Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume I Part 48

In scientific work the main thing just now about which I am engaged is a revision of the Dinosauria, with an eye to the "Descendenz Theorie." The road from Reptiles to Birds is by way of Dinosauria to the Rat.i.tae. The bird "phylum" was struthious, and wings grew out of rudimentary forelimbs.

You see that among other things I have been reading Ernst Haeckel's "Morphologie."

[The next two letters reflect his views on the proper work to be undertaken by men of unusual scientific capacity:--]

Jermyn Street, January 15, 1868.

My dear Dohrn,

Though the most procrastinating correspondent in existence when a letter does not absolutely require an answer, I am tolerably well-behaved when something needs to be said or done immediately. And as that appears to me to be the case with your letter of the 13th which has this moment reached me, I lose no time in replying to it.

The Calcutta appointment has been in my hands as well as Turner's, and I have made two or three efforts, all of which unfortunately have proved unsuccessful to find: (1) A man who will do for it and at the same time (2) for whom it will do. Now you fulfil the first condition admirably, but as to the second I have very great doubts.

In the first place the climate of Calcutta is not particularly good for anyone who has a tendency to dysentery, and I doubt very much if you would stand it for six months.

Secondly, we have a proverb that it is not wise to use razors to cut blocks.

The business of the man who is appointed to that museum will be to get it into order. If he does his duty he will give his time and attention to museum work pure and simple, and I don't think that (especially in an Indian climate), he has much energy left for anything else after the day's work is done. Naming and arranging specimens is a most admirable and useful employment, but when you have done it is "cutting blocks,"

and you, my friend, are a most indubitable razor, and I do not wish to have your edge blunted in that fas.h.i.+on.

If it were necessary for you to win your own bread, one's advice might be modified. Under such circ.u.mstances one must do things which are not entirely desirable. But for you who are your own master and have a career before you, to bind yourself down to work six hours a day at things you do not care about and which others could do just as well, while you are neglecting the things which you do care for, and which others could not do so well, would, I think, be amazingly unwise.

Liberavi animam! don't tell my Indian friends I have dissuaded you, but on my conscience I could give you no other advice.

We have to thank you three times over. In the first place for a portrait which has taken its place among those of our other friends; secondly for the great pleasure you gave my little daughter Jessie, by the books you so kindly sent; and thirdly, for f.a.n.n.y Lewald's autobiography which arrived a few days ago.

Jessie is meditating a letter of thanks (a serious undertaking), and when it is sent the mother will have a word to say for herself.

In the middle of October scarlet fever broke out among my children, and they have all had it in succession, except Jessie, who took it seven years ago. The last convalescent is now well, but we had the disease in the house nearly three months, and have been like lepers, cut off from all communication with our neighbours for that time.

We have had a great deal of anxiety, and my wife has been pretty nearly worn out with nursing day and night; but by great good fortune "the happy family" has escaped all permanent injury, and you might hear as much laughter in the house as at Swanage.

Will you be so kind as to thank Professor Gegenbaur for a paper on the development of the vertebral column of Lepidosteum I have just received from him? He has been writing about the process of ossification and the "deck-knochen" question, but I cannot make out exactly where. Could you let me know?

I am anxious for the "Arthropoden Werk," but I expect to gasp when it comes.

Turn to page 380 of the new edition of our friend Kolliker's "Handbuch,"

and you will find that though a view which I took off the "organon adamantinae" some twelve or fourteen years ago, and which Kolliker has up to this time repudiated, turns out, and is now admitted by him, to be perfectly correct, yet "that I was not acquainted with the facts that would justify the conclusion." Really, if I had time I could be angry.

Pray remember me most kindly to Haeckel, to all whose enemies I wish confusion, and believe me, ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--I have read a hundred pages or so of f.a.n.n.y Lewald's first Bd., and am delighted with her insight into child-life.

[Tyndall was resigning his lectures.h.i.+p at the School of Mines:--]

Jermyn Street, June 10, 1868.

My dear Tyndall,

All I can say is, I am heartily sorry.

If you feel that your lectures here interfere with your original work, I should not be a true friend either to science or yourself if I said a word against your leaving us.

But for all that I am and shall remain very sorry.

Ever yours very sincerely,

T.H. Huxley.

If you recommend --, of course I shall be very glad to support him in any way I can. But at present I am rather disposed to d--n anyone who occupies your place.

[The following extract is from a letter to Haeckel (November 13, 1868), with reference to the proposed translation of his "Morphologie" by the Ray Society:--]

We shall at once look out for a good translator of the text, as the job will be a long and a tough one. My wife (who sends her best wishes and congratulations on your fatherhood) will do the bits of Goethe's poetry, and I will look after the prose citations.

Next as to the text itself. The council were a little alarmed at the bulk of the book, and it is of the utmost importance that it would be condensed to the uttermost.

Furthermore, English propriety had taken fright at rumours touching the aggressive heterodoxy of some pa.s.sages. (We do not much mind heterodoxy here, if it does not openly proclaim itself as such.)

And on both these points I had not only to give very distinct a.s.surances, such as I thought your letters had ent.i.tled me to give; but in a certain sense to become myself responsible for your behaving yourself like a good boy!

If I had not known you and understood your nature and disposition as I fancy I do, I should not have allowed myself to be put in this position; but I have implicit faith in your doing what is wise and right, and so making it tenable.

There is not the slightest desire to make you mutilate your book or leave out anything which you conceive to be absolutely essential; and I on my part should certainly not think of asking you to make any alteration which would not in my judgment improve the book quite irrespectively of the tastes of the British public.

[Alterations are suggested.] But I stop. By this time you will be swearing at me for attacking all your favourite bits. Let me know what you think about these matters.

I congratulate you and Madame Haeckel heartily on the birth of your boy.

Children work a greater metamorphosis in men than any other condition of life. They ripen one wonderfully and make life ten times better worth having than it was.

26 Abbey Place, November 15, 1868.

My dear Darwin,

You are always the bienvenu, and we shall be right glad to see you on Sunday morning.

We breakfast at 8.30, and the decks are clear before nine. I would offer you breakfast, but I know it does not suit you to come out unfed; and besides you would abuse the opportunity to demoralise Harry. [This small boy of nearly four was a great favourite of Darwin's. When we children were all staying at Down about this time, Darwin himself would come in upon us at dinner, and patting him on the head, utter what was become a household word amongst us, "Make yourself at home, and take large mouthfuls."]

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[An undated note to Darwin belongs to the very end of this year, or to the beginning of the next:--]

The two volumes of the new book have just reached me. My best thanks for them; and if you can only send me a little time for reading within the next three months you will heighten the obligation twenty-fold. I wish I had either two heads or a body that needed no rest!