Chapter 9

1890-1891.

[The new house at Eastbourne has been several times referred to. As usually happens, the move was considerably delayed by the slowness of the workmen; it did not actually take place till the beginning of December.

He writes to his daughter, Mrs. Roller, who also had just moved into a new house:--]

You have all my sympathies on the buy, buy question. I never knew before that when you go into a new house money runs out at the heels of your boots. On former occasions, I have been too busy to observe the fact. But I am convinced now that it is a law of nature.

[The origin of the name given to the house appears from the following letter:--]

Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, October 15, 1890.

My dear Foster,

Best thanks for the third part of the "Physiology," which I found when I ran up to town for a day or two last week. What a grind that book must be.

How's a' wi' you? Let me have a line.

We ought to have been in our house a month ago, but fitters, paperers, and polishers are like bugs or cockroaches, you may easily get 'em in, but getting 'em out is the deuce. However, I hope to clear them out by the end of this week, and get in by the end of next week.

One is obliged to have names for houses here. Mine will be "Hodeslea," which is as near as I can go to "Hodesleia," the poetical original shape of my very ugly name.

There was a noble scion of the house of Huxley of Huxley who, having burgled and done other wrong things (temp. Henry IV.), asked for benefit of clergy. I expect they gave it him, not in the way he wanted, but in the way they would like to "benefit" a later member of the family.

[Rough sketch of one priest hauling the rope taut over the gallows, while another holds a crucifix before the suspended criminal.]

Between this gentleman and my grandfather there is unfortunately a complete blank, but I have none the less faith in him as my ancestor.

My wife, I am sorry to say, is in town--superintending packing up--no stopping her. I have been very uneasy about her at times, and shall be glad when we are quietly settled down. With kindest regards to Mrs. Foster.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[His own principal task was in getting his library ready for the move.]

Most of my time [he writes on November 16] for the last fortnight has been spent in arranging books and tearing up papers till my back aches and my fingers are sore.

[However, he did not take all his books with him. There was a quantity of biological works of all sorts which had accumulated in his library and which he was not likely to use again; these he offered as a parting gift to the Royal College of Science. On December 8, the Registrar conveys to him the thanks of the Council for "the valuable library of biological works," and further informs him that it was resolved:--

That the library shall be kept in the room formerly occupied by the Dean, which shall be called "The Huxley Laboratory for Biological Research," and be devoted to the prosecution of original researches in Biological Science, with which the name of Professor Huxley is inseparably associated.

Huxley replied as follows:--]

Dear Registrar,

I beg you convey my hearty thanks to the Council for the great kindness of the minute and resolution which you have sent me. My mind has never been greatly set on posthumous fame; but there is no way of keeping memory green which I should like so well as that which they have adopted towards me.

It has been my fate to receive a good deal more vilipending than (I hope) I deserve. If my colleagues, with whom I have worked so long, put too high a value upon my services, perhaps the result may be not far off justice.

Yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

In addition to the directly controversial articles in the early part of the year, two other articles on controversial subjects belong to 1891. "Hasisadra's Adventure," published in the "Nineteenth Century" for June, completed his long-contemplated examination of the Flood myth. In this he first discussed the Babylonian form of the legend recorded upon the clay tablets of Assurbanipal--a simpler and less exaggerated form as befits an earlier version, and in its physical details keeping much nearer to the bounds of probability.

The greater part of the article, however, is devoted to a wider question--How far does geological and geographical evidence bear witness to the consequences which must have ensued from a universal flood, or even from one limited to the countries of Mesopotamia? And he comes to the conclusion that these very countries have been singularly free from any great changes of the kind for long geological periods.

The sarcastic references in this article to those singular reasoners who take the possibility of an occurrence to be the same as scientific testimony to the fact of its occurrence, lead up, more or less, to the subject of an essay, "Possibilities and Impossibilities," which appeared in the "Agnostic Annual" for 1892, actually published in October 1891, and to be found in "Collected Essays", 5 192.

This was a restatement of the fundamental principles of the agnostic position, arising out of the controversies of the last two years upon the demonology of the New Testament. The miraculous is not to be denied as impossible; as Hume said, "Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori," and these combinations of phenomena are perfectly conceivable. Moreover, in the progress of knowledge, the miracles of to-day may be the science of to-morrow. Improbable they are, certainly, by all experience, and therefore they require specially strong evidence. But this is precisely what they lack; the evidence for them, when examined, turns out to be of doubtful value.]

I am anxious [he says] to bring about a clear understanding of the difference between "impossibilities" and "improbabilities," because mistakes on this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical apologists of the type of the late Cardinal Newman.

When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of "miracles" is, in my judgment, unassailable. We are NOT justified in the a priori assertion that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to us, cannot change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute. Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of our faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us in anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the present and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based upon careful observations of past events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We should be foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through life. But, for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain on the level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high probabilities. For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence shaped on the model of that of men, however superior it might be, which could be any better off than our own in this respect; that is, which could possess logically justifiable grounds for certainty about the constancy of the order of things, and therefore be in a position to declare that such and such events are impossible. Some of the old mythologies recognised this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and Odin, there lay the unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or other, would crumple up them and the world they ruled to give place to a new order of things.

I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk about "impossibilities," or "violation of natural laws," another. Rational certainty rests upon two grounds; the one that the evidence in favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other, that such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until something arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.

To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual affairs would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life, with due thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be alive an hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by nature, and we have to make the best of them. And I think that the greatest mistake those of us who are interested in the progress of free thought can make is to overlook these limitations, and to deck ourselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional adornment of our opponents. Let us be content with rational certainty, leaving irrational certainties to those who like to muddle their minds with them.

[As for the difficulty of believing miracles in themselves, he gives in this paper several examples of a favourite saying of his, that Science offers us much greater marvels than the miracles of theology; only the evidence for them is very different.

The following letter was written in acknowledgment of a paper by the Reverend E. McClure, which endeavoured to place the belief in an individual permanence upon the grounds that we know of no leakage anywhere in nature; that matter is not a source, but a transmitter of energy; and that the brain, so far from originating thought, is a mere machine responsive to something external to itself, a revealer of something which it does not produce, like a musical instrument. This "something" is the universal of thought, which is identified with the general logos of the fourth gospel. Moral perfection consists in assimilation to this; sin is the falling short of perfect revealing of the eternal logos.

Huxley's reply interested his correspondent not only for the brief opinion on the philosophic question, but for the personal touch in the explanation of the motives which had guided his life-work, and his "kind feeling towards such of the clergy as endeavoured to seek honestly for a natural basis to their faith."

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 17, 1891.

Dear Mr. McClure,

I am very much obliged for your letter, which belongs to a different category from most of those which I receive from your side of the hedge that, unfortunately, separates thinking men.

So far as I know myself, after making due deduction for the ambition of youth and a fiery temper, which ought to (but unfortunately does not) get cooler with age, my sole motive is to get at the truth in all things.

I do not care one straw about fame, present or posthumous, and I loathe notoriety, but I do care to have that desire manifest and recognised.

Your paper deals with a problem which has profoundly interested me for years, but which I take to be insoluble. It would need a book for full discussion. But I offer a remark only on two points.

The doctrine of the conservation of energy tells neither one way nor the other. Energy is the cause of movement of body, i.e. things having mass. States of consciousness have no mass, even if they can be conceded to be movable. Therefore even if they are caused by molecular movements, they would not in any way affect the store of energy.

Physical causation need not be the only kind of causation, and when Cabanis said that thought was a function of the brain, in the same way as bile secretion is a FUNCTION of the liver, he blundered philosophically. Bile is a product of the transformation of material energy. But in the mathematical sense of the word "function," thought may be a function of the brain. That is to say, it may arise only when certain physical particles take on a certain order.

By way of a coarse analogy, consider a parallel-sided piece of glass through which light passes. It forms no picture. Shape it so as to be bi-convex, and a picture appears in its focus.

Is not the formation of the picture a "function" of the piece of glass thus shaped?

So, from your own point of view, suppose a mind-stuff--logos---a noumenal cosmic light such as is shadowed in the fourth gospel. The brain of a dog will convert it into one set of phenomenal pictures, and the brain of a man into another. But in both cases the result is the consequence of the way in which the respective brains perform their "functions."

Yet one point.

The actions we call sinful are as much the consequence of the order of nature as those we call virtuous. They are part and parcel of the struggle for existence through which all living things have passed, and they have become sins because man alone seeks a higher life in voluntary association.

Therefore the instrument has never been marred; on the contrary, we are trying to get music out of harps, sacbuts, and psalteries, which never were in tune and seemingly never will be.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[Few years passed without some utterance from Huxley on the subject of education, especially scientific education. This year we have a letter to Professor Ray Lankester touching the science teaching at Oxford.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 28, 1891.

Dear Lankester,

I met Foster at the Athenaeum when I was in town last week, and we had some talk about your "very gentle" stirring of the Oxford pudding. I asked him to let you know when occasion offered, that (as I had already said to Burdon Sanderson) I drew a clear line apud biology between the medical student and the science student.

With respect to the former, I consider it ought to be kept within strict limits, and made simply a Vorschule to human anatomy and physiology.

On the other hand, the man who is going out in natural science ought to have a much larger dose, especially in the direction of morphology. However, from what I understood from Foster, there seems a doubt about the "going out" in "Natural Science", so I had better confine myself to the medicos. Their burden is already so heavy that I do not want to see it increased by a needless weight even of elementary biology.

Very many thanks for the "Zoological articles" just arrived.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Don't write to the "Times" about anything; look at the trouble that comes upon a harmless man for two months, in consequence.

[The following letter, which I quote from the "Yorkshire Herald" of April 11, 1891, was written in answer to some inquiries from Mr. J. Harrison, who read a paper on Technical Education as applied to Agriculture, before the Easingwold Agricultural Club.]

I am afraid that my opinion upon the subject of your inquiry is worth very little--my ignorance of practical agriculture being profound. However, there are some general principles which apply to all technical training; the first of these, I think, is that practice is to be learned only by practice. The farmer must be made by and through farm work. I believe I might be able to give you a fair account of a bean plant and of the manner and condition of its growth, but if I were to try to raise a crop of beans, your club would probably laugh consumedly at the result. Nevertheless, I believe that you practical people would be all the better for the scientific knowledge which does not enable me to grow beans. It would keep you from attempting hopeless experiments, and would enable you to take advantage of the innumerable hints which Dame Nature gives to people who live in direct contact with things. And this leads me to the second general principle which I think applies to all technical teaching for school-boys and school-girls, and that is, that they should be led from the observation of the commonest facts to general scientific truths. If I were called upon to frame a course of elementary instruction preparatory to agriculture, I am not sure that I should attempt chemistry, or botany, or physiology or geology, as such. It is a method fraught with the danger of spending too much time and attention on abstraction and theories, on words and notions instead of things. 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. I am afraid I shall not have helped you very much, but I believe that my suggestions, rough as they are, are in the right direction.

[The remaining letters of the year are of miscellaneous interest. They show him happily established in his retreat at Eastbourne in very fair health, on his guard against any further repetition of his "jubilee honour" in the shape of his old enemy pleurisy; unable to escape the more insidious attacks of influenza, but well enough on the whole to be in constant good spirits.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 13, 1891.

My dear Skelton,

Many thanks to you for reminding me that there are such things as "Summer Isles" in the universe. The memory of them has been pretty well blotted out here for the last seven weeks. You see some people can retire to "Hermitages" as well as other people; and though even Argyll cum Gladstone powers of self-deception could not persuade me that the view from my window is as good as that from yours, yet I do see a fine wavy chalk down with "cwms" and soft turfy ridges, over which an old fellow can stride as far as his legs are good to carry him.

The fact is, that I discovered that staying in London any longer meant for me a very short life, and by no means a merry one. So I got my son-in-law to build me a cottage here, where my wife and I may go down-hill quietly together, and "make our sowls" as the Irish say, solaced by an occasional visit from children and grandchildren.

The deuce of it is, that however much the weary want to be at rest the wicked won't cease from troubling. Hence the occasional skirmishes and alarms which may lead my friends to misdoubt my absolute detachment from sublunary affairs. Perhaps peace dwells only among the fork-tailed Petrels!

I trust Mrs. Skelton and you are flourishing, and that trouble will keep far from the hospitable doors of Braid through the New Year.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[No sooner had he settled down in his new country home, than a strange piece of good fortune, such as happens more often in a story-book than in real life, enabled him at one stroke to double his little estate, to keep off the unwelcome approach of the speculative builder, and to give himself scope for the newly-discovered delights of the garden. The sale of the house in Marlborough Place covered the greater part of the cost of Hodeslea; but almost on the very day on which the sale was concluded, he became the possessor of another house at Worthing by the death of Mr. Anthony Rich, the well-known antiquarian. An old man, almost alone in the world, his admiration for the great work done recently in natural science had long since led him to devise his property to Darwin and Huxley, to the one his private fortune, to the other his house and its contents, notably a very interesting library.

As a matter of feeling, Huxley was greatly disinclined to part with this house, Chapel Croft, as soon as it had come into his hands. A year earlier, he might have made it his home; but now he had settled down at Eastbourne, and Chapel Croft, as it stood, was unlikely to find a tenant. Accordingly he sold it early in July, and with the proceeds bought the piece of land adjoining his house. Thus he writes to Sir J. Hooker:--]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 17, 1891.

My dear Hooker,

My estate is somewhat of a white elephant. There is about a couple of acres of ground well situated and half of it in the shape of a very pretty lawn and shrubbery, but unluckily, in building the house, dear old Rich thought of his own convenience and not mine (very wrong of him!), and I cannot conceive anybody but an old bachelor or old maid living in it. I do not believe anybody would take it as it stands. No doubt the site is valuable, and it would be well worth while to anybody with plenty of cash to spare to build on to the house and make it useful. But I neither have the cash, nor do I want the bother. However, Waller is going to look at the place for me and see what can be done. It seems hardly decent to sell it at once; and moreover the value is likely to increase. I suppose at present it is worth 2000 pounds, but that is only a guess.

Apropos of naval portrait gallery, can you tell me if there is a portrait of old John Richardson anywhere extant? I always look upon him as the founder of my fortunes, and I want to hang him up (just over your head) on my chimney breast. Voici! [sketch showing the position of the pictures above the fireplace]:--

By your fruits ye shall judge them! My cold was influenza, I have been in the most preposterously weak state ever since; and at last my wife lost patience and called in the doctor, who is screwing me up with nux vomica.

Sound wind and limb otherwise.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H. Huxley.

[And again on July 3:--]

I have just been offered 2800 pounds for Anthony Rich's place and have accepted it. It is probably worth 3000 pounds, but if I were to have it on my hands and sell by auction I should get no more out of the transaction.

I am greatly inclined to put some of the money into a piece of land--a Naboth's vineyard--in front of my house and turn horticulturist. I find nailing up creepers a delightful occupation.

[In the same letter he describes two meetings with old friends:--]

Last Friday I ran down to Hindhead to see Tyndall. He was very much better than I hoped to find him, after such a long and serious illness, quite bright and "Tyndalloid" and not aged as I feared he would be...The local doctor happened to be there during my visit and spoke very confidently of his speedy recovery. The leg is all right again, and he even talks of Switzerland, but I begged Mrs. Tyndall to persuade him to keep quiet and within reach of home and skilled medical attendance.

Saturday to Monday we were at Down, after six or seven years' interruption of our wonted visits. It was very pleasant if rather sad. Mrs. Darwin is wonderfully well--naturally aged--but quite bright and cheerful as usual. Old Parslow turned up on Sunday, just eighty, but still fairly hale. Fuimus fuimus!

[(Parslow was the old butler who had been in Mr. Darwin's service for many years.)

To his daughter, Mrs. Roller.]

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, May 5, 1891.

You dear people must have entered into a conspiracy, as I had letters from all yesterday. I have never been so set up before, and begin to think that fathers (like port) must improve in quality with age. (No irreverent jokes about their getting crusty, Miss.)

Julian and Joyce taken together may perhaps give a faint idea of my perfections as a child. I have not only a distinct recollection of being noticed on the score of my good looks, but my mother used to remind me painfully of them in my later years, looking at me mournfully and saying, "And you were such a pretty boy!"

[Much as he would have liked to visit the Maloja again this year, the state of his wife's health forbade such a long journey. He writes just after his attack of influenza to Sir M. Foster, who had been suffering in the same way:--]

Hodeslea, May 12, 1891.

My dear Foster,

I was very glad to hear from you. Pray don't get attempting to do anything before you are set up again.

I am in a ridiculous state of weakness, and bless my stars that I have nothing to do. I find it troublesome to do even that.

I wish ballooning had advanced so far as to take people to Maloja, for I do not think my wife ought to undertake such a journey, and yet I believe the high air would do us both more good than anything else....

The University of London scheme appears to be coming to grief, as I never doubted it would.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

[So instead of going abroad, he stayed in Eastbourne till the end of August, receiving a short visit from his old friend Jowett, who, though sadly enfeebled by age, still persisted in travelling by himself, and a longer visit from his elder son and his family. But from September 11 to the 26th he and his wife made a trip through the west country, starting from Salisbury, which had so delighted him the year before, and proceeding by way of the Wye valley, which they had not visited since their honeymoon, to Llangollen. The first stage on the return journey was Chester, whence they made pious pilgrimage to the cradle of his name, Old Huxley Hall, some nine miles from Chester. Incorporated with a modern farm-house, and forming the present kitchen, are some solid stone walls, part of the old manor-house, now no longer belonging to any one of the name. From here they went to Coventry, where he had lived as a boy, and found the house which his father had occupied still standing.

A letter to an old pupil contains reflections upon the years of work to which he had devoted so much of his energies.]

To Professor T. Jeffery Parker, Otago.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, August 11, 1891.

My dear Parker,

It is a long time since your letter reached me, but I was so unwise as to put off answering it until the book arrived and I had read it. The