Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 43

T.H. Huxley.

26 Abbey Place, November 11, 1866.

My dear Darwin,

I thank you for the new edition of the "Origin," and congratulate you on having done with it for a while, so as to be able to go on to that book of a portion of which I had a glimpse years ago. I hear good accounts of your health, indeed the last was that you were so rampageous you meant to come to London and have a spree among its dissipations. May that be true.

I am in the thick of my work, and have only had time to glance at your "Historical Sketch."

What an unmerciful basting you give "our mutual friend." I did not know he had put forward any claim! and even now that I read it black and white, I can hardly believe it.

I am glad to hear from Spencer that you are on the right (that is MY) side in the Jamaica business. But it is wonderful how people who commonly act together are divided about it.

My wife joins with me in kindest wishes to Mrs. Darwin and yourself.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

You will receive an elementary physiology book, not for your reading but for Miss Darwin's. Were you not charmed with Haeckel?

[The "Jamaica business" here alluded to was Governor Eyre's suppression of the negro rising, in the course of which he had executed, under martial law, a coloured leader and member of the a.s.sembly, named Gordon.

The question of his justification in so doing stirred England profoundly. It became the touchstone of ultimate political convictions.

Men who had little concern for ordinary politics, came forward to defend a great const.i.tutional principle which they conceived to be endangered.

A committee was formed to prosecute Governor Eyre on a charge of murder, in order to vindicate the right of a prisoner to trial by due process of law. Thereupon a counter-committee was organised for the defence of the man who, like Cromwell, judged that the people preferred their real security to forms, and had presumably saved the white population of Jamaica by striking promptly at the focus of rebellion.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" of October 29, 1866, made a would-be smart allusion to the part taken in the affair by Huxley, which evoked, in reply, a calm statement of his reasons for joining the prosecuting committee:--

It is amusing (says the "Pall Mall") to see how the rival committees, the one for the prosecution and the other for the defence of Mr. Eyre, parade the names of distinguished persons who are enrolled as subscribers on either side. Mill is set against Carlyle, and to counterbalance the adhesion of the Laureate to the Defence Fund, the "Star" hastens to announce that Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Huxley have given their support to the Jamaica Committee. Everything, of course, depends on the ground on which the subscriptions are given. One can readily conceive that Mr. Tennyson has been chiefly moved by a generous indignation at the vindictive behaviour of the Jamaica Committee. It would be curious also to know how far Sir Charles Lyell's and Mr. Huxley's peculiar views on the development of species have influenced them in bestowing on the negro that sympathetic recognition which they are willing to extend even to the ape as "a man and a brother."

The reply appeared in the "Pall Mall" of October 31:--]

Sir,

I learn from yesterday evening's "Pall Mall Gazette" that you are curious to know whether certain "peculiar views on the development of species," which I am said to hold in the excellent company of Sir Charles Lyell, have led me to become a member of the Jamaica Committee.

Permit me without delay to satisfy a curiosity which does me honour. I have been induced to join that committee neither by my "peculiar views on the development of species," nor by any particular love for, or admiration of the negro--still less by any miserable desire to wreak vengeance for recent error upon a man whose early career I have often admired; but because the course which the committee proposes to take appears to me to be the only one by which a question of the profoundest practical importance can be answered. That question is, Does the killing a man in the way Mr. Gordon was killed const.i.tute murder in the eye of the law, or does it not?

You perceive that this question is wholly independent of two others which are persistently confused with it, namely--was Mr. Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing fire-brand? and was Mr. Eyre actuated by the highest and n.o.blest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken rashness or worse impulses?

I do not presume to speak with authority on a legal question; but, unless I am misinformed, English law does not permit good persons, as such, to strangle bad persons, as such. On the contrary, I understand that, if the most virtuous of Britons, let his place and authority be what they may, seize and hang up the greatest scoundrel in Her Majesty's dominions simply because he is an evil and troublesome person, an English court of justice will certainly find that virtuous person guilty of murder. Nor will the verdict be affected by any evidence that the defendant acted from the best of motives, and, on the whole, did the State a service.

Now, it MAY be that Mr. Eyre was actuated by the best of motives; it MAY be that Jamaica is all the better for being rid of Mr. Gordon; but nevertheless the Royal Commissioners, who were appointed to inquire into Mr. Gordon's case, among other matters, have declared that:--

The evidence, oral and doc.u.mentary, appears to us to be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner took his trial. ("Report" page 37.)

And again that they

Cannot see in the evidence which has been adduced, any sufficient proof, either of his (Mr. Gordon's) complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay, or of his having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government. ("Report" page 38.)

Unless the Royal Commissioners have greatly erred, therefore, the killing of Mr. Gordon can only be defended on the ground that he was a bad and troublesome man; in short, that although he might not be guilty, it served him right.

I entertain so deeply-rooted an objection to this method of killing people--the act itself appears to me to be so frightful a precedent, that I desire to see it stigmatised by the highest authority as a crime.

And I have joined the committee which proposes to indict Mr. Eyre, in the hope that I may hear a court of justice declare that the only defence which can be set up (if the Royal Commissioners are right) is no defence, and that the killing of Mr. Gordon was the greatest offence known to the law--murder.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.

T.H. Huxley.

The Atehnaeum Club, October 30, 1866.

[Two letters to friends who had taken the opposite side in this burning question show how resolutely he set himself against permitting a difference on matters of principle to affect personal relations with his warmest opponents.]

Jermyn Street, November 8, 1866.

My dear Kingsley,

The letter of which you have heard, containing my reasons for becoming a member of the Jamaica Committee was addressed to the "Pall Mall Gazette"

in reply to some editorial speculations as to my reasons for so doing.

I forget the date of the number in which my letter appeared, but I will find it out and send you a copy of the paper.

Mr. Eyre's personality in this matter is nothing to me; I know nothing about him, and, if he is a friend of yours, I am very sorry to be obliged to join in a movement which must be excessively unpleasant to him.

Furthermore, when the verdict of the jury which will try him is once given, all hostility towards him on my part will cease. So far from wis.h.i.+ng to see him vindictively punished, I would much rather, if it were practicable, indict his official hat and his coat than himself.

I desire to see Mr. Eyre indicted and a verdict of guilty in a criminal court obtained, because I have, from its commencement, carefully watched the Gordon case; and because a new study of all the evidence which has now been collected has confirmed my first conviction that Gordon's execution was as bad a specimen as we have had since Jeffries' time of political murder.

Don't suppose that I have any particular admiration for Gordon. He belongs to a sufficiently poor type of small political agitator--and very likely was a great nuisance to the Governor and other respectable persons.

But that is no reason why he should be condemned, by an absurd tribunal and with a brutal mockery of the forms of justice, for offences with which impartial judges, after a full investigation, declare there is no evidence to show that he was connected.

Ex-Governor Eyre seized the man, put him in the hands of the preposterous subalterns, who pretended to try him--saw the evidence and approved of the sentence. He is as much responsible for Gordon's death as if he had shot him through the head with his own hand. I daresay he did all this with the best of motives, and in a heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes have no more right to kill people in this fas.h.i.+on than other folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas or some other quiet place where there is less hero-wors.h.i.+p and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more importance than hero-wors.h.i.+p.

In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is that it will help a great many people to find out what their profoundest political beliefs are.

The hero-wors.h.i.+ppers who believe that the world is to be governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, justly if they can; but if not, unjustly drive or kick them the right way, will sympathise with Mr.

Eyre.

The other sect (to which I belong) who look upon hero-wors.h.i.+p as no better than any other idolatry, and upon the att.i.tude of mind of the hero-wors.h.i.+pper as essentially immoral; who think it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice as between man and man as of far greater importance than even the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law of England.

People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert one another.

To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle and without bitterness.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

November 9, 1866.