Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 60

CHAPTER 3.15.

He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his life than that?

[Such was Huxley's epitaph upon Henslow; it was the standard which he endeavoured to reach in his own life. It is the expression of that pa.s.sion for veracity which was perhaps his strongest characteristic; an uncompromising pa.s.sion for truth in thought, which would admit no particle of self-deception, no a.s.sertion beyond what could be verified; for truth in act, perfect straightforwardness and sincerity, with complete disregard of personal consequences for uttering unpalatable fact.

Truthfulness, in his eyes, was the cardinal virtue, without which no stable society can exist. Conviction, sincerity, he always respected, whether on his own side or against him. Clever men, he would say, are as common as blackberries; the rare thing is to find a good one. The lie from interested motives was only more hateful to him than the lie from self-delusion or foggy thinking. With this he cla.s.sed the "sin of faith," as he called it; that form of credence which does not fulfil the duty of making a right use of reason; which prost.i.tutes reason by giving a.s.sent to propositions which are neither self-evident nor adequately proved.

This principle has always been far from finding universal acceptance.

One of his theological opponents went so far as to affirm that a doctrine may be not only held, but dogmatically insisted on, by a teacher who is, all the time, fully aware that science may ultimately prove it to be quite untenable.

His own course went to the opposite extreme. In teaching, where it was possible to let the facts speak for themselves, he did not further urge their bearing upon wider problems. He preferred to warn beginners against drawing superficial inferences in favour of his own general theories, from facts the real meaning of which was not immediately apparent. Father Hahn (S.J.), who studied under him in 1876, writes:--

One day when I was talking to him, our conversation turned upon evolution. "There is one thing about you I cannot understand," I said, "and I should like a word in explanation. For several months now I have been attending your course, and I have never heard you mention evolution, while in your public lectures everywhere you openly proclaim yourself an evolutionist." ("Revue des Questions Scientifiques"

(Brussels), for October 1895.)

Now it would be impossible to imagine a better opportunity for insisting on evolution than his lectures on comparative anatomy, when animals are set side by side in respect of the gradual development of functions. But Huxley was so reserved on this subject in his lectures that, speaking one day of a species forming a transition between two others, he immediately added:--]

"When I speak of transition I do not in the least mean to say that one species turned into a second to develop thereafter into a third. What I mean is, that the characters of the second are intermediate between those of the two others. It is as if I were to say that such a Cathedral, Canterbury, for example, is a transition between York Minster and Westminster Abbey. No one would imagine, on hearing the word transition, that a trans.m.u.tation of these buildings actually took place from one into other." [(Doubtless in connection with the familiar warning that intermediate types are not necessarily links in the direct line of descent.)

But to return to his reply:--]

"Here in my teaching lectures [he said to me] I have time to put the facts fully before a trained audience. In my public lectures I am obliged to pa.s.s rapidly over the facts, and I put forward my personal convictions. And it is for this that people come to hear me."

[As to the question whether children should be brought up in entire disregard to the beliefs rejected by himself, but still current among the ma.s.s of his fellow-countrymen, he was of opinion that they ought to know] "the mythology of their time and country," [otherwise one would at the best tend to make young prigs of them; but as they grew up their questions should be answered frankly. (The wording of a paragraph in Professor Mivart's "Reminiscences" ("Nineteenth Century", December 1897, P. 993), tends, I think, to leave a wrong impression on this point.)

The natural tendency to veracity, strengthened by the observation of the opposite quality in one with whom he was early brought into contact, received its decisive impulse, as has been told before, from Carlyle, whose writings confirmed and established his youthful reader in a hatred of shams and make-believes equal to his own.

In his mind no compromise was possible between truth and untruth. (As he once said, when urged to write a more eulogistic notice of a dead friend than he thought deserved], "The only serious temptations to perjury I have ever known have arisen out of the desire to be of some comfort to people I cared for in trouble. If there are such things as Plato's 'Royal Lies' they are surely those which one is tempted to tell on such occasions. Mrs. -- is such a good devoted little woman, and I am so doubtful about having a soul, that it seems absurd to hesitate to peril it for her satisfaction.") [Against authorities and influences he published "Man's Place in Nature," though warned by his friends that to do so meant ruin to his prospects. When he had once led the way and challenged the upholders of conventional orthodoxy, others backed him up with a whole armoury of facts. But his fight was as far as possible for the truth itself, for fact, not merely for controversial victory or personal triumph. Yet, as has been said by a representative of a very different school of thought, who can wonder that he should have hit out straight from the shoulder, in reply to violent or insidious attacks, the stupidity of which sometimes merited scorn as well as anger?

In his theological controversies he was no less careful to avoid any approach to mere abuse or ribaldry such as some opponents of Christian dogma indulged in. For this reason he refused to interpose in the well-known Foote case. Discussion, he said, could be carried on effectually without deliberate wounding of others' feelings.

As he wrote in reply to an appeal for help in this case (March 12, 1883):--]

I have not read the writings for which Mr. Foote was prosecuted. But, unless their nature has been grossly misrepresented, I cannot say that I feel disposed to intervene on his behalf.

I am ready to go great lengths in defence of freedom of discussion, but I decline to admit that rightful freedom is attacked, when a man is prevented from coa.r.s.ely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest beliefs.

I would rather make an effort to get legal penalties inflicted with equal rigour on some of the anti-scientific blasphemers--who are quite as coa.r.s.e and unmannerly in their attacks on opinions worthy of all respect as Mr. Foote can possibly have been.

[The grand result of his determination not to compromise where truth was concerned, was the securing freedom of thought and speech. One man after another, looking back on his work, declares that if we can say what we think now, it is because he fought the battle of freedom. Not indeed the battle of toleration, if toleration means toleration of error for its own sake. Error, he thought, ought to be extirpated by all legitimate means, and not a.s.sisted because it is conscientiously held.

As Lord Hobhouse wrote, soon after his death:--

I see now many laudatory notices of him in papers. But I have not seen, and I think the younger men do not know, that which (apart from science) I should put forward as his strongest claim to reverence and grat.i.tude; and that is the steadfast courage and consummate ability with which he fought the battle of intellectual freedom, and insisted that people should be allowed to speak their honest convictions without being oppressed or slandered by the orthodox. He was one of those, perhaps the very foremost, who won that priceless freedom for us; and, as is too common, people enter into the labours of the brave, and do not even know what their elders endured, or what has been done for themselves.

With this went a proud independence of spirit, intolerant of patronage, careless of t.i.tular honours, indifferent to the acc.u.mulation of worldly wealth. He cared little even for recognition of his work. "If I had 400 pounds a year" [A sum which might have supported a bachelor, but was entirely inadequate to the needs of a large family.], he exclaimed at the outset of his career, "I should be content to work anonymously for the advancement of science." The only recognition he considered worth having, was that of the scientific world; yet so little did he seek it, so little insist on questions of priority, that, as Professor Howes tells me, there are at South Kensington among the ma.s.s of unpublished drawings from dissections made by him, many which show that he had arrived at discoveries which afterwards brought credit to other investigators.

He was as ready to disclaim for himself any merits which really belonged to his predecessors, whether philosophical or scientific. He was too well read in their works not to be aware of the debt owed them by his own generation, and he reminded the world how little the scientific insight of Goethe, for instance, or the solid labours of Buffon or Reaumur or Lamarck, deserved oblivion.

The only point on which he did claim recognition was the honesty of his motives. He was incapable of doing anything underhand, and he could not bear even the appearance of such conduct towards his friends, or those with whom he had business relations. In such cases he always took the bull by the horns, acknowledged an oversight or explained what was capable of misunderstanding. The choice between Edward Forbes and Hooker for the Royal Society's medal, or the explanations to Mr.

Spencer for not joining a social reform league of which the latter was a prominent member, will serve as instances.]

The most considerable difference I note among men [he wrote], is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

[For himself, he let no personal feelings stand in the way when fact negatived his theories: once convinced that they were untenable, he gave up Bathybius and the European origin of the Horse without hesitation.

The regard in which he was held by his friends was such that he was sometimes appealed to by both parties in a dispute. He was a man to be trusted with the confidence of his friends.] "Yes, you are quite right about 'loyal,'" [he writes to Mr. Knowles], "I love my friends and hate my enemies--which may not be in accordance with the Gospel, but I have found it a good wearing creed for honest men." [But he only regarded as "enemies" those whom he found to be double-dealers, shufflers, insincere, untrustworthy; a fair opponent he respected, and he could agree to differ with a friend without altering his friends.h.i.+p.

A lifelong impression of him was thus summed up by Dr. A.R. Wallace:--

I find that he was my junior by two years, yet he has always seemed to me to be the older, mainly no doubt, because from the very first time I saw him (now more than forty years ago), I recognised his vast superiority in ability, in knowledge, and in all those qualities that enable a man to take a foremost place in the world. I owe him thanks for much kindness and for a.s.sistance always cordially given, and although we had many differences of opinion, I never received from him a harsh or unkind word.

To those who could only judge him from his controversial literature, or from a formal business meeting, he often appeared hard and unsympathetic, but never to those who saw beneath the surface. In personal intercourse, if he disliked a man--and a strong individuality has strong likes and dislikes--he would merely veil his feelings under a superabundant politeness of the chilliest kind; but to any one admitted to his friends.h.i.+p he was sympathy itself. And thus, although I have heard him say that his friends, in the fullest sense of the word, could be reckoned on the fingers of one hand, the impression he made upon all who came within the circle of his friends.h.i.+p was such that quite a number felt themselves to possess his intimacy, and one wrote, after his death: "His many private friends are almost tempted to forget the public loss, in thinking of the qualities which so endeared him to them all."

Both the speculative and the practical sides of his intellect were strongly developed. On the one hand, he had an intense love of knowledge, the desire to attain true knowledge of facts, and to organise them in their true relations. His contributions to pure science never fail to ill.u.s.trate both these tendencies. His earlier researches brought to light new facts in animal life, and new ideas as to the affinities of the creatures he studied; his later investigations were coloured by Darwin's views, and in return contributed no little direct evidence in favour of evolution. But while the progress of the evolution theory in England owed more to his clear and unwearied exposition than to any other cause, while from the first he had indicated the points, such as the causes of sterility and variation, which must be cleared up by further investigation in order to complete the Darwinian theory, he did not add another to the many speculations since put forward.

On the other hand, intense as was his love of pure knowledge, it was balanced by his unceasing desire to apply that knowledge in the guidance of life. Always feeling that science was not solely for the men of science, but for the people, his constant object was to help the struggling world to ideas which should help them to think truly and so to live rightly. It is still true, he declared, that the people perish for want of knowledge. "If I am to be remembered at all," he writes (see volume 2), "I should like to be remembered as one who did his best to help the people." And again, he says in his Autobiographical Sketch, that other marks of success were as nothing if he could hope that he "had somewhat helped that movement of opinion which has been called the New Reformation."

This kind of aim in his work, of taking up the most fruitful idea of his time and bringing it home to all, is typified by his remark as he entered New York harbour on his visit to America in 1876, and watched the tugs hard at work as they traversed the bay.] "If I were not a man," [he said], "I think I should like to be a tug."

[Two incidents may be cited to show that he did not entirely fail of appreciation among those whom he tried to help. Speaking of the year 1874, Professor Mivart writes ("Reminiscences of T.H. Huxley,"

"Nineteenth Century", December 1897.)

I recollect going with him and Mr. John Westlake, Q.C., to a meeting of artisans in the Blackfriars Road, to whom he gave a friendly address.

He felt a strong interest in working-men, and was much beloved by them.

On one occasion, having taken a cab home, on his arrival there, when he held out his fare to the cabman, the latter replied, "Oh no, Professor, I have had too much pleasure and profit from hearing you lecture to take any money from your pocket--proud to have driven you, sir!"

The other is from a letter to the "Pall Mall Gazette" of September 20, 1892, from Mr. Raymond Blaythwayt, on "The Uses of Sentiment":--

Only to-day I had a most striking instance of sentiment come beneath my notice. I was about to enter my house, when a plain, simply-dressed working-man came up to me with a note in his hand, and touching his hat, he said, "I think this is for you, sir," and then he added, "Will you give me the envelope, sir, as a great favour?" I looked at it, and seeing it bore the signature of Professor Huxley, I replied, "Certainly I will; but why do you ask for it?" "Well," said he, "it's got Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me to show my mates and keep for my children. He have done me and my like a lot of good; no man more."

In practical administration, his judgment of men, his rapid perception of the essential points at issue, his observance of the necessary limits of official forms, combined with the greatest possible elasticity within these limits, made him extremely successful.

As Professor (writes the late Professor Jeffery Parker), Huxley's rule was characterised by what is undoubtedly the best policy for the head of a department. To a new subordinate, "The General," as he was always called, was rather stern and exacting, but when once he was convinced that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared."] "Never mind, Parker," [he said, instantly capping my quotation], "cast four anchors out of the stern and wish for day."

[Nothing, indeed, better ill.u.s.trates this willingness to listen to suggested improvements than the inversion of the order of studies in the biological course which he inaugurated in 1872, namely, the subst.i.tution of the anatomy of a vertebrate for the microscopic examination of a unicellular organism as the opening study. This was entirely Parker's doing. "As one privileged at the time to play a minor part," writes Professor Howes ("Nature" January 6, 1898 page 228), "I well recall the determination in Parker's mind that the change was desirable, and in Huxley's, that it was not. Again and again did Parker appeal in vain, until at last, on the morning of October 2, 1878, he triumphed."

On his students he made a deep and lasting impression.

His lectures (writes Jeffery Parker) were like his writings, luminously clear, without the faintest disposition to descend to the level of his audience; eloquent, but with no trace of the empty rhetoric which so often does duty for that quality; full of a high seriousness, but with no suspicion of pedantry; lightened by an occasional epigram or flashes of caustic humour, but with none of the small jocularity in which it is such a temptation to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to him one felt that comparative anatomy was indeed worthy of the devotion of a life, and that to solve a morphological problem was as fine a thing as to win a battle. He was an admirable draughtsman, and his blackboard ill.u.s.trations were always a great feature of his lectures, especially when, to show the relation of two animal types, he would, by a few rapid strokes and smudges, evolve the one into the other before our eyes. He seemed to have a real affection for some of the specimens ill.u.s.trating his lectures, and would handle them in a peculiarly loving manner; when he was lecturing on man, for instance, he would sometimes throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside him and take its hand, as if its silent companions.h.i.+p were an inspiration. To me his lectures before his small cla.s.s at Jermyn Street or South Kensington were almost more impressive than the discourses at the Royal Inst.i.tution, where for an hour and a half he poured forth a stream of dignified, earnest, sincere words in perfect literary form, and without the a.s.sistance of a note.

Another description is from the pen of an old pupil in the autumn of 1876, Professor H. Fairfield Osborn, of Columbia College:--

Huxley, as a teacher, can never be forgotten by any of his students. He entered the lecture-room promptly as the clock was striking nine (In most years the lectures began at ten.), rather quickly, and with his head bent forward "as if oppressive with its mind." He usually glanced attention to his cla.s.s of about ninety, and began speaking before he reached his chair. He spoke between his lips, but with perfectly clear a.n.a.lysis, with thorough interest, and with philosophic insight which was far above the average of his students. He used very few charts, but handled the chalk with great skill, sketching out the anatomy of an animal as if it were a transparent object. As in Darwin's face, and as in Erasmus Darwin's or Buffon's, and many other anatomists with a strong sense of form, his eyes were heavily overhung by a projecting forehead and eyebrows, and seemed at times to look inward. His lips were firm and closely set, with the expression of positiveness, and the other feature which most marked him was the very heavy ma.s.s of hair falling over his forehead, which he would frequently stroke or toss back. Occasionally he would light up the monotony of anatomical description by a bit of humour.

Huxley was the father of modern laboratory instruction; but in 1879 he was so intensely engrossed with his own researches that he very seldom came through the laboratory, which was ably directed by T. Jeffery Parker, a.s.sisted by Howes and W. Newton Parker, all of whom are now professors, Howes having succeeded to Huxley's chair. Each visit, therefore, inspired a certain amount of terror, which was really unwarranted, for Huxley always spoke in the kindest tones to his students, although sometimes he could not resist making fun at their expense. There was an Irish student who sat in front of me, whose anatomical drawings in water-colour were certainly most remarkable productions. Huxley, in turning over his drawing-book, paused at a large blur, under which was carefully inscribed, "sheep's liver," and smilingly said], "I am glad to know that is a liver; it reminds me as much of Cologne cathedral in a fog as of anything I have ever seen before." [Fortunately the nationality of the student enabled him to fully appreciate the humour.

The same note is sounded in Professor Mivart's description of these lectures in his Reminiscences:--