Part 9

From this time until 1885 his labors extended over the widest field of biology and of philosophy ever covered by any naturalist, with the single exception of Aristotle. In philosophy Huxley showed rare critical and historical power; he made the most exhaustive study of Hume, but his own philosophical spirit and temper were more directly the offspring of Descartes. Some subjects he mastered, others he merely touched, but every subject which he wrote about he illuminated. Huxley did not discover or first define protoplasm, but he made it known to the English-speaking world as the physical basis of life, recognizing the unity of animal and plant protoplasm. He cleared up certain problems among the Protozoa. In 1849 appeared his great work upon the oceanic Hydrozoa, and familiarity with these forms doubtless suggested the brilliant comparison of the two-layered gastrula to the adult Hydrozoa. He threw light upon the Tunicata, describing the endostyle as a universal feature, but not venturing to raise the Tunicata to a separate order. He set in order the cephalopod mollusca, deriving the spiral from the straight-shelled fossil forms. He contributed to the Arthropoda; his last word upon this group being his charming little volume upon the “Crayfish,” a model of its kind. But think of the virgin field which opened up before him among the vertebrata, when in 1859 he was the first to perceive the truth of Darwin’s theory of descent! Here were Cuvier’s and Owen’s vast researches upon living and extinct forms, a disorderly chaos of facts waiting for generalization. Huxley was the man for the time. He had already secured a thoroughly philosophical basis for his comparative osteology by studying the new embryology of Von Baer, which Richard Owen had wholly ignored. In 1858 his famous Croonian lecture on the “Theory of the Vertebrate Skull” gave the death-blow to Owen’s life-work upon the skull and vertebral archetype and to the whole system of mystical and transcendental anatomy; and now Huxley set to work vigorously to build out of Owen’s scattered tribes the great limbs and branches of the vertebrate tree. He set the fishes and batrachia apart as the Icthyopsidan branch, the reptiles and birds as the Sauropsidan in contrast with the Mammalian, which he derived from a prosauropsidan or amphibian stem, a theory which with some modification has received strong recent verification.

Professor Owen, who had held undisputed sway in England up to 1858, fought nobly for opinions which had been idolized in the first half-century, but was routed at every point. Huxley captured his last fortress when, in his famous essay of 1865, “Man’s Place in Nature,” he undermined Owen’s teaching of the separate and distinct anatomical position of man. We can only appreciate Huxley’s fighting qualities when we see how strongly Owen was intrenched at the beginning of this long battle royal; he was director of the British Museum and occupied other high posts; he had the strong moral support of the government and of the royal family, although these were weak allies in a scientific encounter.

Huxley’s powers of rapid generalization, of course, betrayed him frequently; his Bathybius was a groundless and short-lived hypothesis; he went far astray in the phylogeny of the horses. But these and other errors were far less attributable to defects in his reasoning powers than to the extraordinarily high pressure under which he worked for the twenty years between 1860 and 1880, when duties upon the Educational Board, upon the Government Fisheries Commission, and upon Parliamentary committees crowded upon him. He had at his command none of the resources of modern technique. He cut his own sections. I remember once seeing some of his microscopic sections. To one of our college junior students working with a Minot microtome Huxley’s sections would have appeared like translucent beefsteaks—another illustration that it is not always the section which reveals the natural law, but the man who looks at the section.

Huxley was a master not only in the search for truth but in the way in which he presented it, both in writing and in speaking. And we are assured, largely as he was gifted by nature, his beautifully lucid and interesting style was partly the result of deliberate hard work. He was not born to it; some of his early essays are rather labored; he acquired it. He was familiar with the best Greek literature and restudied the language; he pored over Milton and Carlyle and Mill; he studied the fine old English of the Bible; he took as especial models Hume and Hobbes, until finally he wrote his mother tongue as no other Englishman wrote it. Take up any one of his essays, biological, literary, philosophical, you at once see his central idea and his main purpose, although he never uses italics or spaced letters, as many of our German masters do to relieve the obscurity of their sentences. We are carried along upon the broad current of his reasoning without being confused by his abundant side illustrations. He gleaned from the literature of all time until his mind was stocked with apt similes. Who but Huxley would have selected the title “Lay Sermons” for his first volume of addresses; or, in 1880, twenty-one years after Darwin’s work appeared, would have entitled his essay upon the influence of this work “The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species”? Or to whom else would it have occurred to repeat over the grave of Balfour the exquisitely appropriate lines: “For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime”? Who else could have inveighed thus against modern specialization:

We are in the case of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the Roman citadel to the Sabines and was crushed by the weight of the reward bestowed upon her. It has become impossible for any man to keep pace with the progress of the whole of any important branch of science. It looks as if the scientific, like other revolutions, meant to devour its own children; as if the growth of science tended to overwhelm its votaries; as if the man of science of the future were condemned to diminish into a narrow specialist as time goes on. It appears to me that the only defense against this tendency to the degeneration of scientific workers lies in the organization and extension of scientific education in such a manner as to secure breadth of culture without superficiality; and, on the other hand, depth and precision of knowledge without narrowness.

What Haeckel did for evolution in Germany, Huxley did in England. As the earliest and most ardent supporter of Darwin and the theory of descent, it is remarkable that he never gave an unreserved support to the theory of natural selection as all-sufficient. Twenty-five years ago, with his usual penetration and prophetic insight, he showed that the problem of variation might, after all, be the greater problem; and only three years ago, in his Romanes Lecture, he disappointed many of the disciples of Darwin by declaring that natural selection failed to explain the origin of our moral and ethical nature. Whether he was right or wrong we will not stop to discuss, but consider the still more remarkable conditions of Huxley’s relations to the theory of evolution. As expositor, teacher, defender, he was the high priest of evolution. From the first he saw the strong and weak points of the special Darwinian theory; he wrote upon the subject for thirty years, and yet he never contributed a single original or novel idea to it; in other words, Huxley added vastly to the demonstration, but never added to the sum of either theory or working hypothesis, and the contemporary history of the theory proper could be written without mentioning his name. This lack of speculation upon the factors of evolution was true throughout his whole life; in the voyage of the Rattlesnake, he says, he did not even think of the species problem. His last utterance regarding the causes of evolution appeared in one of the reviews as a passing criticism of Weismann’s finished philosophy, in which he implies that his own philosophy of the causes of evolution was as far off as ever; in other words, Huxley never fully made up his mind or committed himself to any causal theory of development.

Taking the nineteenth century at large, outside of our own circles of biology Huxley’s greatest and most permanent achievement was his victory for free thought. Personally we may not be agnostic; we may disagree with much that he has said and written, but we must admire Huxley’s valiant services none the less. A reformer must be an extremist, and Huxley was often extreme, but he never said what he did not believe to be true. If it is easy for you and for me to say what we think, in print and out of print now, it is because of the battles fought by such men as Huxley and Haeckel. When Huxley began his great crusade the air was full of religious intolerance, and, what is quite as bad, scientific shams. If Huxley had entered the contest carefully and guardedly, he would have been lost in the enemies’ ranks, but he struck right and left with sledge-hammer blows, whether it was a high dignitary of the church or of the state. Just before the occasion of one of his greatest contests, that with Gladstone in the pages of The Contemporary Review, Huxley was in Switzerland, completely broken down in health and suffering from torpidity of the liver. Gladstone had written one of his characteristically brilliant articles upon the close correspondence between the Order of Creation as revealed in the first chapter of Genesis and the Order of Evolution as shown by modern biology. “When this article reached me,” Huxley told me, “I read it through and it made me so angry that I believe it must have acted upon my liver. At all events, when I finished my reply to Gladstone I felt better than I had for months past.”

Huxley’s last public appearance was at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1894. He had been very urgently invited to attend, for, about a third of a century before, the association had met at Oxford and Huxley had had his famous encounter with Bishop Wilberforce. It was felt that the anniversary would be a historic one and incomplete without his presence, and so it proved to be. Huxley’s especial duty was to second the vote of thanks for the Marquis of Salisbury’s address, one of the invariable formalities of the opening meeting of the association. The meeting proved to be the greatest one in the history of the association. The Sheldonian Theatre was packed with one of the most distinguished scientific audiences ever brought together, and the address of the Marquis was worthy of the occasion. The whole tenor of it was the unknown in science. Passing from the unsolved problems of astronomy, chemistry and physics, he came to biology. With delicate irony he spoke of the “comforting word, evolution,” and passing to the Weismannian controversy implied that the diametrically opposed views so frequently expressed nowadays threw the whole process of evolution into doubt. It was only too evident that the Marquis himself found no comfort in evolution and even entertained a suspicion as to its probability. It was well worth the whole journey to Oxford to watch Huxley during this portion of the address. In his red doctor-of-laws gown, placed upon his shoulders by the very body of men who had once referred to him as “a Mr. Huxley,” he sank deeper into his chair upon the very front of the platform and restlessly tapped his foot. His situation was an unenviable one. He had to thank an ex-Prime Minister of England and present Chancellor of Oxford University for an address the sentiments of which were directly against those he himself had been maintaining for twenty-five years. He said afterward that when the proofs of the Marquis’s address were put in his hands the day before, he realized that he had before him a most delicate and difficult task.

Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thompson), one of the most distinguished living physicists, first moved the vote of thanks, but his reception was nothing to the tremendous applause which greeted Huxley in the heart of that university whose traditional principles he had so long been opposing. Considerable anxiety had been felt by his friends lest his voice would fail to fill the theatre, for it had signally failed during the Romanes Lecture delivered in Oxford the year before, but when Huxley arose he reminded one of a venerable gladiator returning to the arena after years of absence. He raised his figure and his voice to full height, and, with one foot turned over the edge of the step, veiled an unmistakable and vigorous protest in the most gracious and dignified speech of thanks.

Throughout the subsequent special sessions of this meeting Huxley could not appear. He gave the impression of being aged, if not infirm, but no one realized that he had spoken his last word as champion of the law of evolution. He soon returned to Eastbourne. Early in the winter he contracted the grippe, which passed into pneumonia. He rallied once or twice, and his last effort to complete a reply to Balfour’s “Foundations of Belief” hastened his death, which came upon June 29, 1895, at the age of seventy.

I have endeavored to show in how many ways Huxley was a model for us of the younger generation. In the central hall of the British Museum of Natural History sits in marble the life-size figure of Charles Darwin; upon his right will soon be placed a beautiful statue of Richard Owen, and I know that there are many who will enjoy taking some share in the movement to complete this group with the noble figure of Thomas Henry Huxley.

The above Memorial was delivered before the New York Academy of Sciences November 11, 1895. It was then revised and delivered as “A Student’s Reminiscences of Huxley” to the assembly of students at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts. As printed in this form it was sent to Leonard Huxley, who wrote the following letter of acknowledgment:

CHARTERHOUSE GODALMING 12 July 1897

DEAR PROFESSOR OSBORN:

I have still to thank you, & that most warmly, for your admirable “Lecture at Wood’s Hole.” It is not merely a pleasant reminder of my meeting with you seven years ago, but one of the very best memorial sketches of my father which have yet appeared, & so written as somehow to succeed in touching one’s personal feelings beyond the ordinary. Indeed if I had written to you immediately after my first reading of it, what I wrote might have appeared a trifle exaggerated. So you will forgive my apparent remissness in not acknowledging the receipt of it before. I do hope you will allow me to quote from your lecture, in the Life I am working upon—a long task, of which I am now somewhere about the middle.

Will you also be kind enough to tell me to what precisely you refer when you speak of my father’s forming a wrong generalisation about the phylogeny of the horse? His views before or after his American visit of 1876? I do not know enough of the subject first-hand.

Once more, let me thank you for your dear & sympathetic piece of work & believe me

Sincerely yours, (Signed) LEONARD HUXLEY.

FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR ]

FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR 1851–1882

To Huxley and to Balfour, younger brother of Arthur Balfour, my first and most inspiring teacher in comparative embryology, I dedicated my work, “The Age of Mammals.” Balfour’s genius was beyond imitation, but his pupils may follow the example of his ardent enthusiasm and his genial way of living the life of science.

FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR

About a year ago came the sad news of the sudden death of Professor Balfour, of Cambridge. If the loss was felt less severely in this country than in England it was only because he had fewer personal friends here, and to fully understand his worth one must have known and talked with him. It is true that it required no unusual insight to read the fine qualities of the man in his writings, but none save those who knew him could appreciate his remarkable personal attractiveness. Not the least part of the wonderful work of his short life was that which he accomplished as a teacher; here, as everywhere, his personal influence had a large share, and a sketch of Balfour’s scientific work would be incomplete without a recognition of the bearing which his noble character had upon it.

The meeting of leading biologists to found the memorial studentship was remarkable in many ways; rarely have been heard such words of admiration and love for one man as were then expressed for Balfour. Many spoke at length of the debt Cambridge owed him. It may be said that he divided with Foster the honor of giving the great impetus to the biological movement in the English universities. What Huxley had done for Foster the latter did for Balfour, giving him the first hearty encouragement and support; together they raised biology from the third to the level of the first rank of studies at Cambridge, equalling that held by mathematics. Oxford soon followed this important movement, trying to secure Balfour for the professorship left vacant by the death of Rolleston. His connection with natural science at Cambridge was described in warm language by Foster, his teacher, and by Sedgwick, one of his pupils; he advanced morphology there by his brilliant success in teaching and in research.

In teaching he combined manly force with a delicate regard for the feelings of his pupils. From the writer’s personal impressions of him as a lecturer, he did not aim at eloquence, but to be understood in every step. Rarely looking at his hearers, he spoke rapidly and with intense earnestness, crowding a vast deal into the hour. The main qualities of his character shone forth in his lectures: energy, which he infused into his hearers; truthfulness, which soon gave implicit confidence in his statements; modesty and sympathy, which inspired effort and free exchange of thought.

Balfour’s love of truth came constantly into play in his laboratory instruction. While looking over a student’s shoulder he would sometimes say with a laugh: “You must interpret that specimen with the eye of faith”; but this was very far from being a serious injunction, for he exacted of his students the greatest caution in the progress of their microscopic work. However tempting a certain interpretation of a specimen might be, Balfour never accepted it until it rested on the clearest evidence. An instance of this sort is recalled which related to the much disputed origin of a well-known embryonic structure. A number of sections had been prepared, seeming to confirm the view which Balfour himself had advocated some time before; it required considerable self-control not to attach a somewhat forced meaning to them. This was, however, forbidden, and it was not until several days afterward that fresh sections established the fact beyond question.

To Foster, Balfour repaid his student-debt by extending, in turn, continued encouragement to others. He did not fear, as many great teachers have, that joint labor with his juniors would derogate from his reputation. His joint articles are numerous; he was zealous to recognize research done by his pupils, seeming to be prouder of this than of his own work. Nothing could be more stimulating to the young men about him, still distrustful of their powers, than this generous co-operation. Is it surprising, then, that the voluntary attendance upon his lectures increased in seven years from ten to ninety and that at the time of his death twenty students were engaged in difficult research in his laboratory? Only those who are familiar by experience with the few incentives among younger students to the study of biology can appreciate what these numbers mean.

We need not attempt to give a full list of Balfour’s writings. They began in 1873, his twenty-second year, with a few short papers appearing over Foster’s name and his own in The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science; they terminated nine years later with his fine work upon Peripatus, published posthumously in the same journal. His extensive intermediate works, “The Elasmobranch Fishes” and “Comparative Embryology,” are universally known.