Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 45

The best position for me would be to be asked to second the resolution for the statue--then the proposer would have the field of personal fiction and b.u.t.ter-boat all to himself.

To Sir W.H. Flower.

December 28, 1892.

I think you are quite right in taking an active share in the movement for the memorial. When a man is dead and can do no more harm, one must do a sum in subtraction:--

merits, deserts over x+x+x

and if the x's are not all minus quant.i.ties, give him credit accordingly. But I think that in your appeal, for which the Committee will be responsible, it is this balance of solid scientific merit--a good big one in Owen's case after all deductions--which should be alone referred to. If you follow the example of "Vanity Fair" and call him "a simple-minded man, who had he been otherwise, would long ago have adorned a t.i.tle," some of us may choke.

Gladstone, Samuel of Oxford, and Owen belong to a very curious type of humanity, with many excellent and even great qualities and one fatal defect--utter untrustworthiness. Peace be with two of them, and may the political death of the third be speedy and painless!

With our united best wishes, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[And on January 22, 1893, he writes of the meeting:--]

My dear Hooker,

...What queer corners one gets into if one only lives long enough! The grim humour of the situation when I was seconding the proposal for a statue to Owen yesterday tickled me a good deal. I do not know how they will report me in the "Times", but if they do it properly I think you will see that I said no word upon which I could not stand cross-examination.

I chose the office of seconder in order that I might clearly define my position and stop the mouths of blasphemers--who would have ascribed silence or absence to all sorts of bad motives.

Whatever the man might be, he did a lot of first-rate work, and now that he can do no more mischief he has a right to his wages for it.

If I only live another ten years I expect to be made a saint of myself.

"Many a better man has been made a saint of," as old Davie Hume said to his housekeeper when they chalked up "St. David's Street" on his wall.

We have been jogging along pretty well, but wife has been creaky, and I got done up in a brutal London fog struggling with the worse fog of the New University.

I am very glad you like my poetical adventure.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[This speech had an unexpected sequel. Owen's grandson was so much struck by it that he wrote asking Huxley to undertake a critical account of his anatomical work for his biography,--another most unexpected turn of events. It is not often that a conspicuous opponent of a man's speculations is asked to pa.s.s judgment upon his entire work.

[See below.]

At the end of the year an anonymous attack upon the administration of the Royal Society was the occasion for some characteristic words on the endurance of abuse to his old friend, M. Foster, then Secretary of the Royal Society.]

December 5, 1892.

My dear Foster,

The braying of my donkey prevented me from sending a word of sympathy about the noise made by yours...Let not the heart be vexed because of these sons of Belial. It is all sound and fury with nothing at the bottom of it, and will leave no trace a year hence. I have been abused a deal worse--without the least effect on my const.i.tution or my comfort.

In fact, I am told that Harrison is abusing me just now like a pickpocket in the "Fortnightly", and I only make the philosophical reflection, No wonder! and doubt if the reading it is worth half a crown.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the new edition of Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazons", helps to remove a reproach sometimes brought against the Royal Society, in that it ignored the claims of distinguished men of Science to members.h.i.+p of the Society:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, December 9, 1892.

My dear Mr. Clodd,

Many thanks for the new edition of "Bates." I was reading the Life last night with great interest; some of the letters you have printed are admirable.

Lyell is. .h.i.t off to the life. I never read a more penetrating character-sketch. Hooker's letter of advice is as sage as might be expected from a man who practised what he preached about as much as I have done. I shall find material for chaff the next time my old friend and I meet.

I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British Museum, and especially on the Royal Society. The former are hampered by the Treasury and the Civil Service regulations. If a Bates turned up now I doubt if one could appoint him, however much one wished it, unless he would submit to some idiotic examination. As to the Royal Society, I undertake to say that Bates might have been elected fifteen years earlier if he had so pleased. But the Council cannot elect a man unless he is proposed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta which stood in the way.

It is the same with --. Twenty years ago the Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal, which is about as broad an invitation to join us as we could well give a man. In fact, I do not think he has behaved well in quite ignoring it. Formerly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as the annual subscription. But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more pecunious Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of abolis.h.i.+ng this barrier. At present a man has to pay only 3 pounds a year and no entrance. I believe the publications of the Society, which he gets, will sell for more. [The "Fee Reduction Fund," as it is now called, enables the Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even of his annual fee, in that being F.R.S. costs him nothing.]

So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody who ought to be in keeps out on the score of means.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 3.12.

1893.

[The year 1893 was, save for the death of three old friends, Andrew Clark, Jowett, and Tyndall, one of the most tranquil and peaceful in Huxley's whole life. He entered upon no direct controversy; he published no magazine articles; to the general misapprehension of the drift of his Romanes Lecture he only replied in the comprehensive form of Prolegomena to a reprint of the lecture. He began to publish his scattered essays in a uniform series, writing an introduction to each volume. While collecting his "Darwiniana" for the second volume, he wrote to Mr. Clodd:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, November 18, 1892.

I was looking through "Man's Place in Nature" the other day. I do not think there is a word I need delete, nor anything I need add except in confirmation and extension of the doctrine there laid down. That is great good fortune for a book thirty years old, and one that a very shrewd friend of mine implored me not to publish, as it would certainly ruin all my prospects. I said, like the French fox-hunter in "Punch", "I shall try."

[The shrewd friend in question was none other than Sir William Lawrence, whose own experiences after publis.h.i.+ng his book "On Man", "which now might be read in a Sunday school without surprising anybody," are alluded to in volume 1.

He had the satisfaction of pa.s.sing on his unfinished work upon Spirula to efficient hands for completion; and in the way of new occupation, was thinking of some day "taking up the threads of late evolutionary speculation" in the theories of Weismann and others [See letter of September 28, to Romanes.], while actually planning out and reading for a series of "Working-Men's Lectures on the Bible," in which he should present to the unlearned the results of scientific study of the doc.u.ments, and do for theology what he had done for zoology thirty years before.

The scheme drawn out in his note-book runs as follows:--

1. The subject and the method of treating it.

2. Physical conditions:--the place of Palestine in the Old World.

3. The Rise of Israel:--Judges, Samuel, Kings as far as Jeroboam II.