Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 47

You will be amused to hear that I went to the holy city, Edinburgh itself, the other day, for the purpose of giving the first of a series of Sunday lectures. I came back without being stoned; but Murchison (who is a Scotchman you know), told me he thought it was the boldest act of my life. The lecture will be published in February, and I shall send it to you, as it contains a criticism of materialism which I should like you to consider.

[In it he explains in popular form a striking generalisation of scientific research, namely, that whether in animals or plants, the structural unit of the living body is made up of similar material, and that vital action and even thought are ultimately based upon molecular changes in this life-stuff. Materialism! gross and brutal materialism!

was the mildest comment he expected in some quarters; and he took the opportunity to explain how he held] "this union of materialistic terminology with the repudiation of materialistic philosophy,"

[considering the latter] "to involve grave philosophic error."

[His expectations were fully justified; in fact, he writes that some persons seemed to imagine that he had invented protoplasm for the purposes of the lecture.

Here, too, in the course of a reply to Archbishop Thompson's confusion of the spirit of modern thought with the system of M. Comte, he launched his well-known definition of Comtism as Catholicism MINUS Christianity, which involved him in a short controversy with Mr. Congreve (see "The Scientific Aspects of Positivism," "Lay Sermons" page 162), and with another leading Positivist, who sent him a letter through Mr. Darwin.

Huxley replied:--]

Jermyn Street, March 11, 1869.

My dear Darwin,

I know quite enough of Mr. -- to have paid every attention to what he has to say, even if you had not been his amba.s.sador.

I glanced over his letter when I returned home last night very tired with my two nights' chairmans.h.i.+p at the Ethnological and the Geological Societies.

Most of it is fair enough, though I must say not helping me to any novel considerations.

Two paragraphs, however, contained opinions which Mr. -- is at perfect liberty to entertain, but not, I think, to express to me.

The one is, that I shaped what I had to say at Edinburgh with a view of stirring up the prejudices of the Scotch Presbyterians (imagine how many Presbyterians I had in my audiences!) against Comte.

The other is the concluding paragraph, in which Mr. -- recommends me to "READ COMTE," clearly implying that I have criticised Comte without reading him.

You will know how far I am likely to have committed either of the immoralities thus laid to my charge.

At any rate, I do not think I care to enter into more direct relations with anyone who so heedlessly and unjustifiably a.s.sumes me to be guilty of them. Therefore I shall content myself with acknowledging the receipt of Mr. --'s letter through you.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Jermyn Street, March 17, 1869.

My dear Darwin,

After I had sent my letter to you the other day I thought how stupid I had been not to put in a slip of paper to say it was meant for --'s edification.

I made sure you would understand that I wished it to be sent on, and wrote it (standing on the points of my toes and with my tail up very stiff) with that end in view.

[Sketch of two dogs bristling up.]

I am getting so weary of people writing to propose controversy to me upon one point or another, that I begin to wish the article had never been written. The fighting in itself is not particularly objectionable, but it's the waste of time.

I begin to understand your sufferings over the "Origin." A good book is comparable to a piece of meat, and fools are as flies who swarm to it, each for the purpose of depositing and hatching his own particular maggot of an idea.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[A little later he wrote to Charles Kingsley, who had supported him in the controversy:--]

Jermyn Street, April 12, 1869.

My dear Kingsley,

Thanks for your hearty bottle-holding.

Congreve is no better than a donkey to take the line he does. I studied Comte, "Philosophie," "Politique," and all sixteen years ago, and having formed my judgment about him, put it into one of the pigeon holes of my brain (about the H[ippocampus] minor [see above.]), and there let it rest till it was wanted.

You are perfectly right in saying that Comte knew nothing about physical science--it is one of the points I am going to put in evidence.

The law of the three states is mainly evolved from his own consciousness, and is only a bad way of expressing that tendency to personification which is inherent in man.

The Cla.s.sification of Sciences is bosh--as Spencer has already shown.

Nothing short of madness, however, can have dictated Congreve's challenge of my admiration of Comte as a man at the end of his article.

Did you ever read Littre's "Life of Comte?" I bought it when it came out a year or more ago, and I rose from its perusal with a feeling of sheer disgust and contempt for the man who could treat a n.o.ble-hearted woman who had saved his life and his reason, as Comte treated his wife.

As soon as I have time I will deal with Comte effectually, you may depend upon that. At the same time, I shall endeavour to be just to what there is (as I hold), really great and good in his clear conception of the necessity of reconstructing society from the bottom to the top "sans dieu ni roi," if I may interpret that somewhat tall phrase as meaning "with our conceptions of religion and politics on a scientific basis."

Comte in his later days was an apostate from his own creed; his "nouveau grand Etre supreme," being as big a fetish as ever n.i.g.g.e.r first made and then wors.h.i.+pped.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[It is interesting to note how he invariably submitted his writings to the criticism of his wife before they were seen by any other eye. To her judgment was due the toning down of many a pa.s.sage which erred by excess of vigour, and the clearing up of phrases which would be obscure to the public. In fact, if an essay met with her approval, he felt sure it would not fail of its effect when published. Writing to her from Norwich on August 23, 1868, he confesses himself with reference to the lecture "On a Piece of Chalk":--]

I met Grove who edits "Macmillan," at the soiree. He pulled the proof of my lecture out of his pocket and said, "Look here, there is one paragraph in your lecture I can make neither top nor tail of. I can't understand what it means." I looked to where his finger pointed, and behold it was the paragraph you objected to when I read you the lecture on the sea sh.o.r.e! I told him, and said I should confess, however set up it might make you.

[At the beginning of September, he rejoined his wife and family at Littlehampton,] "a grand place for children, because you go UP rather than DOWN into the sea, and it is quite impossible for them to get into mischief by falling," [as he described it to his friend Dr. Dohrn, who came down for ten days, eagerly looking forward "to stimulating walks over stock and stone, to Tennyson, Herbert Spencer, and Harry's ringing laugh."

The latter half of the month he spent at or near Dublin, serving upon the Commission on Science and Art Instruction:--]

Today [he writes on September 16], we shall be occupied in inspecting the School of Science and the Glasnevin botanical and agricultural gardens, and to-morrow we begin the session work of examining all the Irishry, who want jobs perpetrated. It is weary work, and the papers are already beginning to tell lies about us and attack us.

[The rest of the year he remained in London, except the last four days of December, when he was lecturing at Newcastle, and stayed with Sir W.

Armstrong at Jesmond.]

[To Professor Haeckel.]

January 21, 1868.

Don't you think we did a right thing in awarding the Copley Medal to Baer last year? The old man was much pleased, and it was a comfort to me to think that we had not let him go to his grave without the highest honour we had to bestow.

I am over head and ears, as we say, in work, lecturing, giving addresses to the working men and (figurez vous!) to the clergy. [On December 12, 1867, there was a meeting of clergy at Sion House, under the auspices of Dean Farrar and the Reverend W. Rogers of Bishopsgate, when the bearing of recent science upon orthodox dogma was discussed. First Huxley delivered an address; some of the clergy present denounced any concessions as impossible; others declared that they had long ago accepted the teachings of geology; whereupon a candid friend inquired, "Then why don't you say so from your pulpits?" (See "Collected Essays" 3 119.)]