Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 35

It is interesting to see how, in his reply, Huxley took care to keep the main points at issue separate from the subordinate and unimportant ones. His answer is broken up into four letters. The first ("Times"

January 26) rehea.r.s.es the original issue between himself and Mr.

Gladstone; wherein both sides agreed that the creation of the sixth day included reptiles, so that, formally at least, his position was secure, though there was also a broader ground of difference to be considered.

Before proceeding further, he asks his critic whether he admits the existence of the contradiction involved, and if not, to state his reasons therefor. These reasons were again given on February 1 as the new interpretation of the two Hebrew words already referred to, an interpretation, by the way, which makes the same word stand both for "the vast and various population of the waters" and "for such land animals as mice, weasels, and lizards, great and small."

On February 3 appeared the second letter, in which, setting aside the particular form which his argument against Mr. Gladstone had taken, he described the broad differences between the teachings of Genesis and the teachings of evolution. He left the minor details as to the interpretation of the words in dispute, which did not really affect the main argument, to be dealt with in the next letter of February 4. It was a question with which he had long been familiar, as twenty years before he had, at Dr. Kalisch's request, gone over the proofs of his "Commentary on Leviticus".

The letter of February 3 is as follows:--]

While desirous to waste neither your s.p.a.ce nor my own time upon mere misrepresentations of what I have said elsewhere about the relations between modern science and the so-called "Mosaic" cosmogony, it seems needful that I should ask for the opportunity of stating the case once more, as briefly and fairly as I can.

I conceive the first chapter of Genesis to teach--(1) that the species of plants and animals owe their origin to supernatural acts of creation; (2) that these acts took place at such times and in such a manner that all the plants were created first, all the aquatic and aerial animals (notably birds) next, and all terrestrial animals last.

I am not aware that any Hebrew scholar denies that these propositions agree with the natural sense of the text. Sixty years ago I was taught, as most people were then taught, that they are guaranteed by Divine authority.

On the other hand, in my judgment, natural science teaches no less distinctly--(1) that the species of animals and plants have originated by a process of natural evolution; (2) that this process has taken place in such a manner that the species of animals and plants, respectively, have come into existence one after another throughout the whole period since they began to exist on the earth; that the species of plants and animals known to us are as a whole, neither older nor younger the one than the other.

The same holds good of aquatic and aerial species, as a whole, compared with terrestrial species; but birds appear in the geological record later than terrestrial reptiles, and there is every reason to believe that they were evolved from the latter.

Until it is shown that the first two propositions are not contained in the first chapter of Genesis, and that the second pair are not justified by the present condition of our knowledge, I must continue to maintain that natural science and the "Mosaic" account of the origin of animals and plants are in irreconcilable antagonism.

As I greatly desire that this broad issue should not be obscured by the discussion of minor points, I propose to defer what I may have to say about the great "shehretz" and "rehmes" question till to-morrow.

[On February 11 he wrote once more, again taking certain broader aspects of the problem presented by the first chapter of Genesis. He expressed his belief, as he had expressed it in 1869, that theism is not logically antagonistic to evolution. If, he continues, the account in Genesis, as Philo of Alexandria held, is only a poem or allegory, where is the proof that any one non-natural interpretation is the right one? and he concludes by pointing out the difficulties in the way of those who, like the famous thirty-eight, a.s.sert the infallibility of the Bible as guaranteed by the infallibility of the Church.

Apart from letters and occasional controversy, he published this year only one magazine article and a single volume of collected essays, though he was busy preparing the Romanes Lecture for 1893, the more so because there was some chance that Mr. Gladstone would be unable to deliver the first of the lectures in 1892, and Huxley had promised to be ready to take his place if necessary.

The volume (called "Controverted Questions") which appeared in 1892, was a collection of the essays of the last few years, mainly controversial, or as he playfully called them, "endeavours to defend a cherished cause," dealing with agnosticism and the demonological and miraculous element in Christianity. That they were controversial in tone no one lamented more than himself; and as in the letter to M. de Varigny, of November 25, 1891, so here in the prologue he apologises for the fact.]

This prologue,--of which he writes to a friend], "It cost me more time and pains than any equal number of pages I have ever written,"--[was designed to indicate the main question, various aspects of which are dealt with by these seemingly disconnected essays.]

The historical evolution of humanity [he writes], which is generally, and I venture to think not unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being, accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its originally large occupation of men's thought. The question--How far is this process to go? is, in my apprehension, the controverted question of our time.

This movement, marked by the claim for the freedom of private judgment, which first came to its fulness in the Renascence, is here sketched out, rising or sinking by turns under the pressure of social and political vicissitudes, from Wiclif's earliest proposal to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits sanctioned by the Scriptures, down to the manifesto in the previous year of the thirty-eight Anglican divines in defence of biblical infallibility, which practically ends in an appeal to the very principle they reject.

But he does not content himself with pointing out the destructive effects of criticism upon the evidence in favour of a "supernature"--"The present incarnation of the spirit of the Renascence," he writes, "differs from its predecessor in the eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down. That of which it has laid the foundation, of which it is already raising the superstructure, is the doctrine of evolution," a doctrine that "is no speculation, but a generalisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any one who will take the necessary trouble." And in a short dozen pages he sketches out that "common body of established truths" to which it is his confident belief that "all future philosophical and theological speculations will have to accommodate themselves."

There is no need to recapitulate these; they may be read in "Science and Christian Tradition", the fifth volume of the "Collected Essays"; but it is worth noticing that in conclusion, after rejecting "a great many supernaturalistic theories and legends which have no better foundations than those of heathenism," he declares himself as far from wis.h.i.+ng to "throw the Bible aside as so much waste paper" as he was at the establishment of the School Board in 1870. As English literature, as world-old history, as moral teaching, as the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed, the most democratic book in the world, he could not spare it.] "I do not say," [he adds], "that even the highest biblical ideal is exclusive of others or needs no supplement. But I do believe that the human race is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it."

[It was this volume that led to the writing of the magazine article referred to above. The republication in it of the "Agnosticism,"

originally written in reply to an article of Mr. Frederic Harrison's, induced the latter to disclaim in the "Fortnightly Review" the intimate connection a.s.sumed to exist between his views and the system of Positivism detailed by Comte, and at the same time to offer the olive branch to his former opponent. But while gratefully accepting the goodwill implied in the offer, Huxley still declared himself unable to]

"give his a.s.sent to a single doctrine which is the peculiar property of Positivism, old or new," [nor to agree with Mr. Harrison when he wanted:--]

to persuade us that agnosticism is only the Court of the Gentiles of the Positivist temple; and that those who profess ignorance about the proper solution of certain speculative problems ought to call themselves Positivists of the Gate, if it happens that they also take a lively interest in social and political questions.

[This essay, "An Apologetic Irenicon," contains more than one pa.s.sage of personal interest, which are the more worth quoting here, as the essay has not been republished. It was to have been included in a tenth volume of collected Essays, along with a number of others which he projected, but never wrote.

Thus, begging the Positivists not to regard him as a rival or compet.i.tor in the business of instructing the human race, he says:--]

I aspire to no such elevated and difficult situation. I declare myself not only undesirous of it, but deeply conscious of a const.i.tutional unfitness for it. Age and hygienic necessities bind me to a somewhat anchoritic life in pure air, with abundant leisure to meditate upon the wisdom of Candide's sage aphorism, "Cultivons notre jardin"--especially if the term garden may be taken broadly and applied to the stony and weed-grown ground within my skull, as well as to a few perches of more promising chalk down outside it. In addition to these effectual bars to any of the ambitious pretensions ascribed to me, there is another: of all possible positions that of master of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief of a party, appears to me to be the most undesirable; in fact, the average British matron cannot look upon followers with a more evil eye than I do. Such acquaintance with the history of thought as I possess, has taught me to regard schools, parties, and sects, as arrangements, the usual effect of which is to perpetuate all that is worst and feeblest in the master's, leader's, or founder's work; or else, as in some cases, to upset it altogether; as a sort of hydrants for extinguis.h.i.+ng the fire of genius, and for stifling the flame of high aspirations, the kindling of which has been the chief, perhaps the only, merit of the protagonist of the movement. I have always been, am, and propose to remain a mere scholar. All that I have ever proposed to myself is to say, this and this have I learned; thus and thus have I learned it: go thou and learn better; but do not thrust on my shoulders the responsibility for your own laziness if you elect to take, on my authority, conclusions, the value of which you ought to have tested for yourself.

[Again, replying to the reproach that all his public utterances had been of a negative character, that the great problems of human life had been entirely left out of his purview, he defends once more the work of the man who clears the ground for the builders to come after him:--]

There is endless backwoodsman's work yet to be done, If "those also serve who only stand and wait," still more do those who sweep and cleanse; and if any man elect to give his strength to the weeder's and scavenger's occupation, I remain of the opinion that his service should be counted acceptable, and that no one has a right to ask more of him than faithful performance of the duties he has undertaken. I venture to count it an improbable suggestion that any such person--a man, let us say, who has well-nigh reached his threescore years and ten, and has graduated in all the faculties of human relations.h.i.+ps; who has taken his share in all the deep joys and deeper anxieties which cling about them; who has felt the burden of young lives entrusted to his care, and has stood alone with his dead before the abyss of the eternal--has never had a thought beyond negative criticism. It seems to me incredible that such an one can have done his day's work, always with a light heart, with no sense of responsibility, no terror of that which may appear when the fact.i.tious veil of Isis--the thick web of fiction man has woven round nature--is stripped off.

[Challenged to state his "mental bias, pro or con," with regard to such matters as Creation, Providence, etc., he reiterates his words written thirty-two years before:--]

So far back as 1860 I wrote:--

"The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very largely to the supposed necessity of making science accord with the Hebrew cosmogony"; and that the hypothesis of special creation is, in my judgment, a "mere specious mask for our ignorance." Not content with negation, I said:--

"Harmonious order governing eternally continuous progress; the web and woof of matter and force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken thread, that veil which lies between us and the infinite; that universe which alone we know, or can know; such is the picture which science draws of the world."

Every reader of Goethe will know that the second is little more than a paraphrase of the well-known utterance of the "Zeitgeist" in "Faust", which surely is something more than a mere negation of the clumsy anthropomorphism of special creation.

Follows a query about "Providence," my answer to which must depend upon what my questioner means by that substantive, whether alone, or qualified by the adjective "moral."

If the doctrine of a Providence is to be taken as the expression, in a way "to be understanded of the people," of the total exclusion of chance from a place even in the most insignificant corner of Nature, if it means the strong conviction that the cosmic process is rational, and the faith that, throughout all duration, unbroken order has reigned in the universe, I not only accept it, but I am disposed to think it the most important of all truths. As it is of more consequence for a citizen to know the law than to be personally acquainted with the features of those who will surely carry it into effect, so this very positive doctrine of Providence, in the sense defined, seems to me far more important than all the theorems of speculative theology. If, further, the doctrine is held to imply that, in some indefinitely remote past aeon, the cosmic process was set going by some ent.i.ty possessed of intelligence and foresight, similar to our own in kind, however superior in degree, if, consequently, it is held that every event, not merely in our planetary speck, but in untold millions of other worlds, was foreknown before these worlds were, scientific thought, so far as I know anything about it, has nothing to say against that hypothesis. It is, in fact, an anthropomorphic rendering of the doctrine of evolution.

It may be so, but the evidence accessible to us is, to my mind, wholly insufficient to warrant either a positive or a negative conclusion.

[He remarks in pa.s.sing upon the entire exclusion of "special"

providences by this conception of a universal "Providence." As for "moral" providence:--]

So far as mankind has acquired the conviction that the observance of certain rules of conduct is essential to the maintenance of social existence, it may be proper to say that "Providence," operating through men, has generated morality. Within the limits of a fraction of a fraction of the living world, therefore, there is a "moral" providence.

Through this small plot of an infinitesimal fragment of the universe there runs a "stream of tendency towards righteousness." But outside the very rudimentary germ of a garden of Eden, thus watered, I am unable to discover any "moral" purpose, or anything but a stream of purpose towards the consummation of the cosmic process, chiefly by means of the struggle for existence, which is no more righteous or unrighteous than the operation of any other mechanism.

[This, of course, is the underlying principle of the Romanes Lecture, upon which he was still at work. It is more specifically expressed in the succeeding paragraph:--]

I hear much of the "ethics of evolution." I apprehend that, in the broadest sense of the term "evolution," there neither is, nor can be, any such thing. The notion that the doctrine of evolution can furnish a foundation for morals seems to me to be an illusion which has arisen from the unfortunate ambiguity of the term "fittest" in the formula, "survival of the fittest." We commonly use "fittest" in a good sense, with an understood connotation of "best"; and "best" we are apt to take in its ethical sense. But the "fittest" which survives in the struggle for existence may be, and often is, the ethically worst.

[Another paragraph explains the sense in which he used to say that the Romanes Lecture was a very orthodox discourse on the text, "Satan, the Prince of this world":--]

It is the secret of the superiority of the best theological teachers to the majority of their opponents that they substantially recognise these realities of things, however strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. The doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself, faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the "liberal"

popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so; that it is given to everybody to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments, such as that which represents "Providence" under the guise of a paternal philanthropist, and bids us believe that everything will come right (according to our notions) at last.

As to "Immortality" again [he refers his critic to his book on "Hume"].

I do not think I need return to "subjective" immortality, but it may be well to add that I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in h.e.l.l, for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such punishment) have now and then "descended into h.e.l.l" and stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective, immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, immortality must be eternal misery. The fate of Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of a mind imprisoned for ever within the flammantia moenia of inextinguishable memories.

Further, it may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews--Micah, Isaiah, and the rest--who took no count whatever of what might or might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.

[He admits that the generality of mankind will not be satisfied to be told that there are some topics about which we know nothing now, and do not seem likely ever to be able to know more; and, consequently, that in the long-run the world will turn to those who profess to have conclusions:--]

And that is the pity of it. As in the past, so, I fear, through a very long future, the mult.i.tude will continue to turn to those who are ready to feed it with the viands its soul l.u.s.teth after; who will offer mental peace where there is no peace, and lap it in the luxury of pleasant delusions.

To missionaries of the Neo-Positivist, as to those of other professed solutions of insoluble mysteries, whose souls are bound up in the success of their sectarian propaganda, no doubt, it must be very disheartening if the "world," for whose a.s.sent and approbation they sue, stops its ears and turns its back upon them. But what does it signify to any one who does not happen to be a missionary of any sect, philosophical or religious, and who, if he were, would have no sermon to preach except from the text with which Descartes, to go no further back, furnished us two centuries since? I am very sorry if people will not listen to those who rehea.r.s.e before them the best lessons they have been able to learn, but that is their business, not mine. Belief in majorities is not rooted in my breast, and if all the world were against me the fact might warn me to revise and criticise my opinions, but would not in itself supply a ghost of a reason for forsaking them.

For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.

[A letter to Mr. N.P. Clayton also discusses the basis of morality.]