Thomas Henry Huxley

“ My dear Tyndall,
I quite agree with your Scotch friend in his estimate of Forbes, and if he were alive and the controversy beginning, I should say draw your picture in your best sepia or lampblack. But I have been thinking over this matter a good deal since I received your letter, and my verdict is, leave that tempting piece of portraiture alone.
The world is neither was nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental, and the more severely true your portrait might be the more loud would be the outcry against it. ”

“ I think that I am justified in saying that official intercourse ripened into warm personal friendship, and that, for the many months in which we served together, we lived on terms of intimacy which are rare among colleagues or even among friends.
It is needless to say that, as a companion, Professor Huxley was the most delightful of men. Those who have met him in society, or enjoyed the hospitality of his house, must have been conscious of the singular charm of a conversation, which was founded on knowledge, enlarged by memory, and brightened by humour. ”

“ But there is nothing new in the ideas which lie at the bottom of the movement, nor is any reconcilement possible between free thought and traditional authority. One or other will have to succumb after a struggle of unknown duration, which will have as side issues vast political and social troubles. I have no more doubt that free thought will win in the long run than I have that I sit here writing to you, or that this free thought will organise itself into a coherent system, embracing human life and the world as one harmonious whole. ”

“ Heavy blows have fallen upon me this year in losing Darwin and Balfour, the best of the old and the best of the young. I am beginning to feel older than my age myself, and if Balfour had lived I should have cleared out of the way as soon as possible, feeling that the future of Zoological Science in this country was very safe in his hands. ”

“ Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of vigour and capacity. ”

“ Wells House, Ilkley, Yorkshire, December 1, 1886.
My dear Dohrn,
You see by my address that I am en retraite, for a time. As good catholics withdraw from the world now and then for the sake of their souls—so I, for the sake of my body (and chiefly of my liver) have retired for a fortnight or so to the Yorkshire moors—the nearest place to London where I can find dry air 1500 feet above the sea, and the sort of uphill exercise which routs out all the unoxygenated crannies of my organism. ”

“ As for the English contribution, you must look upon it simply as the expression of the hearty goodwill of your many friends in the land of fogs, and of our strong feeling that where you had sacrificed so much for the cause of science, we were, as a matter of duty,—quite apart from goodwill to you personally—bound to do what we could, each according to his ability.
Darwin is, in all things, noble and generous—one of those people who think it a privilege to let him help. ”

“ So I am off to Venice next Wednesday. It is the only tolerably warm place accessible to any one whose wife will not let him go within reach of cholera just at present.
If I am a good boy I am to come back all sound, as there is nothing organic the matter; but I have had enough of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and shall extricate myself from that Trinity as soon as may be. Perhaps I may get within measurable distance of Berkeley ("English Men of Letters" edited by J.M.) before I die!
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Athenaeum Club, October 18, 1884. ”

“ A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity. ”

“ Though he carried about him, as does every man of like calibre and experience, a heavy load of fragments of inquiry begun but never finished, and as heavy a load of ideas for promising investigations never so much as even touched, though his love of science and belief in it might never have wavered, though he never doubted the value of the results which further research would surely bring him, there was something working within him which made his hand, when turned to anatomical science, so heavy that he could not lift it. ”

“ I value natural beauty as much as most people—indeed I value it so much, and think so highly of its influence that I would make beautiful scenery accessible to all the world, if I could. If any engineering or mining work is projected which will really destroy the beauty of the Lakes, I will certainly oppose it, but I am not disposed, as Goschen said, to "give a blank cheque" to a Defence Society, the force of which is pretty certain to be wielded by the most irrational fanatics amongst its members. ”

“ There is one thing about us men of science, and that is, no one who has the greatest prejudice against science can venture to say that we ever endeavour to conceal each other's mistakes. And, therefore, I rest in the most entire and complete confidence that if this should happen to be a blunder of mine, some day or other it will be carefully exposed by somebody. But pray let me remind you whether all this story about Bathybius be right or wrong, makes not the slightest difference to the general argument of the remarkable address put before you to-night. ”

“ I stand by the view I took of the origin of species now as much as ever.
Shall I not see the address? It is tantalising to hear of your progress, and not to know what is in it.
I am thinking of taking Development for the subject of my evening lecture, the concrete facts made out in the last thirty years without reference to Evolution. [I.e. at the British Association; he actually took "Animals as Automata."] If people see that it is Evolution, that is Nature's fault, and not mine.
We are all flourishing, and send our love.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley. ”

“ From the time of Aristotle to the present day I know of but one man who has shown himself Mr. Darwin's equal in one field of research—and that is Reaumur. In the breadth of range of Mr. Darwin's investigations upon the ways and works of animals and plants, in the minute patient accuracy of his observations, and in the philosophical ideas which have guided them, I know of no one who is to be placed in the same rank with him except Reaumur. ”

“ T.H. Huxley.
Home Office, September 18, 1884.
My dear Donnelly,
We have struck our camp at Milford, and I am going down to Devonshire and Cornwall to-morrow—partly on Fishery business, partly to see if I can shake myself straighter by change of air. I am possessed by seven devils—not only blue, but of the deepest indigo—and I shall try to transplant them into a herd of Cornish swine.
The only thing that comforts me is Gordon's telegrams. Did ever a poor devil of a Government have such a subordinate before? He is the most refreshing personality of this generation. ”

“ I have never competed in the way of honour in my life, and I cannot allow myself to be even thought of as in such a position now, where, with all respect to the honour and glory, they do not appear to me to be in any way equivalent to the burden. And I am not at all sure that I may not be able to serve the right cause outside the Chair rather than in it. ”

“ Of all the people whom I have met with in my life, he and Darwin are the two in whom I have found something bigger than ordinary humanity—an unequalled simplicity and directness of purpose—a sublime unselfishness. ”

“ T.H. Huxley.
Rome, February 14, 1885.
My dear Foster,
Voila the preface—a work of great labour! and which you may polish and alter as you like, ALL BUT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. You see I have caved in. I like your asking to have your own way "for once." My wife takes the same line, does whatever she pleases, and then declares I leave her no initiative.
If I talk of public affairs, I shall simply fall a-blaspheming. I see the "Times" holds out about Gordon, and does not believe he is killed. Poor fellow! ”

“ I find myself distinctly aged—tired out body and soul, and for the first time in my life fairly afraid of the work that lies before me in the next nine months. Physically, I have nothing much to complain of except weariness—and for purely mental work, I think I am good for something yet. I am morally and mentally sick of society and societies—committees, councils—bother about details and general worry and waste of time. ”

“ He had the rare art of placing men, whose knowledge and intellect were inferior to his own, at their ease. He knew how to draw out all that was best in the companion who suited him; and he had equal pleasure in giving and receiving. Our conversation ranged over every subject. We discussed together the grave problems of man and his destiny; we disputed on the minor complications of modern politics; we criticised one another's literary judgments; and we laughed over the stories which we told one another, and of which Professor Huxley had an inexhaustible fund. ”

“ We do not make this request [i.e. to accept the statue] for the mere sake of perpetuating a memory; for so long as men occupy themselves with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Copernicus, or that of Harvey.
Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its cynosural position in this entrance hall of our National Museum of Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin's views have received your official sanction; for science does not recognise such sanctions, and commits suicide when it adopts a creed. ”

“ Until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physiology has become an organic part of your minds—until you would know them if you were roused and questioned in the middle of the night, as a man knows the geography of his native place and the daily life of his home. ”

“ But if the good of society and of a nation is a sufficient plea for inflicting pain on men, I think it may suffice us for experimenting on rabbits or dogs.
At the same time, I think that a heavy moral responsibility rests on those who perform experiments of the second kind.
The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to forget that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of inflicting pain per se.
I am, sir, yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley. ”

“ For though for the last quarter of a century I have done all that lay in my power to oppose and destroy the idolatrous accretions of Judaism and Christianity, I have never had the slightest sympathy with those who, as the Germans say, would "throw the child away along with the bath"—and when I was a member of the London School Board I fought for the retention of the Bible, to the great scandal of some of my Liberal friends—who can't make out to this day whether I was a hypocrite, or simply a fool on that occasion. ”

“ Observation and experiment alone can give us a real foundation for any kind of Natural Knowledge, and any one who is acquainted with the history of science is aware that not a single one of all the great truths of modern physiology has been established otherwise than by experiment on living things. ”

“ The high example which he set in controversy, moreover, was equally visible in his ordinary life. Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard were—on the whole—the highest. He recognised that the fact of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the most upright of lives, and I am very much of the opinion of a little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who, when she was told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future rewards, and no fear of future punishments, emphatically declared: "Then I think Professor Huxley is the best man I have ever known." ”

“ How am I to tell the Dean that I think he ought to read over the body of a person who did not repent of what the Church considers mortal sin, a service not one solitary proposition in which she would have accepted for truth while she was alive? ”

“ Humphry has said that the University has by to-day's proceedings committed itself to the doctrine of evolution. I can only say "I am very glad to hear it." But whether that doctrine be true or whether it be false, I wish to express the deliberate opinion, that from Aristotle's great summary of the Biological knowledge of his time down to the present day, there is nothing comparable to the "Origin of Species," as a connected survey of the phenomena of life permeated and vivified by a central idea. ”

“ If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhoid and diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to just as much as if he went about with a pistol threatening my life ”

“ Not among fatalists, for I take the conception of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical foundation; not among materialists, for I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in which to picture that existence; not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My dear Darwin,
You are the cheeriest letter-writer I know, and always help a man to think the best of his doings.
I hope you do not imagine because I had nothing to say about "Natural Selection," that I am at all weak of faith on that article. On the contrary, I live in hope that as paleontologists work more and more in the manner of that "second Daniel come to judgment," that wise young man M. Filhal, we shall arrive at a crushing accumulation of evidence in that direction also. But the first thing seems to me to be to drive the fact of evolution into people's heads ”

“ I plead guilty to having accepted the Birmingham invitation [to unveil the statue of Joseph Priestley] . I thought they deserved to be encouraged for having asked a man of science to do the job instead of some noble swell, and, moreover, Satan whispered that it would be a good opportunity for a little ventilation of wickedness. I cannot say, however, that I can work myself up into much enthusiasm for the dry old Unitarian who did not go very deep into anything. But I think I may make him a good peg whereon to hang a discourse on the tendencies of modern thought. ”

“ Combined with this, a knowledge of modern science, its principles and results, which have so profoundly modified society and have created modern civilisation, will give a "criticism of life," as Matthew Arnold defined "the end and aim of all literature," that is to say culture, unattainable by any form of education which neglects it. In short, although the "culture" of former periods might be purely literary, that of to-day must be based, to a great extent, upon natural science.
This autumn several letters passed between him and Darwin. ”