Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 47

The President of the Royal Society is, as mentioned above, an ex officio Trustee of the British Museum, so that now, as again in 1888, circ.u.mstances at length brought about the state of affairs which Huxley had once indicated--half jestingly--to Robert Lowe, who inquired of him what would be the best course to adopt with respect to the Natural History collections of the British Museum:--] "Make me a Trustee and Flower director." [At this moment, the question of an official residence for the Director of the Natural History Museum was under discussion with the Treasury, and he writes:--]

February 29, 1884.

My dear Flower,

I am particularly glad to hear your news. "Ville qui parle et femme qui ecoute se rendent," says the wicked proverb--and it is true of Chancellors of the Exchequer.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A pendent to this is a letter of congratulation to Sir Henry Roscoe on his knighthood:--]

Science and Art Department, South Kensington, July 7, 1884.

My dear Roscoe,

I am very glad to see that the Government has had the grace to make some acknowledgment of their obligation to you, and I wish you and "my lady" long enjoyment of your honours. I don't know if you are gazetted yet, so I don't indicate them outside.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.

I wrote some weeks ago to the Secretary of the National a.s.sociation of Science Teachers to say that I must give up the Presidency. I had come to the conclusion that the a.s.sociation wants sharp looking after, and that I can't undertake that business.

P.S. 2.

Shall I tell you what your great affliction henceforward will be? It will be to hear yourself called Sr'enery Roscoe by the flunkies who announce you.

Her Ladys.h.i.+p will please take note of this crumpled rose leaf--I am sure of its annoying her.

[The following letter, with its comparison of life to a whirlpool and its acknowledgment of the widespread tendency in mankind to make idols, was written in answer to some inquiries from Lady Welby:--]

April 8, 1884.

Your letter requires consideration, and I have had very little leisure lately. Whether motion disintegrates or integrates is, I apprehend, a question of conditions. A whirlpool in a stream may remain in the same spot for any imaginable time. Yet it is the effect of the motion of the particles of the water in that spot which continually integrate themselves into the whirlpool and disintegrate themselves from it. The whirlpool is permanent while the conditions last, though its const.i.tuents incessantly change. Living bodies are just such whirlpools. Matter sets into them in the shape of food,--sets out of them in the shape of waste products. Their individuality lies in the constant maintenance of a characteristic form, not in the preservation of material ident.i.ty. I do not know anything about "vitality" except as a name for certain phenomena like "electricity" or "gravitation."

As you get deeper into scientific questions you will find that "Name ist Schall und Rauch" even more emphatically than Faust says it is in Theology. Most of us are idolators, and ascribe divine powers to the abstractions "Force," "Gravity," "Vitality," which our own brains have created. I do not know anything about "inert" things in nature. If we reduce the world to matter and motion, the matter is not "inert,"

inasmuch as the same amount of motion affects different kinds of matter in different ways. To go back to my own ill.u.s.tration. The fabric of the watch is not inert, every particle of it is in violent and rapid motion, and the winding-up simply perturbs the whole infinitely complicated system in a particular fas.h.i.+on. Equilibrium means death, because life is a succession of changes, while a changing equilibrium is a contradiction in terms. I am not at all clear that a living being is comparable to a machine running down. On this side of the question the whirlpool affords a better parallel than the watch.

If you dam the stream above or below, the whirlpool dies; just as the living being does if you cut off its food, or choke it with its own waste products. And if you alter the sides or bottom of the stream you may kill the whirlpool, just as you kill the animal by interfering with its structure. Heat and oxidation as a source of heat appear to supply energy to the living machine, the molecular structure of the germ furnis.h.i.+ng the "sides and bottom of the stream," that is, determining the results which the energy supplied shall produce.

Mr. Ashby writes like a man who knows what he is talking about. His exposition appears to me to be essentially sound and extremely well put. I wish there were more sanitary officers of the same stamp. Mr.

Spencer is a very admirable writer, and I set great store by his works. But we are very old friends, and he has endured me as a sort of "devil's advocate" for thirty-odd years. He thinks that if I can pick no holes in what he says he is safe. But I pick a great many holes, and we agree to differ.

[Between April and September, Fishery business took him out of London for no less than forty-three days, first to Cornwall, then in May to Brixham, in June to c.u.mberland and Yorks.h.i.+re, in July to Chester, and in September to South Devon, Cornwall, and Wales. A few extracts from his letters home may be given. Just before starting, he writes from Marlborough Place to Rogate, where his wife and one of his daughters were staying:--]

April 8.

The weather turned wonderfully muggy here this morning, and turned me into wet paper. But I contrived to make a "neat and appropriate" in presenting old Hird with his testimonial. Fayrer and I were students under him forty years ago, and as we stood together it was a question which was the greyest old chap.

April 14.

I have almost given up reading the Egyptian news, I am so disgusted with the whole business. I saw several pieces of land to let for building purposes about Falmouth, but did not buy. [This was to twit his wife with her constant desire that he should buy a bit of land in the country to settle upon in their old age.]

April 18.

You don't say when you go back, so I direct this to Rogate. I shall expect to see you quite set up. We must begin to think seriously about getting out of the hurly-burly a year or two hence, and having an Indian summer together in peace and quietness.

April 15, Sunday, Falmouth.

I went out at ten o'clock this morning, and did not get back till near seven. But I got a cup of tea and some bread and b.u.t.ter in a country village, and by the help of that and many pipes supported nature.

There was a bitter east wind blowing, but the day was lovely otherwise, and by judicious dodging in coves and creeks and sandy bays, I escaped the wind and absorbed a prodigious quant.i.ty of suns.h.i.+ne.

I took a volume of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" with me.

I had not read the famous 15th and 16th chapters for ages, and I lay on the sands and enjoyed them properly. A lady came and spoke to me as I returned, who knew L. at Oxford very well--can't recollect her name--and her father and mother are here, and I have just been spending an hour with them. Also a man who sat by me at dinner knew me from Jack's portrait. So my incognito is not very good. I feel quite set up by my day's wanderings.

May 11, Torquay.

We went over to Brixham yesterday to hold an inquiry, getting back here to an eight o'clock or nearer nine dinner...Dalhousie has discovered that the officer now in command of the "Britannia" is somebody whom he does NOT know, so we gave up going to Dartmouth and agreed to have a lazy day here. It is the most exquisite summer weather you can imagine, and I have been basking in the sun all the morning and dreamily looking over the view of the lovely bay which is looking its best--but take it all round it does not come up to Lynton.

Dalhousie is more likeable than ever, and I am just going out for a stroll with him.

June 24.

I left Keswick this morning for c.o.c.kermouth, took the chair at my meeting punctually at twelve, sat six mortal hours listening to evidence, nine-tenths of which was superfluous--and turning my lawyer faculty to account in sifting the grains of fact out of the other tenth.

June 25, Leeds.

...We had a long drive to a village called Harewood on the Wharfe.

There is a big Lord lives there--Earl of Harewood--and he and his ancestors must have taken great care of their tenants, for the labourers' houses are the best I ever saw...I cut out the enclosed from the "Standard" the other day to amuse you, but have forgotten to send it before [Apparently announcing that he was about to accept a t.i.tle. I have not been able to trace the paragraph.] I think we will be "Markishes," the lower grades are getting common.

June 27.

...I had a long day's inspection of the Wharfe yesterday, attended a meeting of the landed proprietors at Ottley to tell them what they must do if they would get salmon up their river...

I shall leave here to-morrow morning, go on to Skipton, whence seven or eight miles' drive will take me to Linton where there is an obstruction in the river I want to see. In the afternoon I shall come home from Skipton, but I don't know exactly by what train. As far as I see, I ought to be home by about 10.30, and you may have something light for supper, as the "course of true feeding is not likely to run smooth"--to-morrow.

[In August he went again to the corner of Surrey which he had enjoyed so much the year before. Here, in the intervals of suffering under the hands of the dentist, he worked at preparing a new edition of the "Elementary Physiology" with Sir M. Foster, alternating with fresh studies in critical theology.

The following letters reflect his occupations at this time, together with his desire, strongly combated by his friend, of resigning the Presidency of the Royal Society immediately.]

Highcroft House, Milford, G.o.dalming, August 9, 1884.

My dear Foster,

I had to go up to town on Friday, and yesterday I went and had all my remaining teeth out, and came down here again with a shrewd suspicion that I was really drunk and incapable, however respectable I might look outwardly. At present I can't eat at all, and I CAN'T SMOKE WITH ANY COMFORT. For once I don't mind using italics.

Item.--I send the two cuts.