Chapter 9

1851-1853.

[Several letters dating from 1851 to 1853 help to fill up the outlines of Huxley's life during those three years of struggle. There is a description of the British Association meeting at Ipswich in 1851] ("Forbes advises me to go down to the meeting of the British Association this year and make myself notorious somehow or other. Thank Heaven I have impudence enough to lecture the savans of Europe if necessary. Can you imagine me holding forth?" [June 6, 1851.]), with the traditional touch of gaiety to enliven the gravity of its proceedings, and the unconventional jollity of the Red Lion Club (a dining-club of members of the Association), whose palmy days were those under the inspiration of the genial and gifted Forbes. This was the meeting at which Huxley first began his alliance with Tyndall, with whom he travelled down from town, although he does not mention his name in this letter. With Hooker he had already made acquaintance; and from this time forwards the three were closely bound together by personal regard as well as by similarity of aims and interests.

Then follow his sketch of the English scientific world as he found it in 1851, given in his letter to W. Macleay; several letters to his sister; the description of his first lecture at the Royal Institution, which, though successful on the whole, was very different in manner and delivery from the clear and even flow of his later style, with the voice not loud but distinct, the utterance never hurried beyond the point of immediate comprehension, but carrying the attention of the audience with it, eager to the end. Two letters of warning and remonstrance against the habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, suitable to a knot of students gathered round his table, but not to a large audience--of running his words, especially technical terms, together--of pouring out new and unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed, were addressed to him--one by a "working man" of his Monday evening audience at Jermyn Street in 1855, the other, undated, by Mr. Jodrell, a frequenter of the Royal Institution, and afterwards founder of the Jodrell Lectureships at University College, London, and other benefactions to science, and these he kept by him as a perpetual reminder, labelled "Good Advice." How much can be done by the frank acceptance of criticism and by careful practice is shown by the difference between the feelings of the later audiences who flocked to his lectures, and those of the members of an Institute in St. John's Wood, who, as he often used to tell, after hearing him in his early days, petitioned "not to have that young man again."]

July 12, 1851.

The interval between my letters has been a little longer than usual, as I have been very busy attending the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich. The last time I attended one was at Southampton five years ago, when I went merely as a spectator, and looked at the people who read papers as if they were somebodies. (See Chapter 2, ad fin.) This time I have been behind the scenes myself and have played out my little part on the boards. I know all about the scenery and decorations, and no longer think the manager a wizard.

Any one who conceives that I went down from any especial interest in the progress of science makes a great mistake. My journey was altogether a matter of policy, partly for the purpose of doing a little necessary trumpeting, and partly to get the assistance of the Association in influencing the Government.

On the journey down, my opposite in the railway carriage turned out to be Sir James Ross, the Antarctic discoverer. We had some very pleasant talk together. I knew all about him, as Dayman (one of the lieutenants of the "Rattlesnake") had sailed under his command; oddly enough we afterwards went to lodge at the same house, but as we were attending our respective sections all day we did not see much of one another.

When we arrived at Ipswich there was a good deal of trouble about getting lodgings. My companions located themselves about a mile out of the town, but that was too far for my "indolent habits"; I sought and at last found a room in the town a little bigger than my cabin on board ship for which I had the satisfaction of paying 30 shillings a week.

You know what the British Association is. It is a meeting of the savans of England and the Continent, under the presidency of some big-wig or other,--this year of the Astronomer-Royal,--for the purpose of exchanging information. To this end they arrange themselves into different sections, each with its own president and committee, and indicated by letters. For instance, Section A is for Mathematics and Physics; Section B for Chemistry, etc.; my own section, that of Natural History, was D, under the presidency of Professor Henslow of Cambridge. I was on the committee, and therefore saw the working of the whole affair.

On the first day there was a dearth of matter in our section. People had not arrived with their papers. So by way of finding out whether I could speak in public or not, I got up and talked to them for about twenty minutes. I was considerably surprised to find that when once I had made the plunge, my tongue went glibly enough.

On the following day I read a long paper, which I had prepared and illustrated with a lot of big diagrams, to an audience of about twenty people! The rest were all away after Prince Albert, who had been unfortunately induced to visit the meeting, and fairly turned the heads of the good people of Ipswich. On Saturday a very pleasant excursion on scientific pretences, but in fact a most jolly and unscientific picnic, took place. Several hundred people went down the Orwell in a steamer. The majority returned, but I and two others, considering Sunday in Ipswich an impossibility, stopped at a little seaside village, Felixstowe, and idled away our time there very pleasantly. Babington the botanist and myself walked into Ipswich on Sunday night. It is about eleven miles, and we did it comfortably in two hours and three quarters, which was not bad walking.

On Monday at Section D again. Forbes brought forward the subject of my application to Government in committee, and it was unanimously agreed to forward a resolution on the subject to the Committee of Recommendations. I made a speechification of some length in the Section about a new animal.

On Thursday morning I attended a meeting of the Ray Society, and to my infinite astonishment, the secretary, Dr. Lankester, gave me the second motion to make. The Prince of Casino moved the first, so I was in good company. The great absurdity of it was that not being a member of the Society I had properly no right to speak at all. However, it was only a vote of thanks, and I got up and did the "neat and appropriate" in style.

After this a party of us went out dredging in the Orwell in a small boat. We were away all day, and it rained hard coming back, so that I got wet through, and had to pull five miles to keep off my enemy, the rheumatics.

Then came the President's dinner, to which I did not go, as I preferred making myself comfortable with a few friends elsewhere. And after that, the final evening meeting, when all the final determinations are announced.

Among them I had the satisfaction to hear that it was resolved--that the President and Council of the British Association should co-operate with the Royal Society in representing the value and importance, etc., of Mr. T.H. Huxley's zoological researches to Her Majesty's Government for the purpose of obtaining a grant towards their publication. Subsequently I was introduced to Colonel Sabine, the President of the Association in 1852, and a man of very high standing and considerable influence. He had previously been civil enough to sign my certificate at the Royal Society, unsolicited, and therefore knew me by reputation--I only mean that as a very small word. He was very civil and promised me every assistance in his power.

It is a curious thing that of the four applications to Government to be made by the Association, two were for Naval Assistant-Surgeons, namely one for Dr. Hooker, who had just returned from the Himalaya Mountains, and one for me. How I envied Hooker; he has long been engaged to a daughter of Professor Henslow's, and at this very meeting he sat by her side. He is going to be married in a day or two. His father is director of the Kew Gardens, and there is little doubt of his succeeding him.

Whether the Government accede to the demand that will be made upon them or not, I can now rest satisfied that no means of influencing them has been left unused by me. If they will not listen to the conjoint recommendations of the Royal Society and the British Association, they will listen to nothing...

July 16, 1851.

I went yesterday to dine with Colonel Sabine. We had a long discourse about the prospects and probable means of existence of young men trying to make their way to an existence in the scientific world. I took, as indeed what I have seen has forced me to take, rather the despairing side of the question, and said that as it seemed to me England did not afford even the means of existence to young men who were willing to devote themselves to science. However, he spoke cheeringly, and advised me by no means to be hasty, but to wait, and he doubted not that I should succeed. He cited his own case as an instance of waiting, eventually successful. Altogether I felt the better for what he said...

There has been a notice of me in the "Literary Gazette" for last week, much more laudatory than I deserve, from the pen of my friend Forbes. [An appreciation of his papers on the Physophoridae and Sagitta, speaking highly both of his observations and philosophic power, in the report of the proceedings in Section D.]

In the same number is a rich song from the same fertile and versatile pen, which was sung at one of our Red Lion meetings. That is why I want you to look at it, not that you will understand it, because it is full of allusions to occurrences known only in the scientific circles. At Ipswich we had a grand Red Lion meeting; about forty members were present, and among them some of the most distinguished members of the Association. Some foreigners were invited (the Prince of Casino, Buonaparte's nephew, among others), and were not a little astonished to see the grave professors, whose English solemnity and gravity they had doubtless commented on elsewhere, giving themselves up to all sorts of fun. Among the Red Lions we have a custom (instead of cheering) of waving and wagging one coat-tail (one Lion's tail) when we applaud. This seemed to strike the Prince's fancy amazingly, and when he got up to return thanks for his health being drunk, he told us that as he was rather out of practice in speaking English, he would return thanks in our fashion, and therewith he gave three mighty roars and wags, to the no small amusement of every one. He is singularly like the portraits of his uncle, and seems a very jolly, good-humoured old fellow. I believe, however, he is a bit of a rip. It was remarkable how proud the Quakers were of being noticed by him.

To W. Macleay, of Sydney.

41 North Bank, Regent's Park, November 9, 1851.

My dear Sir,

It is a year to-day since the old "Rattlesnake" was paid off, and that reminds me among other things that I have hardly kept my promise of giving you information now and then upon the state of matters scientific in England. My last letter is, I am afraid, nine or ten months old, but here in England the fighting and scratching to keep your place in the crowd exclude almost all other thoughts. When I last wrote I was but at the edge of the crush at the pit-door of this great fools' theatre--now I have worked my way into it and through it, and am, I hope, not far from the check-takers. I have learnt a good deal in my passage.

[Follows an account of his efforts to get his papers published--substantially a repetition of what has already been given.]

Rumours there are scattered abroad of a favourable cast, and I am told on all hands that something will certainly be done. I only asked for 300 pounds sterling, something less than the cost of a parliamentary blue-book which nobody ever hears of. They take care to obliterate any spark of gratitude that might perchance arise for what they do, by keeping one so long in suspense that the result becomes almost a matter of indifference. Had I known they would keep me so long, I would have published my work as a series of papers in the "Philosophical Transactions."

In the meanwhile I have not been idle, as I hope to show you by the various papers enclosed with this. You will recollect that on the Salpae. No one here knew anything about them, and I thought that all my results were absolutely new--until, me miserum! I found them in a little paper of Krohn's in the "Annales des Sciences" for 1846, without any figures to draw anybody's attention.

The memoir on the Medusae (which I sent to you) has, I hear, just escaped a high honour--to wit, the Royal Medal. The award has been made to Newport for his paper on "Impregnation." I had no idea that anything I had done was likely to have the slightest claim to such distinction, but I was informed yesterday by one of the Council that the balance hung pretty evenly, and was only decided by their thinking my memoir was too small and short.

I have been working in all things with a reference to wide views of zoological philosophy, and the report upon the Echinoderms is intended in common with the mem. on the Salpae to explain my views of Individuality among the lower animals--views which I mean to illustrate still further and enunciate still more clearly in my book that is to be. [He lectured on this subject at the Royal Institution in 1852.] They have met with approval from Carpenter, as you will see by the last edition of his "Principles of Physiology," and I think that Forbes and some others will be very likely eventually to come round to them, but everything that relates to abstract thought is at a low ebb among the mass of naturalists in this country.

In the paper upon "Thalassicolla," and in that which I read before the British Association, as also in one upon the organisation of the Rotifera, which I am going to have published in the Microscopical Society's "Transactions," I have been driving in a series of wedges into Cuvier's Radiata, and showing how selon moi they ought to be distributed.

I am every day becoming more and more certain that you were on the right track thirty years ago in your views of the order and symmetry to be traced in the true natural system.

During the next session I mean to send in a paper to the Royal Society upon the "Homologies of the Mollusca," which shall astonish them. I want to get done for the Mollusca what Savigny did for the Articulata, namely to show how they all--Cephalopoda, Gasteropoda, Pteropoda, Heteropoda, etc.--are organised in each. What with this and the book, I shall have enough to do for the next six months.

You will doubtless ask what is the practical outlook of all this? whether it leads anywhere in the direction of bread and cheese? To this also I can give a tolerably satisfactory answer.

As you WON'T have a Professor of Natural History at Sydney--to my great sorrow--I have gone in as a candidate for a Professorial chair at the other end of the world, Toronto in Canada. In England there is nothing to be done--it is the most hopeless prospect I know of; of course the Service offers nothing for me except irretrievable waste of time, and the scientific appointments are so few and so poor that they are not tempting...

Had the Sydney University been carried out as originally proposed, I should certainly have become a candidate for the Natural History Chair. I know no finer field for exertion for any naturalist than Sydney Harbour itself. Should such a Professorship be hereafter established, I trust you will jog the memory of my Australian friends in my behalf. I have finally decided that my vocation is science, and I have made up my mind to the comparative poverty which is its necessary adjunct, and to the no less certain seclusion from the ordinary pleasures and rewards of men. I say this without the slightest idea that there is anything to be enthusiastic about in either science or its professors. A year behind the scenes is quite enough to disabuse one of all rose-pink illusions.

But it is equally clear to me that for a man of my temperament, at any rate, the sole secret of getting through this life with anything like contentment is to have full scope for the development of one's faculties. Science alone seems to me to afford this scope--Law, Divinity, Physic, and Politics being in a state of chaotic vibration between utter humbug and utter scepticism.

There is a great stir in the scientific world at present about who is to occupy Konig's place at the British Museum, and whether the whole establishment had better not, quoad Zoology, be remodelled and placed under Owen's superintendence. The heart-burnings and jealousies about this matter are beyond all conception. Owen is both feared and hated, and it is predicted that if Gray and he come to be officers of the same institution, in a year or two the total result will be a caudal vertebra of each remaining after the manner of the Kilkenny cats.

However, I heard yesterday, upon what professed to be very good authority, that Owen would not leave the College under any circumstances.

It is astonishing with what an intense feeling of hatred Owen is regarded by the majority of his contemporaries, with Mantell as arch-hater. The truth is, he is the superior of most, and does not conceal that he knows it, and it must be confessed that he does some very ill-natured tricks now and then. A striking specimen of one is to be found in his article on Lyell in the last Quarterly, where he pillories poor Quekett--a most inoffensive man and his own immediate subordinate--in a manner not more remarkable for its severity than for its bad taste. That review has done him much harm in the estimation of thinking men--and curiously enough, since it was written, reptiles have been found in the old red sandstone, and insectivorous mammals in the Trias! Owen is an able man, but to my mind not so great as he thinks himself. He can only work in the concrete from bone to bone, in abstract reasoning he becomes lost--witness "Parthenogenesis" which he told me he considered one of the best things he had done!

He has, however, been very civil to me, and I am as grateful as it is possible to be towards a man with whom I feel it necessary to be always on my guard.

Quite another being is the other leader of Zoological Science in this country--I mean Edward Forbes, Paleontologist to the Geological Survey. More especially a Zoologist and a Geologist than a Comparative Anatomist, he has more claims to the title of a Philosophic Naturalist than any man I know of in England. A man of letters and an artist, he has not merged the MAN in the man of science--he has sympathies for all, and an earnest, truth-seeking, thoroughly genial disposition which win for him your affection as well as your respect. Forbes has more influence by his personal weight and example upon the rising generation of scientific naturalists than Owen will have if he write from now till Doomsday.

Personally I am greatly indebted to him (though the opinion I have just expressed is that of the world in general). During my absence he superintended the publication of my paper, and from the moment of my arrival until now he has given me all the help one man can give another. Why he should have done so I do not know, as when I left England I had only spoken to him once.

The rest of the naturalists stand far below these two in learning, originality, and grasp of mind. Goodsir of Edinburgh should I suppose come next, but he can't write intelligibly. Darwin might be anything if he had good health. Bell is a good man in all the senses of the word, but wants qualities 2 and 3. Newport is a laborious man, but wants 1 and 3. Grant and Rymer Jones--arcades ambo--have mistaken their vocation.

My old chief Richardson is a man of men, but troubles himself little with anything but detail zoology. What think you of his getting married for the third time just before his last expedition? I hardly know by which step he approved himself the bolder man.

I think I have now fulfilled my promise of supplying you with a little scientific scandal--and if this long epistle has repaid your trouble in getting through it, I am content.

Believe me, I have not forgotten, nor ever shall forget, your kindness to me at a time when a little appreciation and encouragement were more grateful to me and of more service than they will perhaps ever be again. I have done my best to justify you.

I send copies of all the papers I have published with one exception, of which I have none separate. Of the Royal Society papers I send a double set. Will you be kind enough to give one with my kind regards and remembrances to Dr. Nicholson? I feel I ought to have written to him before leaving Sydney, but I trust he will excuse my not having done so.

I shall be very glad if you can find time to write.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

W. Macleay, Esq.

P.S.--Muller has just made a most extraordinary discovery, no less than the generation of Molluscs from Holothuriae!!! You will find a translation of his paper by me in the "Annals" for January 1852.

December 13, 1851.

[To his sister.]

May 20, 1851.

...Owen has been amazingly civil to me, and it was through his writing to the First Lord that I got my present appointment. He is a queer fish, more odd in appearance than ever...and more bland in manner. He is so frightfully polite that I never feel thoroughly at home with him. He got me to furnish him with some notes for the second edition of the "Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry," and I find that in it Darwin and I (comparisons are odious) figure as joint authorities on some microscopic matters!!

Professor Forbes, however, is my great ally, a first-rate man, thoroughly in earnest and disinterested, and ready to give his time and influence--which is great--to help any man who is working for the cause. To him I am indebted for the supervision of papers that were published in my absence, for many introductions, and most valuable information and assistance, and all done in such a way as not to oppress one or give one any feeling of patronage, which you know (so much do I retain of my old self) would not suit me. My notions are diametrically opposed to his in some matters, and he helps me to oppose him. The other night, or rather nights, for it took three, I had a long paper read at the Royal Society which opposed some of his views, and he got up and spoke in the highest terms of it afterwards. This is all as it should be. I can reverence such a man and yet respect myself.

I have been aspiring to great honours since I wrote to you last, to wit the F.R.S., and found no little to my astonishment that I had a chance of it, and so went in. I must tell you that they have made the admission more difficult than it used to be. Candidates are not elected by the Society alone, but fifteen only a year are selected by a committee, and then elected as a matter of course by the Society. This year there were thirty-eight candidates. I did not expect to come in till next year, but I find I am one of the selected. I fancy I shall be the junior Fellow by some years. Singularly enough, among the non-selected candidates were Ward, the man who conducted the Botanical Honours Examination of Apothecaries' Hall nine years ago, and Bryson, the surgeon of the "Fisguard," i.e. nominally my immediate superior, and who, as he frequently acts as Sir William Burnett's deputy, WILL VERY LIKELY EXAMINE ME WHEN I PASS FOR SURGEON R.N.!! That is awkward and must be annoying to him, but it is not my fault. I did not ask for a single name that appeared upon my certificate. Owen's name and Carpenter's, which were to have been appended, were not added. Forbes, my recommender, told me beforehand not to expect to get in this year, and did not use his influence, and so I have no intriguing to reproach myself with or to be reproached with. The only drawback is that it will cost me 14 pounds sterling, which is more than I can very well afford.

By the way, I have not told you that after staying for about five months with George, I found that if I meant to work in earnest his home was not the place, so, much to my regret,--for they made me very happy there,--I summoned resolution and "The Boy's Own Book" and took a den of my own, whence I write at present. You had better, anyhow, direct to George, as I am going to move and don't know how long I may remain at my next habitation. At present I am living in the Park Road, but I find it too noisy and am going to St. Anne's Gardens, St. John's Wood, close to my mother's, against whose forays I shall have to fortify myself.

[It was a minor addition to his many troubles that after a time Huxley found a grudging and jealous spirit exhibited in some quarters towards his success, and influence used to prevent any further advance that might endanger the existing balance of power in the scientific world. But this could be battled with directly; indeed it was rather a relief to have an opportunity for action instead of sitting still to wait the results of uncertain elections. The qualities requisite for such a contest he possessed, in a high ideal of the dignity of science as an instrument of truth; a standard of veracity in scientific workers to which all should subordinate their personal ambitions; a disregard of authority as such unless its claims were verified by indisputable fact; and as a beginning, the will to subject himself to his own most rigid canons of accuracy, thoroughness, and honesty; then to maintain his principle and defend his position against all attempts at browbeating.]

March 5, 1852

I told you I was very busy, and I must tell you what I am about and you will believe me. I have just finished a Memoir for the Royal Society ["On the Morphology of the Cephalous Mollusca" "Scientific Memoirs"