Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 26

T.H. Huxley.

[On December 16 he delivered a lecture "On the Study of Biology," in connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington ("Collected Essays" 3 262), dealing with the origin of the name Biology, its relation to Sociology--] "we have allowed that province of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you to recollect that this is a sacrifice, and that you should not be surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist apparently trespa.s.sing in the region of philosophy or politics; or meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part of his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken"]--how to learn biology, the use of Museums, and above all, the utility of biology, as helping to give right ideas in this world, which] "is after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas."

[This lecture on Biology was first published among the "American Addresses" in 1877.

It was about this time that an extremely Broad Church divine was endeavouring to obtain the signatures of men of science to a doc.u.ment he had drawn up protesting against certain orthodox doctrines. Huxley, however, refused to sign the protest, and wrote the following letter of explanation, a copy of which he sent to Mr. Darwin.]

November 18, 1876.

Dear Sir,

I have read the "Protest," with a copy of which you have favoured me, and as you wish that I should do so, I will trouble you with a brief statement of my reasons for my inability to sign it.

I object to clause 2 on the ground long since taken by Hume that the order of the universe such as we observe it to be, furnishes us with the only data upon which we can base any conclusion as to the character of the originator thereof.

As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins affect endless generations of their progeny. Men are tempted, men are punished for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own; and they are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their consciousness lasts.

The theological doctrines to which you refer, therefore, are simply extensions of generalisations as well based as any in physical science. Very likely they are illegitimate extensions of these generalisations, but that does not make them wrong in principle.

And I should consider it waste of time to "protest" against that which is.

As regards clause 3 I find that as a matter of experience, erroneous beliefs are punished, and right beliefs are rewarded--though very often the erroneous belief is based upon a more conscientious study of the facts than the right belief. I do not see why this should not be as true of theological beliefs as any others. And as I said before, I do not care to protest against that which is.

Many thanks for your congratulations. My tour was very pleasant and taught me a good deal.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.

4 Marlborough Place, November 19, 1876.

My dear Darwin,

I confess I have less sympathy with the half-and-half sentimental school which he represents than I have with thoroughgoing orthodoxy.

If we are to a.s.sume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words, than that he is malevolent and unjust. Infinite benevolence need not have invented pain and sorrow at all--infinite malevolence would very easily have deprived us of the large measure of content and happiness that falls to our lot. After all, Butler's "a.n.a.logy" is una.s.sailable, and there is nothing in theological dogmas more contradictory to our moral sense, than is to be found in the facts of nature. From which, however, the Bishop's conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn't follow.

With best remembrances to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This incident suggests the story of a retort he once made upon what he considered an unseasonable protest in church, a story which exemplifies, by the way, his strong sense of the decencies of life, appearing elsewhere in his constant respect for the ordinary conventions of his dislike for mere Bohemianism as such.

Once in a country house he was sitting at dinner next to his hostess, a lady who, as will sometimes happen, liked to play the part of Lady Arbitress of the whole neighbourhood. She told him how much she disapproved of the Athanasian Creed, and described how she had risen and left the village church when the parson began to read it; and thinking to gain my father's a.s.sent, she turned to him and said graciously, "Now Mr. Huxley, don't you think I was quite right to mark my disapproval?"]

"My dear Lady --" [he replied,] "I should as soon think of rising and leaving your table because I disapproved of one of the entrees."

CHAPTER 2.9.

1877.

[In this year he delivered lectures and addresses on the "Geological History of Birds," at the Zoological Society's Gardens, June 7; on "Starfishes and their Allies," at the Royal Inst.i.tution, March 7; at the London Inst.i.tution, December 17, on "Belemnites" (a subject on which he had written in 1864, and which was doubtless suggested anew by his autumn holiday at Whitby, where the Lias cliffs are full of these fossils); at the Anthropological Conference, May 22, on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology" ("Collected Essays" 3 294), with special reference to the recent legislation as to experiments on living animals; and on "Technical Education" to the Working Men's Club and Inst.i.tute, December 1 ("Collected Essays" 3 404): a perilous subject, indeed, considering, as he remarks, that] "any candid observer of the phenomena of modern society will readily admit that bores must be cla.s.sed among the enemies of the human race; and a little consideration will probably lead him to the further admission, that no species of that extensive genus of noxious creatures is more objectionable than the educational bore...In the course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I have ventured to speak of education; indeed, the only part of this wide region into which, as yet, I have not adventured, is that into which I propose to intrude to-day."

[The choice of subject for this address was connected with a larger campaign for the establishment of technical education on a proper footing, which began with his work on the School Board, and was this year brought prominently before the public by another address delivered at the Society of Arts. The Clothworkers Company had already been a.s.sisting the Society of Arts in their efforts for the spread of technical education; and in July 1877 a special committee of the Guilds applied to him, amongst half a dozen others, to furnish them with a report as to the objects and methods of a scheme of technical education. This paper fills sixteen pages in the Report of the Livery Companies' Committee for 1878. The fundamental principles on which he bases his practical recommendations are contained in the following paragraph:--]

It appears to me that if every person who is engaged in an industry had access to instruction in the scientific principles on which that industry is based; in the mode of applying these principles to practice; in the actual use of the means and appliances employed; in the language of the people who know as much about the matter as we do ourselves; and lastly, in the art of keeping accounts, Technical Education would have done all that can be required of it.

[And his suggestions about buildings was at once adopted by the Committee, namely, that they should be erected at a future date, regard being had primarily rather to what is wanted in the inside than what will look well from the outside.

Now the Guilds formed a very proper body to set such a scheme on foot, because only such wealthy and influential members of the first mercantile city in the world could afford to let themselves be despised and jeered at for professing to teach English manufacturers and English merchants that they needed to be taught; and to spend 25,000 pounds a year towards that end for some time without apparent result.

That they eventually succeeded, is due no little to the careful plans drawn out by Huxley. He may be described as "really the engineer of the City and Guilds Inst.i.tute; for without his advice," declared one of the leading members, "we should not have known what to have done."

At the same time he warned them against indiscriminate zeal;] "though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse." [The aim of the Livery Companies should specially be to aid the PRACTICAL teaching of science, so that at bottom the question turns mainly on the supply of teachers.

On December 11, 1879, he found a further opportunity of urging the cause of Technical Education. A lecture on Apprentices.h.i.+ps was delivered before the Society of Arts by Professor Silva.n.u.s Thompson.

Speaking after the lecturer (see report in "Nature" 1879 page 139) he discussed the necessity of supplying the place of the old apprentices.h.i.+ps by educating children in the principles of their particular crafts, beyond the time when they were forced to enter the workshops. This could be done by establis.h.i.+ng schools in each centre of industry, connected with a central inst.i.tution, such as was to be found in Paris or Zurich. As for complaints of deficient teaching of handicrafts in the Board Schools, it was more important for them to make intelligent men than skilled workmen, as again was indicated in the French system.

As President of the Royal Society, he was on the above-mentioned Committee of the Guilds from 1883 to 1885, and on December 10, 1883, distributed the prizes in connection with the inst.i.tution in the Clothworkers' Hall. After sketching the inception of the whole scheme, he referred to the Central Inst.i.tute, then in course of building (begun in 1882, it was finished in 1884; the Technical College, Finsbury, was older by a year), and spoke of the difficulties in the way of organising such an inst.i.tution:--]

That building is simply the body, not the flesh and bones, but the bricks and stones, of the Central Inst.i.tute, and the business upon which Sir F. Bramwell and my other colleagues on the Committee have been so much occupied, is the making a soul for this body; and I can a.s.sure you making a soul for anything is an amazingly difficult operation. You are always in danger of doing as the man in the story of Frankenstein did, and making something which will eventually devour you instead of being useful to you.

[And here I may give a letter which refers to the movement for technical education, and the getting the City Companies under way in the matter. In the words of Mr. George Howell, M.P. (who sent it to the "Times" (July 3, 1895) just after Huxley's death), it has an additional interest "as indicating the nature of his own epitaph"; as a man "whose highest ambition ever was to uplift the ma.s.ses of the people and promote their welfare intellectually, socially, and industrially."]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 2, 1880.

Dear Mr. Howell,

Your letter is a welcome New Year's gift. There are two things I really care about--one is the progress of scientific thought, and the other is the bettering of the condition of the ma.s.ses of the people by bettering them in the way of lifting themselves out of the misery which has. .h.i.therto been the lot of the majority of them. Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive to me, but, if I am to be remembered at all, I would rather it should be as "a man who did his best to help the people" than by other t.i.tle. So you see it is no small pleasure and encouragement to me to find that I have been, and am, of any use in this direction.

Ever since my experience on the School Board, I have been convinced that I should lose rather than gain by entering directly into politics...But I suppose I have some ten years of activity left in me, and you may depend upon it I shall lose no chance of striking a blow for the cause I have at heart. I thought the time had come the other day at the Society of Arts, and the event proves I was not mistaken.

The animal is moving, and by a judicious exhibition of carrots in front and kicks behind, we shall get him into a fine trot presently.

In the meantime do not let the matter rest...The (City) companies should be constantly reminded that a storm is brewing. There are excellent men among them, who want to do what is right, and need help against the sluggards and reactionaries. It will be best for me to be quiet for a while, but you will understand that I am watching for the turn of events.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[This summer, too, he delivered a course on Biology for Teachers at South Kensington, and published not only his "American Addresses," but also the "Physiography," founded upon the course delivered seven years before. The book, of which 3386 copies were sold in the first six weeks, was fruitful in two ways; it showed that a geographical subject could be invested with interest, and it set going what was almost a new branch of teaching in natural science, even in Germany, the starting place of most educational methods, where it was immediately proposed to bring out an adaptation of the book, subst.i.tuting, e.g.

the Elbe for the Thames, as a familiar example of river action.

He was immensely pleased by a letter from Mr. John Morley, telling how his step-son, a boy of non-bookish tastes, had been taken with it. "My step-son was reading it the other night. I said, 'isn't it better to read a novel before going to bed, instead of worrying your head over a serious book like that?' 'Oh,' said he, 'I'm at an awfully interesting part, and I can't leave off.'" It was, Mr. Morley continued, "the way of making Nature, as she comes before us every day, interesting and intelligible to young folks."

To this he replied on December 14:--]

I shall get as vain as a peac.o.c.k if discreet folk like you say such pretty things to me as you do about the "Physiography."