Thomas Henry Huxley

“ The unremitting labours of that eminent Frenchman during the last half-century have yielded rich harvests of new truths, and are models of exact and refined research. As such they deserve, and have received, all the honours which those who are the best judges of their purely scientific merits are able to bestow. But it so happens that these subtle and patient searchings out of the ways of the infinitely little—of the swarming life where the creature that measures one-thousandth part of an inch is a giant—have also yielded results of supreme practical importance. ”

“ Such was Huxley's epitaph upon Henslow; it was the standard which he endeavoured to reach in his own life. It is the expression of that passion for veracity which was perhaps his strongest characteristic; an uncompromising passion for truth in thought, which would admit no particle of self-deception, no assertion beyond what could be verified; for truth in act, perfect straightforwardness and sincerity, with complete disregard of personal consequences for uttering unpalatable fact.
Truthfulness, in his eyes, was the cardinal virtue, without which no stable society can exist. ”

“ Why should not each be a "University Professor" and have his turn on the Senate in influencing the general policy of the University? The nature of things drives men more and more into the position of specialists. Why should one specialist represent a whole branch of science better than another, in Council or in Administration?
I am afraid we cannot build upon the analogy of Cambridge. In the first place, London is not Cambridge; and, in the second, Michael Fosters do not grow on every bush.
The besetting sin of able men is impatience of contradiction and of criticism. ”

“ We want a science of "Eubiotics" to tell us exactly what will happen if human beings are exclusively actuated by the desire of well-being in the ordinary sense. Of course the utilitarians have laid the foundations of such a science, with the result that the nicknamer of genius called this branch of science "pig philosophy," making just the same blunder as when he called political economy "dismal science."
"Moderate well-being" may be no more the worthiest end of life than wealth. But if it is the best to be had in this queer world—it may be worth trying for. ”

“ Some authors we may admire for the consummate skill with which they transfer to the reader their thought without allowing him, even for a moment, to be conscious of their personality. In Professor Huxley's work, on the other hand, we never miss his fascinating presence; now he is gravely shaking his head, now compressing the lips with emphasis, and from time to time, with a quiet twinkle of the eye, making unexpected apologies or protesting that he is of a modest and peace-loving nature. At the same time, one becomes accustomed to a rare and delightful phenomenon. ”

“ The history of a bean, of a grain of wheat, of a turnip, of a sheep, of a pig, or of a cow properly treated—with the introduction of the elements of chemistry, physiology, and so on as they come in—would give all the elementary science which is needed for the comprehension of the processes of agriculture in a form easily assimilated by the youthful mind, which loathes everything in the shape of long words and abstract notions, and small blame to it. ”

“ Without it his quick spirit and nervous temperament could never have endured the long and often embittered struggle—not merely with equanimity, but with a constant growth of sympathy for earnest humanity, which, in early days obscured from view by the turmoil of strife, at length became apparent to all as the tide of battle subsided. None realised more than himself what the sustaining help and comradeship of married life had wrought for him, alike in making his life worth living and in making his life's work possible. ”

“ Heterodox ribaldry disgusts me, I confess, rather more than orthodox fanaticism. It is at once so easy; so stupid; such a complete anachronism in England, and so thoroughly calculated to disgust and repel the very thoughtful and serious people whom it ought to be the great aim to attract. Old Noll knew what he was about when he said that it was of no use to try to fight the gentlemen of England with tapsters and serving-men. It is quite as hopeless to fight Christianity with scurrility. ”

“ Shelley was too diffuse to be among his first favourites; but for simple beauty, Keats; for that, and for the comprehension of the meaning of modern science, Tennyson; for strength and feeling, Browning as represented by his earlier poems—these were the favourites among the moderns. He knew his eighteenth-century classics, but knew better his Milton and his Shakespeare, to whom he turned with ever-increasing satisfaction, as men do who have lived a full life. ”

“ No one, I think, could have more cordially admired Huxley's intellectual vigour and unflinching honesty than I. It pleases me to remember that I lately said something of this to him, and that he received what I said most heartily and kindly. But what now dwells most in my mind is the memory of old kindness, and of the days when I used to see him with you and his children. I may safely say that I never came from your house without thinking how good he is; what a tender and affectionate nature the man has! ”

“ If the doctrine of a Providence is to be taken as the expression, in a way "to be understanded of the people," of the total exclusion of chance from a place even in the most insignificant corner of Nature, if it means the strong conviction that the cosmic process is rational, and the faith that, throughout all duration, unbroken order has reigned in the universe, I not only accept it, but I am disposed to think it the most important of all truths. ”

“ Oral teaching was of supreme importance on account of the cost and rarity of manuscripts.
The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge: its professors have to be at the top of the wave of progress. Research and criticism must be the breath of their nostrils; laboratory work the main business of the scientific student; books his main helpers.
The lecture, however, in the hands of an able man will still have the utmost importance in stimulating and giving facts and principles their proper relative prominence. ”

“ What they want is knowledge of the things they may do and must leave undone, if the welfare of society is to be attained. Good people so often forget this that some of them occasionally require hanging almost as much as the bad.
If you ask why the moral inner sense is to be (under due limitations) obeyed; why the few who are steered by it move the mass in whom it is weak? I can only reply by putting another question—Why do the few in whom the sense of beauty is strong—Shakespere, Raffaele, Beethoven, carry the less endowed multitude away? But they do, and always will. ”

“ Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 23, 1894.
Dear Sir,
I ought to have thanked you before now for your letter about Nietzsche's works, but I have not much working time, and I find letter-writing a burden, which I am always trying to shirk.
I will look up Nietzsche, though I must confess that the profit I obtain from German authors on speculative questions is not usually great.
As men of research in positive science they are magnificently laborious and accurate. But most of them have no notion of style, and seem to compose their books with a pitchfork. ”

“ But in your just wrath don't forget that there is such a thing as a science of social life, for which, if the term had not been so hopelessly degraded, Politics is the proper name.
Men are beings of a certain constitution, who, under certain conditions, will as surely tend to act in certain ways as stones will tend to fall if you leave them unsupported. ”

“ There is nobody whom I should more delight to honour—a right good man all round—but I am not competent to judge of his work. You are, and I do not see why you should not suggest it. I would give him a medal for being R. Strachey, but probably the Council would make difficulties.
By the way, do you see the "Times" has practically climbed down about the Royal Society—came down backwards like a bear, growling all the time? I don't think we shall have any more first of December criticisms.
Lord help you through all this screed. With our love to you both.
Ever yours affectionately,
T.H. Huxley. ”

“ Seriously, I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. Science might say to you as the Staffordshire collier's wife said to her husband at the fair, "Get thee foighten done and come whoam." You have a fair expectation of ripe vigour for twenty years; just think what may be done with that capital.
No use to tu quoque me. Under the circumstances of the time, warfare has been my business and duty.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley. ”

“ My dear Stokes,
When we met in the hall of the Athenaeum on Monday evening I was on the point of speaking to you on a somewhat delicate topic; namely, my responsibility for the leading article on the Presidency of the Royal Society and politics which appeared a fortnight ago in "Nature." But I was restrained by the reflection that I had no right to say anything about the matter without the consent of the Editor of "Nature." I have obtained that consent, and I take the earliest opportunity of availing myself of my freedom. ”

“ It is the nature of the system which seems to me to demand as a corrective incessant and severe watchfulness on the part of the Examiners, and I see no harm if they a little overdo the thing in this direction, for every sham they let through is an encouragement to other shams and pot-teaching in general.
And if the "great heart" of the people and its thick head can't be got to appreciate honesty, why the sooner we shut up the better. Ireland may be for the Irish, but science teaching is not for the sake of science teachers. ”

“ G.W. Smalley has also left a striking description of him as a lecturer in the seventies and early eighties.
I used always to admire the simple and business-like way in which Huxley made his entry on great occasions. He hated anything like display, and would have none of it. At the Royal Institution, more than almost anywhere else, the lecturer, on whom the concentric circles of spectators in their steep amphitheatre look down, focuses the gaze. Huxley never seemed aware that anybody was looking at him. From self-consciousness he was, here as elsewhere, singularly free, as from self-assertion. ”

“ Unlike Darwin, to whom scientific research was at length the only thing engrossing enough to make him oblivious of his never-ending ill-health, to the gradual exclusion of other interests, literary and artistic, Huxley never lost his delight in literature or in art. He had a keen eye for a picture or a piece of sculpture, for, in addition to the draughtsman's and anatomist's sense of form, he had a strong sense of colour. ”

“ If a child is taught reading, writing, drawing, and handiwork of some kind; the elements of mathematics, physics, and history, and I should add of political economy and geography; books will furnish him with everything he can possibly need to make him a competent citizen in any rank of life.
If with such a start, he has not the capacity to get all he needs out of books, let him stop where he is. Blow him up with intermediate education as much as you like, you will only do the fellow a mischief and lift him into a place for which he has no real qualification. ”