Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 28

[Apropos of controversies (November 23)]

We had a grand discussion at the Royal Society last night between Tyndall and Burdon Sanderson. The place was crammed, and we had a late sitting. I'm not sure, however, that we had got much further at the end than at the beginning, which is a way controversies have.

[The following story is worth recording, as an ill.u.s.tration not only of the way in which Huxley would give what help was in his power to another man of science in distress, but of the ready aid proffered on this, as on many other occasions, by a wealthy northern merchant who was interested in science. A German scientific worker in England, whom we will call H., had fallen into distress, and applied to him for help, asking if some work could not be put in his way. Huxley could think of nothing immediate but to suggest some lessons in German literature to his children, though in fact they were well provided for with a German governess; nevertheless he thought it a proper occasion to avail himself of his friend's offer to give help in deserving cases. He writes to his wife:--]

I made up my mind to write to X. the day before yesterday; this morning by return of post he sends me a cheque not only for the 60 pounds which I said H. needed, but 5 pounds over for his present needs with a charming letter.

It came in the nick of time, as H. came an hour or two after it arrived, and with many apologies told me he was quite penniless. The poor old fellow was quite overcome when I told him of how matters stood, and it was characteristic that as soon as he got his breath again, he wanted to know when he would begin teaching the children! I sent him to get an order on the Naples bank for discharge of his debt there. X.'s express stipulation was that his name should not be mentioned, so mind you say not a word about his most kind and generous act.

[The following letters of miscellaneous interest were written in this year:--]

4 Marlborough Place, November 21, 1877.

My dear Morley,

I am always at the command of the "Fortnightly" so long as you are editor, but I don't think that the Belemnite business would do for you. [The lecture at the London Inst.i.tution mentioned above.] The story would hardly be intelligible without ill.u.s.trations.

There are two things I am going to do which may be more to the purpose. One is a screed on Technical Education which I am going to give to the Working Men's Union on the 1st December.

The other is a sort of Eloge on Harvey at the Royal Inst.i.tution in March apropos of his 300th birthday--which was Allfools Day.

You shall have either of these you like, but I advise Harvey; as if I succeed in doing what I shall aim at it will be interesting.

Why the deuce do you live at Brighton? St. John's Wood is far less c.o.c.kneyfied, and its fine and Alpine air would be much better for you, and I believe for Mrs. Morley, than the atmosphere of the melancholy main, the effects of which on the human const.i.tution have been so well expounded by that eminent empiric, Dr. Dizzy.

Anyhow, I wish we could see something of you now and then.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Darwin got his degree with great eclat on Sat.u.r.day. I had to return thanks for his health at the dinner of the Philosophical Society; and oh! I chaffed the dons so sweetly.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 27, 1877.

My dear Morley,

You shall have both the articles--if it is only that I may enjoy the innocent pleasure of Knowles' face when I let him know what has become of them. [The rival editor. Cp. above.]

Stormy ocean, forsooth! I back the storm and rain through which I came home to-night against anything London-super-mare has to show.

I will send the ma.n.u.script to Virtue as soon as it is in a reasonable state.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., January 8, 1878.

My dear Morley,

Many thanks for the cheque. In my humble judgment it is quite as much as the commodity is worth.

It was a great pleasure to us all to have you with us on New Year's Day. My wife claims it as her day, and I am not supposed to know anything about the guests except Spencer and Tyndall. None but the very elect are invited to the sacred feast--so you see where you stand among the predestined who cannot fall away from the state of grace.

I have not seen Spencer in such good form and good humour combined for an age.

I am working away at Harvey, and will send the ma.n.u.script to Virtue's as soon as I am sufficiently forward.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, December 9, 1877.

My dear Tyndall,

I am so sorry to have been out when Mrs. Tyndall called to-day. By what we heard at the x on Thursday, I imagined you were practically all right again, or I should have been able to look after you to-day.

But what I bother you with this note for is to beg you not to lecture at the London Inst.i.tution to-morrow, but to let me change days with you, and so give yourself a week to recover. And if you are seedy, then I am quite ready to give them another lecture on the Hokypotamus or whatever else may turn up.

But don't go and exert yourself in your present condition. These severe colds have often nothing very tangible about them, but are not to be trifled with when folks are past fifty.

Let me have an answer to say that I may send a telegram to Nicholson first thing to-morrow morning to say that I will lecture vice you. My "bottled life," as Hutton calls it in the "Spectator" this week, is quite ready to go off. [The "Spectator" for December 8, 1877, began an article thus:--"Professor Huxley delivered a very amusing address last Sat.u.r.day at the Society of Arts, on the very unpromising subject of technical education; but we believe that if Professor Huxley were to become the President of the Social Science a.s.sociation, or of the International Statistical Congress, he would still be amusing, so much bottled life does he infuse into the driest topic on which human beings ever contrived to prose."]

Now be a sane man and take my advice.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

CHAPTER 2.10.

1878.

[The year 1878 was the tercentenary of Harvey's birth, and Huxley was very busy with the life and work of that great physician. He spoke at the memorial meeting at the College of Physicians (July 18), he gave a lecture on Harvey at the Royal Inst.i.tution on January 25, afterwards published in "Nature" and the "Fortnightly Review," and intended to write a book on him in a projected "English Men of Science" series.

(See below.)]

I am very glad you like "Harvey" [he writes to Professor Baynes on February 11]. He is one of the biggest scientific minds we have had. I expect to get well vilipended not only by the anti-vivisection folk, for the most of whom I have a hearty contempt, but apropos of Bacon. I have been oppressed by the humbug of the "Baconian Induction" all my life, and at last THE WORM HAS TURNED.

[Now in this lecture he showed that Harvey employed vivisection to establish the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and furthermore, that he taught this doctrine before the "Novum Organum"

was published, and that his subsequent "Exercitatio" displays no trace of being influenced by Bacon's work. After glancing at the superst.i.tious reverence for the "Baconian Induction," he pointed out Bacon's ignorance of the progress of science up to his time, and his inability to divine the importance of what he knew by hearsay of the work of Copernicus, or Kepler, or Galileo; of Gilbert, his contemporary, or of Galen; and wound up by quoting Ellis's severe judgment of Bacon in the General Preface to the Philosophic Works, in Spedding's cla.s.sical edition (page 38):--] "That his method is impracticable cannot, I think, be denied, if we reflect, not only that it never has produced any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to be in accordance with it."

[How early this conviction had forced itself upon him, I cannot say; but it was certainly not later than 1859, when the "Origin of Species"

was constantly met with "Oh, but this is contrary to the Baconian method." He had long felt what he expresses most clearly in the "Progress of Science" ("Collected Essays" 1 46-57), that Bacon's]

"majestic eloquence and fervid vaticinations," [which] "drew the attention of all the world to the 'new birth of Time,'" [were yet, for all practical results on discovery,] "a magnificent failure." [The desire for "fruits" has not been the great motive of the discoverer; nor has discovery waited upon collective research.] "Those who refuse to go beyond fact," [he writes,] "rarely get as far as fact; and any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the 'antic.i.p.ation of nature,' that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long-run."