Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 20

I had a success as to you that I never had or heard of before. Nineteen persons voted, and of these eighteen voted for you and no one against you. You, of course, came in at the head of the poll; no other having, i.e. Cobden, more than eleven.

Yours well satisfied,

Rod. I. Murchison.

[From this time forth he corresponded with many foreign men of science; in these years particularly with Victor Carus, Lacaze Duthiers, Kolliker, and de Quatref.a.ges, in reference to their common interest in the study of the invertebrates.

At home, the year 1857 opened very brightly for Huxley with the birth of his first child, a son, on the eve of the New Year. A Christmas child, the boy was named Noel, and lived four happy years to be the very suns.h.i.+ne of home, the object of pa.s.sionate devotion, whose sudden loss struck deeper and more ineffaceably than any other blow that befell Huxley during all his life.

As he sat alone that December night, in the little room that was his study in the house in Waverley Place, waiting for the event that was to bring him so much happiness and so much sorrow, he made a last entry in his journal, full of hope and resolution. In the blank s.p.a.ce below follows a note of four years later, when "the ground seemed cut from under his feet," yet written with restraint and without bitterness.]

December 31, 1856.

...1856-7-8 must still be "Lehrjahre" to complete training in principles of Histology, Morphology, Physiology, Zoology, and Geology by Monographic Work in each department. 1860 will then see me well grounded and ready for any special pursuits in either of these branches.

It is impossible to map out beforehand how this must be done. I must seize opportunities as they come, at the risk of the reputation of desultoriness.

In 1860 I may fairly look forward to fifteen or twenty years "Meisterjahre," and with the comprehensive views my training will have given me, I think it will be possible in that time to give a new and healthier direction to all Biological Science.

To smite all humbugs, however big; to give a n.o.bler tone to science; to set an example of abstinence from petty personal controversies, and of toleration for everything but lying; to be indifferent as to whether the work is recognised as mine or not, so long as it is done:--are these my aims? 1860 will show.

Willst du dir ein hubsch Leben zimmern, Musst dich ans Vergangene nicht bek.u.mmern; Und ware dir auch was Verloren, Musst immer thun wie neugeboren.

Was jeder Tag will, sollst du fragen; Was jeder Tag will, wird er sagen.

Musst dich an eigenem Thun ergotzen; Was andere thun, das wirst du schatzen.

Besonders keinen Menschen ha.s.sen Und das Ubrige Gott uberla.s.sen.

[Wilt shape a n.o.ble life? Then cast No backward glances to the past.

And what if something still be lost?

Act as new-born in all thou dost.

What each day wills, that shalt thou ask; Each day will tell its proper task; What others do, that shalt thou prize, In thine own work thy guerdon lies.

This above all: hate none.

The rest--Leave it to G.o.d.

He knoweth best.]

Half-past ten at night.

Waiting for my child. I seem to fancy it the pledge that all these things shall be.

Born five minutes before twelve. Thank G.o.d. New Year's Day, 1857.

September 20, 1860.

And the same child, our Noel, our first-born, after being for nearly four years our delight and our joy, was carried off by scarlet fever in forty-eight hours. This day week he and I had a great romp together. On Friday his restless head, with its bright blue eyes and tangled golden hair, tossed all day upon his pillow. On Sat.u.r.day night the fifteenth, I carried him here into my study, and laid his cold still body here where I write. Here too on Sunday night came his mother and I to that holy leave-taking.

My boy is gone, but in a higher and better sense than was in my mind when I wrote four years ago what stands above--I feel that my fancy has been fulfilled. I say heartily and without bitterness--Amen, so let it be.

CHAPTER 1.12.

1859-1860.

[The programme laid down in 1857 was steadily carried out through a great part of 1859. Huxley published nine monographs, chiefly on fossil Reptilia, in the proceedings of the Geological Society and of the Geological Survey, one on the armour of crocodiles at the Linnean, and "Observations on the Development of some Parts of the Skeleton of Fishes," in the "Journal of Microscopical Science."

Among the former was a paper on Stagonolepis, a creature from the Elgin beds, which had previously been ranked among the fishes. From some new remains, which he worked out of the stone with his own hands, Huxley made out that this was a reptile closely allied to the Crocodiles; and from this and the affinities of another fossil, Hyperodapedon, from neighbouring beds, determined the geological age to which the Elgin beds belonged. A good deal turned upon the nature of the scales from the back and belly of this animal, and a careful comparison with the scales of modern crocodiles--a subject till then little investigated--led to the paper at the Linnean already mentioned.

The paper on fish development was mainly based upon dissections of the young of the stickleback. Fishes had been divided into two cla.s.ses according as their tails are developed evenly on either side of the line of the spine, which was supposed to continue straight through the centre of the tail, or lopsided, with one tail fin larger than the other. This investigation showed that the apparently even development was only an extreme case of lopsidedness, the continuation of the "chorda," which gives rise to the spine, being at the top of the upper fin, and both fins being developed on the same side of it. Lopsidedness as such, therefore, was not to be regarded as an embryological character in ancient fishes; what might be regarded as such was the absence of a bony sheath to the end of the "chorda" found in the more developed fishes.

Further traces of this bony structure were shown to exist, among other piscine resemblances, in the Amphibia. Finally the embryological facts now observed in the development of the bones of the skull were of great importance,] "as they enable us to understand, on the one hand, the different modifications of the palato-suspensorial apparatus in fishes, and on the other hand the relations of the components of this apparatus to the corresponding parts in other Vertebrata," [fishes, reptiles, and mammals presenting a well-marked series of gradations in respect to this point.

This part of the paper had grown out of the investigations begun for the essay on the Vertebrate Skull, just as that on Jacare and Caiman from inquiry into the scales of Stagonolepis.

Thus he was still able to devote most of his time to original research.

But though in his letter of March 27, 1855, below, he says,] "I never write for the Reviews now, as original work is much more to my taste,"

[it appears from jottings in his 1859 notebook, such as "Whewell's 'History of Scientific Ideas,' as a Peg on which to hang Cuvier article," [that he again found it necessary to supplement his income by writing. He was still examiner at London University, and delivered six lectures on Animal Motion at the London Inst.i.tution and another at Warwick. This lecture he had offered to give at the Warwick Museum as some recognition of the willing help he had received from the a.s.sistants when he came down to examine certain fossils there. On the way he visited Rolleston at Oxford. The knowledge of Oxford life gained from this and a later visit led him to write:--]

The more I see of the place the more glad I am that I elected to stay in London. I see much to admire and like; but I am more and more convinced that it would not suit me as a residence.

[Two more important points remain to be mentioned among the occupations of the year. In January Huxley was elected Secretary of the Geological Society, and with this office began a form of administrative work in the scientific world which ceased only with his resignation of the Presidency of the Royal Society in 1885.

Part of the summer Huxley spent in the North. On August 3 he went to Lamlash Bay in Arran. Here Dr. Carpenter had, in 1855, discovered a convenient cottage on Holy Island--the only one, indeed, on the island--well suited for naturalists; the bay was calm and suitable both for the dredge and for keeping up a vivarium. He proposed that either the Survey should rent the whole island at a cost of some 50 pounds sterling, or, failing this, that he would take the cottage himself, if Huxley would join him for two or three seasons and share the expense.

Huxley laid the plan before Sir R. Murchison, the head of the Survey, who consented to try the plan for a course of years, during three months in each year. "But," [he added,] "keep it experimental; for there are no USEFUL fisheries such as delight Lord Stanley." [Here, then, with an ascent of Goatfell for variety on the 21st, a month was pa.s.sed in trawling, and experiments on the sp.a.w.ning of the herring appear to have been continued for him during the winter in Bute.

On the 29th Huxley left Lamlash for a trip through central and southern Scotland, continuing his geological work for the Survey; and wound up by attending the meeting of the British a.s.sociation at Aberdeen, leaving his wife and the three children at Aberdour, on the Fifes.h.i.+re coast.

From Aberdeen, where Prince Albert was President of the a.s.sociation, Huxley writes on September 15:--]

Owen's brief address on giving up the presidential chair was exceedingly good...I shall be worked like a horse here. There are all sorts of new materials from Elgin, besides other things, and I daresay I shall have to speak frequently. In point of attendance and money this is the best meeting the a.s.sociation ever had. In point of science, we shall see...Tyndall has accepted the Physical chair with us, at which I am greatly delighted.

[In this connection the following letter to Tyndall is interesting:--]

Aberdour, Fife, N. B., September 5, 1859.

My dear Tyndall,

I met Faraday on Loch Lomond yesterday, and learned from him that you had returned, whereby you are a great sinner for not having written to me. Faraday told me you were all sound, wind and limb, and had carried out your object, which was good to hear.

Have you had any letter from Sir Roderick? If not, pray call in Jermyn Street and see Reeks as soon as possible. [Mr. Trenham Reeks, who died in 1879, was Registrar of the School of Mines, and Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology.]

The thing I have been hoping for for years past has come about,--Stokes having resigned the Physical Chair in our place, in consequence of his appointment to the Cambridge University Commission. This unfortunately occurred only after our last meeting for the session, and after I had left town, but Reeks wrote to me about it at once. I replied as soon as I received his letter, and told him that I would take upon myself the responsibility of saying that you would accept the chair if it were offered you. I thought I was justified in this by various conversations we have had; and, at any rate, I felt sure that it was better that I should get into a mess than that you should lose the chance.

I know that Sir Roderick has written to you, but I imagine the letter has gone to Chamounix, so pray put yourself into communication with Reeks at once.

You know very well that the having you with us at Jermyn Street is a project that has long been dear to my heart, partly on your own account, but largely for the interest of the school. I earnestly hope that there is no impediment in the way of your coming to us. How I am minded towards you, you ought to know by this time; but I can a.s.sure you that all the rest of us will receive you with open arms. Of that I am quite sure.

Let me have a line to know your determination. I am on tenterhooks till the thing is settled.

Can't you come up this way as you go to Aberdeen?

Ever yours faithfully,