Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 61

[With the article in the February number of the "Nineteenth Century,"

he concluded his tilt with Mr. Gladstone upon the interpretation of Genesis. His supposed] "unjaded appet.i.te" [for controversy was already satiated; and he begged leave to retire from] "that 'atmosphere of contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air," [for the] "Elysium" of scientific debate, which "suits my less robust const.i.tution better." [A vain hope. Little as he liked controversy at bottom, in spite of the skill--it must be allowed, at times, a pleasurable skill--in using the weapons of debate, he was not to avoid it any more than he was to avoid the east wind when he went to Bournemouth from early in February till the end of March, of which he writes on February 23:--]

The "English Naples" is rather Florentine so far as a bitter cold east wind rather below than above 0 degrees C. goes, but from all I hear it is a deal better than London, and I am picking up in spite of it. I wish I were a Holothuria, and could get on without my viscera. I should do splendidly then.

[Here he wrote a long article on the "Evolution of Theology"

("Collected Essays" 4 287) which appeared in the March and April numbers of the "Nineteenth Century." It was a positive statement of the views he had arrived at, which underlay the very partial--and therefore misleading--exposition of them possible in controversy. He dealt with the subject, not with reference to the truth or falsehood of the notions under review, but purely as a question of anthropology,] "a department of biology to which I have at various times given a good deal of attention." [Starting with the familiar ground of the Hebrew Scriptures, he thus explains the paleontological method he proposes to adopt:--]

In the venerable record of ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is really a library comparable to a selection of works from English literature between the times of Beda and those of Milton, we have the stratified deposits (often confused and even with their natural order inverted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral life of Israel during many centuries. And, embedded in these strata, there are numerous remains of forms of thought which once lived, and which, though often unfortunately mere fragments, are of priceless value to the anthropologist. Our task is to rescue these from their relatively unimportant surroundings, and by careful comparison with existing forms of theology to make the dead world which they record live again.

[A subsequent letter to Professor Lewis Campbell bears upon this essay. It was written in answer to an inquiry prompted by the comparison here drawn between the primitive spiritual theories of the books of Judges and Samuel, and the very similar development of ideas among the Tongans, as described by Mariner, who lived many years among the natives.]

Hodeslea, October 10, 1894.

My dear Campbell,

I took a good deal of trouble years ago to satisfy myself about the point you mention, and I came to the conclusion that Mariner was eminently trustworthy, and that Martin was not only an honest, but a shrewd and rather critical, reporter. The story he tells about testing Mariner's version of King Theebaw's oration shows his frame of mind (and is very interesting otherwise in relation to oral tradition).

I have a lot of books about Polynesia, but of all I possess and have read, Mariner is to my mind the most trustworthy.

The missionaries are apt to colour everything, and they never have the chance of knowing the interior life as Mariner knew it. It was this conviction that led me to make Mariner my cheval de bataille in "Evolution of Theology."

I am giving a good deal of trouble--ill for the last week, and at present with a sharp lumbago! so nice! With our love to Mrs. Campbell and yourself.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The circ.u.mstances under which the following letter was written are these. The activity of the Home Rulers and the lethargy of Unionists had caused one side only of the great question then agitating English politics to be represented in the American press, with the result that the funds of the Nationalists were swelled by subscriptions from persons who might have acted otherwise if the arguments on the other side had been adequately laid before them.

Mr. Albert Grey, M.P., therefore had arranged for a series of clear, forcible p.r.o.nouncements from strong representative Englishmen against a separate Parliament, to be cabled over to New York to a syndicate of influential newspapers, and his American advisers desired that the opening statement should be from Huxley.

Although it will be seen from the letter that he would not undertake this task, Mr. Grey showed the letter to one or two of the leading Liberal Unionists to strengthen their hands, and begged permission to publish it for the benefit of the whole party. Accordingly, it appeared in the "Times" of April 13, 1886.]

Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 21, 1886.

Dear Mr. Grey,

I am as much opposed to the Home Rule scheme as any one can possibly be, and if I were a political man I would fight against it as long as I had any breath left in me; but I have carefully kept out of the political field all my life, and it is too late for me now to think of entering it.

Anxious watching of the course of affairs for many years past has persuaded me that nothing short of some sharp and sweeping national misfortune will convince the majority of our countrymen that government by average opinion is merely a circuitous method of going to the devil; and that those who profess to lead but in fact slavishly follow this average opinion are simply the fastest runners and the loudest squeakers of the herd which is rus.h.i.+ng blindly down to its destruction.

It is the electorate, and especially the Liberal electorate, which is responsible for the present state of things. It has no political education. It knows well enough that 2 and 2 won't make 5 in a ledger, and that sentimental stealing in private life is not to be tolerated; but it has not been taught the great lesson in history that there are like verities in national life, and hence it easily falls a prey to any clever and copious fallacy-monger who appeals to its great heart instead of reminding it of its weak head.

Politicians have gone on flattering and cajoling this chaos of political incompetence until the just penalty of believing their own fictions has befallen them, and the average member of Parliament is conscientiously convinced that it is his duty, not to act for his const.i.tuents to the best of his judgment, but to do exactly what they, or rather the small minority which drives them, tells him to do.

Have we a real statesman? A man of the calibre of Pitt or Burke, to say nothing of Strafford or Pym, who will stand up and tell his countrymen that this disruption of the union is nothing but a cowardly wickedness--an act bad in itself, fraught with immeasurable evil--especially to the people of Ireland; and that if it cost his political existence, or his head, for that matter, he is prepared to take any and every honest means of preventing the mischief?

I see no sign of any. And if such a man should come to the front what chance is there of his receiving loyal and continuous support from a majority of the House of Commons? I see no sign of any.

There was a time when the political madness of one party was sure to be checked by the sanity, or at any rate the jealousy of the other. At the last election I should have voted for the Conservatives (for the first time in my life) had it not been for Lord Randolph Churchill; but I thought that by thus jumping out of the Gladstonian frying-pan into the Churchillian fire I should not mend matters, so I abstained altogether.

Mr. Parnell has great qualities. For the first time the Irish malcontents have a leader who is not eloquent, but who is honest; who knows what he wants and faces the risks involved in getting it. Our poor Right Honourable Rhetoricians are no match for this man who understands realities. I believe also that Mr. Parnell's success will destroy the English politicians who permit themselves to be his instruments, as soon as bitter experience of the consequences has brought Englishmen and Scotchmen (and I will add Irishmen) to their senses.

I suppose one ought not to be sorry for that result, but there are men among them over whose fall all will lament.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Some of the newspapers took these concluding paragraphs to imply support of Parnell, so that at the end of June he writes:--]

The "Tribune" man seems to have less intelligence than might be expected. I spoke approvingly of the way in which Parnell had carried out his policy, which is rather different from approving the policy itself.

But these newspaper scribes don't take the trouble to understand what they read.

[While at Bournemouth he also finished and sent off to the "Youth's Companion," an American paper, an article on the evolution of certain types of the house, called "From the Hut to the Pantheon." Beginning with a description of the Pantheon, that characteristically Roman work with its vast dome, so strongly built that it is the only great dome remaining without a flaw:--]

For a long time [he says] I was perplexed to know what it was about the proportions of the interior of the Pantheon which gave me such a different feeling from that made by any other domed s.p.a.ce I had ever entered.

[The secret of this he finds in the broad and simple design peculiar to the building, and then shows in detail how:--]

The round hut, the Aedes Vestae, and the Pantheon are so many stages in a process of architectural evolution which was effected between the first beginnings of Roman history and the Augustan age.

[The relation between the beehive hut, the terremare, and the pile-dwellings of Italy lead to many suggestive bits of early anthropology, which, it may be hoped, bore fruit in the minds of some of his youthful readers.

We find him also reading over proofs for Mr. Herbert Spencer, who, although he might hesitate to ask for his criticism with respect to a subject on which they had a "standing difference," still:--

concluded that to break through the long-standing usage, in pursuance of which I have habitually submitted my biological writing to your castigation, and so often profited by so doing, would seem like a distrust of your candour--a distrust which I cannot entertain.

So he wrote in January; and on March 19 he wrote again, with another set of proofs:--

Toujours l'audace! More proofs to look over. Don't write a critical essay, only marginal notes. Perhaps you will say, like the Roman poet to the poetaster who asked him to erase any pa.s.sages he did not like, and who replied, "One erasure will suffice"--perhaps you will say, "There needs only one marginal note."

To this he received answer:--]

Casalini, W. Bournemouth, March 22, 1886.

My dear Spencer,

More power to your elbow! You will find my blessing at the end of the proof.

But please look very carefully at some comments which are not merely sceptical criticisms, but deal with matters of fact.

I see the difference between us on the speculative question lies in the conception of the primitive protoplasm. I conceive it as a mechanism set going by heat--as a sort of active crystal with the capacity of giving rise to a great number of pseudomorphs; and I conceive that external conditions favour one or the other pseudomorph, but leave the fundamental mechanism untouched.

You appear to me to suppose that external conditions modify the machinery, as if by transferring a flour-mill into a forest you could make it into a saw-mill I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything--especially as I am now so much occupied with theology--but I don't see my way to your conclusion.

And that is all the more reason why I don't want to stop you from working it out, or rather to make the "one erasure" you suggest. For as to stopping you, "ten on me might," as the navvy said to the little special constable who threatened to take him into custody.