to have been out when Mrs. Tyndall called to-day. By what we heard at the x on Thursday, I imagined you were practically all right again, or I should have been able to look after you to-day.
But what I bother you with this note for is to beg you not to lecture at the London Institution to-morrow, but to let me change days with you, and so give yourself a week to recover. And if you are seedy, then I am quite ready to give them another lecture on the Hokypotamus or whatever else may turn up.
But don't go and exert yourself in your present condition. These severe colds have often nothing very tangible about them, but are not to be trifled with when folks are past fifty.
Let me have an answer to say that I may send a telegram to Nicholson first thing to-morrow morning to say that I will lecture vice you. My "bottled life," as Hutton calls it in the "Spectator" this week, is quite ready to go off. [The "Spectator" for December 8, 1877, began an article thus:—"Professor Huxley delivered a very amusing address last Saturday at the Society of Arts, on the very unpromising subject of technical education; but we believe that if Professor Huxley were to become the President of the Social Science Association, or of the International Statistical Congress, he would still be amusing, so much bottled life does he infuse into the driest topic on which human beings ever contrived to prose."]
Now be a sane man and take my advice.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
CHAPTER 2.10.
1878.
[The year 1878 was the tercentenary of Harvey's birth, and Huxley was very busy with the life and work of that great physician. He spoke at the memorial meeting at the College of Physicians (July 18), he gave a lecture on Harvey at the Royal Institution on January 25, afterwards published in "Nature" and the "Fortnightly Review," and intended to write a book on him in a projected "English Men of Science" series. (See below.)]
I am very glad you like "Harvey" [he writes to Professor Baynes on February 11]. He is one of the biggest scientific minds we have had. I expect to get well vilipended not only by the anti-vivisection folk, for the most of whom I have a hearty contempt, but apropos of Bacon. I have been oppressed by the humbug of the "Baconian Induction" all my life, and at last THE WORM HAS TURNED. |
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