Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 50

The skull to which Cunningham refers, consists of little more than the jaws, but luckily nearly all the teeth are in place, and prove it to be an entirely new ungulate mammal with teeth in uninterrupted series like Anoplotherium, about as big as a small horse.

What a wonderful a.s.semblage of beasts there seems to have been in South America! I suspect if we could find them all they would make the cla.s.sification of the Mammalia into a horrid mess.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[And on July 16, 1869, he writes again to Darwin:--]

To tell you the truth, what with fossils, Ethnology and the great question of "Darwinismus" which is such a worry to us all, I have lost sight of the collectors and naturalists "by grace of the dredge," almost as completely as you have.

[Indeed, the pressure was so great that he resolved to give up the Hunterian Lectures at the College of Surgeons, as he had already given up the Fullerian Professors.h.i.+p at the Royal Inst.i.tution. So he writes to Professor (afterwards Sir William) Flower:--]

Jermyn Street, June 7, 1869.

PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL, PARTICULAR.

My dear Flower,

I have written to Quain [President of the Royal College of Surgeons.] to tell him that I do not propose to be put in nomination for the Hunterian Chair this year. I really cannot stand it with the British a.s.sociation hanging over my head. So make thy shoulders ready for the gown, and practise the goose-step in order to march properly behind the mace, and I will come and hear your inaugural.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[The meeting of the a.s.sociation to which he refers took place at Exeter, and he writes of it to Darwin (September 28):--]

As usual, your abominable heresies were the means of getting me into all sorts of hot water at the a.s.sociation. Three parsons set upon you, and if you were the most malicious of men you could not have wished them to have made greater fools of themselves than they did. They got considerably chaffed, and that was all they were worth. [(It is perhaps scarcely worth while exhuming these long-forgotten arguments in their entirety; but anyone curious enough to consult the report of the meeting preserved in the files of the "Academy," will find, among other things, an entirely novel theory as to the relation of the Cherubim to terrestrial creation.)

And to Tyndall, whom an accident had kept in Switzerland:--]

After a sharp fight for Edinburgh, Liverpool was adopted as the place of meeting for the a.s.sociation of 1870, and I am to be President; although the "Times" says that my best friends tremble for me. (I hope you are not among that particular lot of my best friends.)

I think we shall have a good meeting, and you know you are pledged to give a lecture even if you come with your leg in a sling.

[The foundation of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 was not without interest as a sign of the times. As in the new birth of thought which put a period to the Middle Ages, so in the Victorian Renaissance, a vast intellectual ferment had taken immediate shape in a fierce struggle with long established orthodoxy. But whereas Luther displaced Erasmus, and the earlier reformers fought out the quarrel with the weapons of the theologian rather than those of the Humanist, the latter-day reformation was based upon the extension of the domain of positive science, upon the force of historical criticism, and the sudden reorganisation of acc.u.mulated knowledge in the light of a physical theory adequate to explain it.

These new facts and the new or re-vivified theories based upon them, remained to be reckoned with after the first storm of denunciation had pa.s.sed by, and the meeting at Sion House in 1867 showed that some at least of the English clergy besides Colenso and Stanley wished to understand the real meaning of the new movement. Although the wider effect of the scientific revival in modifying theological doctrine was not yet fully apparent, the irreconcilables grew fewer and less noisy, while the injustice of their attempts to stifle the new doctrine and to ostracise its supporters became more glaring.

Thus among the supporters of the old order of thought, there was one section more or less ready to learn of the new. Another, seeing that the doctrines of which they were firmly convinced were thrust aside by the rapid advance of the new school, thought, as men not unnaturally think in the like situation, that the latter did not duly weigh what was said on their side. Hence this section eagerly entered into the proposal to found a society which should bring together men of diverse views, and effect, as they hoped, by personal discussion of the great questions at issue, in the manner and with the machinery of the learned societies, a rapprochement unattainable by written debate.

The scheme was first propounded by Mr. James Knowles, then editor of the "Contemporary Review," now of the "Nineteenth Century," in conversation with Tennyson and Professor Pritchard (Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford).

Thus the Society came to be composed of men of the most opposite ways of thinking and of very various occupations in life. The largest group was that of churchmen:--ecclesiastical dignitaries such as Thompson, the Archbishop of York, Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and Dean Alford; staunch laymen such as Mr. Gladstone, Lord Selborne, and the Duke of Argyll; while the liberal school was represented by Dean Stanley, F.D. Maurice, and Mark Pattison. Three distinguished converts from the English Church championed Roman Catholic doctrine--Cardinal Manning, Father Dalgairns, and W.G. Ward, while Unitarianism claimed Dr.

James Martineau. At the opposite pole, in antagonism to Christian theology and theism generally, stood Professor W.K. Clifford, whose youthful brilliancy was destined to be cut short by an untimely death.

Positivism was represented by Mr. Frederic Harrison; and Agnosticism by such men of science or letters as Huxley and Tyndall, Mr. John Morley, and Mr. Leslie Stephen.

Something was gained, too, by the variety of callings followed by the different members. While there were professional students of philosophy, like Professor Henry Sidgwick or Sir Alexander Grant, the Princ.i.p.al of Edinburgh University, in some the technical knowledge of philosophy was overlaid by studies in history or letters; in others, by the practical experience of the law or politics; in others, again, medicine or biology supplied a powerful psychological instrument. This fact tended to keep the discussions in touch with reality on many sides.

There was Tennyson, for instance, the only poet who thoroughly understood the movement of modern science, a stately but silent member; Mr. Ruskin, J.A. Froude, Shadworth Hodgson, R.H. Hutton of the "Spectator," James Hinton, and the well-known essayist, W.R. Greg; Sir James FitzJames Stephen, Sir F. Pollock, Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke), Sir M.E. Grant Duff, and Lord Arthur Russell; Sir John Lubbock, Dr. W.B.

Carpenter, Sir William Gull, and Sir Andrew Clark.

Of contemporary thinkers of the first rank, neither John Stuart Mill nor Mr. Herbert Spencer joined the society. The letter of the former declining the invitation to join (given in the "Life of W.G. Ward" page 299) is extremely characteristic. He considers the object of the projectors very laudable, "but it is very doubtful whether it will be realised in practice." The undoubted advantages of oral discussion on such questions are, he continues, best realised if undertaken in the manner of the Socratic dialogue, between one and one; but less so in a mixed a.s.sembly. He therefore did not think himself justified in joining the society at the expense of other occupations for which his time was already engaged. And he concludes by defending himself against the charge of not paying fair attention to the arguments of his opponents.

It followed from the composition of the society that the papers read were less commonly upon technical questions of metaphysics, such as "Matter and Force" or "The Relation of Will to Thought," than upon those of more vivid moral or religious interest, such as "What is Death?" "The Theory of a Soul," "The Ethics of Belief," or "Is G.o.d Unknowable," in which wide scope was given to the emotions as well as the intellect of each disputant.

The method of the Society was for the paper to be printed and circulated among the members before the meeting, so that their main criticisms were ready in advance. The discussions took place after a dinner at which many of the members would appear; and if the more formal debates were not more effectual than predicted by J.S. Mill, the informal discussions, almost conversations, at smaller meetings, and the free course of talk at the dinner table, did something to realise the primary objects of the society. The personal rapprochement took place, but not philosophic compromise or conversion. Whether or not the tone adopted after this period by the clerical party at large was affected by the better understanding on the part of their representatives in the Metaphysical Society of the true aims of their opponents and the honest and substantial difficulties which stood in the way of reunion, it is true that the violent denunciations of the sixties decreased in number and intensity; the right to free expression of reasoned opinion on serious fact was tacitly acknowledged; and, being less attacked, Huxley himself began to be regarded in the light of a teacher rather than an iconoclast. The question began to be not whether such opinions are wicked, but whether from the point of view of scientific method they are irrefragably true.

The net philosophical result of the society's work was to distinguish the essential and the unessential differences between the opposite parties; the latter were to a great extent cleared up; but the former remained all the more clearly defined in logical nakedness for the removal of the side issues and the personal idiosyncrasies which often obscured the main issues. Indeed, when this point was reached by both parties, when the origins and consequences of the fundamental principles on either side had been fully discussed and mutual misunderstandings removed to the utmost, so that only the fundamentals themselves remained in debate, there was nothing left to be done. The society, in fact, as Huxley expressed it,] "died of too much love."

[Indeed, it is to be noticed that, despite the strong antagonism of principle and deductions from principle which existed among the members, the rule of mutual toleration was well kept. The state of feeling after ten years' open struggle seemed likely to produce active collision between representatives of the opposing schools at close quarters.] "We all thought it would be a case of Kilkenny cats," [said Huxley many years afterwards.] "Hats and coats would be left in the hall, but there would be no owners left to put them on again." [But only one flash of the sort was elicited. One of the speakers at an early meeting insisted on the necessity of avoiding anything like moral disapprobation in the debates. There was a pause; then W.G. Ward said: "While acquiescing in this condition as a general rule, I think it cannot be expected that Christian thinkers shall give no sign of the horror with which they would view the spread of such extreme opinions as those advocated by Mr.

Huxley." Another pause; then Huxley, thus challenged, replied: "As Dr.

Ward has spoken, I must in fairness say that it will be very difficult for me to conceal my feeling as to the intellectual degradation which would come of the general acceptance of such views as Dr. Ward holds."

("Life of W.G. Ward" by Wilfrid Ward page 309.)

No amount of argument could have been more effectual in supporting the claim for mutual toleration than those two speeches, and thenceforward such forms of criticism were conspicuous by their absence. And where honesty of conviction was patent, mutual toleration was often replaced by personal esteem and regard. "Charity, brotherly love," writes Huxley, "were the chief traits of the Society. We all expended so much charity, that, had it been money, we should every one have been bankrupt."

The special part played in the society by Huxley was to show that many of the axioms of current speculation are far from being axiomatic, and that dogmatic a.s.sertion on some of the cardinal points of metaphysic is unwarranted by the evidence of fact. To find these seeming axioms set aside as unproven, was, it appears from his "Life," disconcerting to such members of the society as Cardinal Manning, whose arguments depended on the unquestioned acceptance of them. It was no doubt the observation of a similar att.i.tude of mind in Mr. Gladstone towards metaphysical problems which provoked Huxley to reply, when asked whether Mr. Gladstone was an expert metaphysician--"An expert in metaphysics? He does not know the meaning of the word."

In addition to his share in the discussions, Huxley contributed three papers to the society. The first, read November 17, 1869, was on "The views of Hume, Kant, and Whately on the logical basis of the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul," showing that these thinkers agreed in holding that no such basis is given by reasoning, a part, for instance, from revelation. A summary of the argument appears in the essay on Hume ("Collected Essays" 6 201 sq.)

On November 8, 1870, he read a paper, "Has a Frog a Soul? and if so, of what Nature is that Soul?" Experiment shows that a frog deprived of consciousness and volition by the removal of the front part of its brain, will, under the action of various stimuli, perform many acts which can only be called purposive, such as moving to recover its balance when the board on which it stands is inclined, or scratching where it is made uncomfortable, or croaking when pressed in a particular spot. If its spinal cord be severed, the lower limbs, disconnected from the brain, will also perform actions of this kind. The question arises, Is the frog entirely a soulless automaton, performing all its actions directly in response to external stimuli, only more perfectly and with more delicate adjustment when its brain remains intact, or is its soul distributed along its spinal marrow, so that it can be divided into two parts independent of one another?

The professed metaphysician might perhaps tend to regard such consideration as irrelevant; but if the starting-point of metaphysics is to be found in psychology, psychology itself depends to no small extent upon physiology. This question, however, Huxley did not pretend to solve. In the existing state of knowledge he believed it to be insoluble. But he thought it was not without its bearing upon the supposed relations of soul and body in the human subject, and should serve to give pause to current theories on the matter.

His third paper, read January 11, 1876, was on the "Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection," in which he argued that there was no valid evidence of actual death having taken place. His rejection of the miraculous had led to an invitation from some of his opponents in the society to write a paper on a definite miracle, and explain his reasons for not accepting it. His choice of subject was due to two reasons: firstly, it was a cardinal instance; secondly, it was a miracle not worked by Christ Himself, and therefore a discussion of its genuineness could offer no suggestion of personal fraud, and hence would avoid inflicting gratuitous pain upon believers in it.

This certainty that there exist many questions at present insoluble, upon which it is intellectually, and indeed morally wrong to a.s.sert that we have real knowledge, had long been with him, but, although he had earned abundant odium by openly resisting the claims of dogmatic authority, he had not been compelled to define his philosophical position until he entered the Metaphysical Society. How he came to enrich the English language with the name "Agnostic" is explained in his article "Agnosticism" ("Collected Essays" 5 pages 237-239).

After describing how it came about that his mind] "steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant," [so well stated by the latter as follows:--

The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement (of knowledge), but as a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error:--

he proceeds:--]

When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them.

They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion...

This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate t.i.tle of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively ant.i.thetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when the "Spectator" had stood G.o.dfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course, completely lulled.

[As for the dialectical powers he displayed in the debates, it was generally acknowledged that in this, as well as in the power of conducting a debate, he shared the pre-eminence with W.G. Ward. Indeed, a proposal was made that the perpetual presidency in alternate years should be vested in these two; but time and health forbade.

His part in the debates is thus described in a letter to me from Professor Henry Sidgwick:--

Dear Mr. Huxley,

I became a member of the Metaphysical Society, I think, at its first meeting in 1869; and, though my engagements in Cambridge did not allow me to attend regularly, I retain a very distinct recollection of the part taken by your father in the debates at which we were present together. There were several members of the Society with whose philosophical views I had, on the whole, more sympathy; but there was certainly no one to whom I found it more pleasant and more instructive to listen. Indeed I soon came to the conclusion that there was only one other member of our Society who could be placed on a par with him as a debater, on the subjects discussed at our meetings; and that was, curiously enough, a man of the most diametrically opposite opinions--W.G. Ward, the well-known advocate of Ultramontanism. Ward was by training, and perhaps by nature, more of a dialectician; but your father was unrivalled in the clearness, precision, succinctness, and point of his statements, in his complete and ready grasp of his own system of philosophical thought, and the quickness and versatility with which his thought at once a.s.sumed the right att.i.tude of defence against any argument coming from any quarter. I used to think that while others of us could perhaps find, on the spur of the moment, AN answer more or less effective to some unexpected attack, your father seemed always able to find THE answer--I mean the answer that it was reasonable to give, consistently with his general view, and much the same answer that he would have given if he had been allowed the fullest time for deliberation.