Chapter 2.12.

1881.

The Inspectorship, which was worth 700 pounds a year, he held in addition to his post at South Kensington, the official description of which now underwent another change. In the first place, his official connection with the Survey appears to have ceased this year, the last report made by him being in 1881. His name, however, still appeared in connection with the post of Naturalist until his retirement in 1885, and it was understood that his services continued to be available if required. Next, in October of this year, the Royal School of Mines was incorporated with the newly established Normal School--or as it was called in 1890, Royal College of Science, and the title of Lecturer on General Natural History was suppressed, and Huxley became Professor of Biology and Dean of the College at a salary of 800 pounds, for it was arranged on his appointment to the Inspectorship, that he should not receive the salary attached to the post of Dean. Thus the Treasury saved 200 pounds a year.

As Professor of Biology, he was under the Lord President of the Council; as Inspector of Fisheries, under the Board of Trade; hence some time passed in arranging the claims of the two departments before the appointment was officially made known, as may be gathered from the following letters:--]

To Sir John Donnelly.

4 Marlborough Place, December 27, 1880.

My dear Donnelly,

I tried hard to have a bad cold last night, and though I blocked him with quinine, I think I may as well give myself the benefit of the Bank Holiday and keep the house to-day.

There is a chance of your getting early salmon yet. I wrote to decline the post on Friday, but on Saturday evening the Home Secretary sent a note asking to see me yesterday. As he had re-opened the question, of course I felt justified in stating all the pros and cons of the case as personal to myself and my rather complicated official position...He entered into the affair with a warmth and readiness which very agreeably surprised me, and he proposes making such arrangements as will not oblige me to have anything to do with the weirs or the actual inspection. Under these circumstances the post would be lovely--if I can hold it along with the other things. And of his own motion the Home Secretary is going to write to Lord Spencer about it to see if he cannot carry the whole thing through.

If this could be managed, I could get great things done in the matter of fish culture and fish diseases at South Kensington, if poor dear X.'s rattle trappery could be turned to proper account, without in any way interfering with the work of the School.

At any rate, my book stands not to lose, and may win--the innocence of the dove is not always divorced from the wisdom of the sarpent. [Sketch of the "Sarpent."]

To Lord Farrer.

4 Marlborough Place, January 18, 1881.

My dear Farrer,

I have waited a day or two before thanking you for your very kind letter, in the hope that I might be able to speak as one knowing where he is.

But as I am still, in an official sense, nowhere, I will not delay any longer.

I had never thought of the post, but the Home Secretary offered it to me in a very kind and considerate manner, and after some hesitation I accepted it. But some adjustment had to be made between my master, the Lord President, and the Treasury; and although everybody seems disposed to be very good to me, the business is not yet finally settled. Whence the newspapers get their information I don't know--but it is always wrong in these matters.

As you know, I have had a good apprenticeship to the work [He had already served on two Fishery Committees, 1862 and 1864-5.]--and I hope to be of some use; of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life--the jamming common-sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.

May we do some joint business in that way!

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

To his eldest son.

February 14, 1881.

I have entered upon my new duties as Fishery Inspector, but you are not to expect salmon to be much cheaper just yet.

My colleague and I have rooms at the Home Office, and I find there is more occupation than I expected, but no serious labour.

Every now and then I shall have to spend a few days in the country, holding inquiries, and as salmon rivers are all in picturesque parts of the country, I shall not object to that part of the business.

Sir Spencer Walpole, who was his colleague for some years, has kindly given me an account of their work together.

Early in 1881, Sir William Harcourt appointed Professor Huxley one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Fisheries. The office had become vacant through the untimely death, in the preceding December, of the late Mr. Frank Buckland. Under an Act, passed twenty years before, the charge of the English Salmon Fisheries had been placed under the Home Office, and the Secretary of State had been authorised to appoint two Inspectors to aid him in administering the law. The functions of the Home Office and of the Inspectors were originally simple, but they had been enlarged by an Act passed in 1873, which conferred on local conservators elaborate powers of making bye-laws for the development and preservation of the Fisheries. These bye-laws required the approval of the Secretary of State, who was necessarily dependent on the advice of his Inspectors in either allowing or disallowing them.

In addition to the nominal duties of the Inspectors, they became--by virtue of their position--the advisers of the Government on all questions connected with the Sea Fisheries of Great Britain. These fisheries are nominally under the Board of Trade, but, as this Board at that time had no machinery at its disposal for the purpose, it naturally relied on the advice of the Home Office Inspectors in all questions of difficulty, on which their experience enabled them to speak with authority.

For duties such as these, which have been thus briefly described, Professor Huxley had obvious qualifications. On all subjects relating to the Natural History of Fish he spoke with decisive authority. But, in addition to his scientific attainments, from 1863 to 1865 he had been a member of the Commission which had conducted an elaborate investigation into the condition of the Fisheries of the United Kingdom, and had taken a large share in the preparation of a Report, which--notwithstanding recent changes in law and policy--remains the ablest and most exhaustive doctrine which has ever been laid before Parliament on the subject.

This protracted investigation had convinced Professor Huxley that the supply of fish in the deep sea was practically inexhaustible; and that, however much it might be necessary to enforce the police of the seas by protecting particular classes of sea fishermen from injury done to their instruments by the operations of other classes, the primary duty of the legislature was to develop sea fishing, and not to place restrictions on sea fishermen for any fears of an exhaustion of fish.

His scientific training, moreover, made him ridicule the modern notion that it was possible to stock the sea by artificial methods. He wrote to me, when the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 was in contemplation,] "You may have seen that we have a new Fish Culture Society. C-- talked gravely about our stocking the North Sea with cod! After that I suppose we shall take up herrings: and I mean to propose whales, which, as all the world knows, are terribly over fished!" [And after the exhibition was over he wrote to me again, with reference to a report which the Commission had asked me to draw up: ["I have just finished reading your report, which has given me a world of satisfaction...I am particularly glad that you have put in a word of warning to the fish culturists." [When I was asked to write the report on this Commission, I said that I would do so if Sir E. Birkbeck, its chairman, and Professor Huxley, both met me to discuss the points to be noticed. The meeting duly took place: and I opened it by asking what was the chief lesson to be drawn from the exhibition?] "Well," [said Professor Huxley,] "the chief lesson to be drawn from the exhibition is that London is in want of some open air amusement on summer evenings."

It so happened that at the time of his appointment, many of our important rivers were visited by "Saprolegnia ferax," the fungoid growth which became popularly known as Salmon Disease. Professor Huxley gave much time to the study of the conditions under which the fungus flourished: he devoted much space in his earlier reports to the subject: and he read a paper upon it at a remarkable meeting of the Royal Society in the summer of 1881. He took a keen interest in these investigations, and he wrote to me from North Wales, at the end of 1881,] "The salmon brought to me here have not been so badly diseased as I could have wished, and the fungus dies so rapidly out of the water that only one specimen furnished me with materials in lively condition. These I have cultivated: and to my great satisfaction have got some flies infected. With nine precious muscoid corpses, more or less ornamented with a lovely fur trimming of Saprolegnia, I shall return to London to-morrow, and shall be ready in a short time, I hope, to furnish Salmon Disease wholesale, retail, or for exportation."

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, admirable as he was in society, no one could have realised the full charm of his company who had not conversed with him alone. 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.

In conversation Professor Huxley displayed the quality which distinguished him both as a writer and a public speaker. He invariably used the right words in the right sense. Those who are jointly responsible--as he and I were often jointly responsible--for some written document, have exceptional opportunities of observing this quality. Professor Huxley could always put his finger on a wrong word, and he always instinctively chose the right one. It was this qualification--a much rarer one than people imagine--which made Professor Huxley's essays clear to the meanest understanding, and which made him, in my judgment, the greatest master of prose of his time. The same quality was equally observable in his spoken speech. I happened to be present at the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society, at which Professor Huxley made his last speech. And, as he gave an admirable account of the share which he had taken in defending Mr. Darwin against his critics, I overheard the present Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury.) say, "What a beautiful speaker he is."

In 1882, the duties of another appointment forced me to resign the Inspectorship, which I had held for so long: and thenceforward my residence in the Isle of Man gave me fewer opportunities of seeing Professor Huxley: our friendship, however, remained unbroken; and occasional visits to London gave me many opportunities of renewing it. He retained his own appointment as Inspector for more than three years after my resignation. He served, during the closing months of his officialship, on a Royal Commission on trawling, over which the late Lord Dalhousie presided. But his health broke down before the commissioners issued their report, and he was ordered abroad. It so happened that in the spring of 1885 I was staying at Florence, when Professor and Mrs. Huxley passed through it on their way home. He had at that time seen none of his old friends, and was only slowly regaining strength. After his severe illness Mrs. Huxley encouraged me to take him out for many short walks, and I did my best to cheer him in his depressed condition. He did not then think that he had ten years of--on the whole--happy life before him. He told me that he was about to retire from all his work, and he added, that he had never enjoyed the Inspectorship after I had left it. I am happy in believing that the remark was due to the depression from which he was suffering, for he had written to me two years ago,] "The office would be quite perfect, if they did not want an annual report. I can't go in for a disquisition on river basins after the manner of Buckland, and you have exhausted the other topics. I polished off the Salmon Disease pretty fully last year, so what the deuce am I to write about?"

One word more. No one could have known Professor Huxley intimately without recognising that he delighted in combat. He was never happier than when he was engaged in argument or controversy, and he loved to select antagonists worthy of his steel. The first public inquiry which we held together was attended by a great nobleman, whom Professor Huxley did not know by sight, but who rose at the commencement of our proceedings to offer some suggestions. Professor Huxley directed him to sit down, and not interrupt the business. I told my colleague in a whisper whom he was interrupting. And I was amused, as we walked away to luncheon together, by his quaint remark to me,] "We have begun very well, we have sat upon a duke." [(Of this he wrote home on March 15, 1881:] "Somebody produced the 'Punch' yesterday and showed it to me, to the great satisfaction of the Duke of --, who has attended our two meetings. I nearly had a shindy with him at starting, but sweetness and light (in my person) carried the day." [This "Punch" contained the cartoon of Huxley in nautical costume riding on a salmon; contrary to the custom of "Punch," it made an unfair hit in appending to his name the letters L.s.d. (Pounds, shillings and pence.) Never was any one who deserved the imputation less.)

If, however, a love of argument and controversy occasionally led him into hot water, I do not think that his polemical tendencies ever cost him a friend. His antagonists must have recognised the fairness of his methods, and must have been susceptible to the charm of the man. 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."

Extracts from his letters home give some further idea of the kind of work entailed. Thus in March and again in May he was in Wales, and writes:--]

Cromffyratellionptrroch, May 24.

Mr. Barrington's very pretty place about five miles from Abergavenny, wherein I write, may or may not have the name which I have written on at the top of the page, as it is Welsh; however it is probably that or something like it. I forgot to inquire.

We are having the loveliest weather, and yesterday went looking up weirs with more or less absurd passes up a charming valley not far hence. It is just seven o'clock, and we are going to breakfast and start at eight to fit in with the tides of the Severn. It is not exactly clear where we shall be to-night...Now I must go to breakfast, for I got up at six. Figurez vous ca.

Hereford, May 29.

We are favoured by the weather again, though it is bitter cold under the bright sunshine. We stopped at Worcester yesterday, and I went to examine some weirs hard by. This involved three or four miles' country walking, and was all to the good. If the Inspector business were all of this sort it would be all that fancy painted it. We shall have a long sitting to-day...[(He fears to be detained into the night by "over-fluent witnesses.")

In April he spent several days at Norwich, in connection with the National Fishery Exhibition held there.]

April 19.

We had a gala day yesterday...The exhibition of all manner of fish and fishing apparatus was ready, for a wonder, and looked very well. The Prince and Princess arrived, and we had the usual address and reply and march through. Afterwards a mighty dejeuner in the St. Andrew's Hall--a fine old place looking its best. I was just opposite the Princess, and I could not help looking at her with wonderment. She looked so fresh and girlish. She came and talked to me afterwards in a very pleasant simple way.

Walpole and I went in with our host yesterday afternoon and started to return on the understanding that he should pick us up a few miles out. Of course we took the wrong road, and walked all the way, some eight miles or so. However, it did us good, and after a champagne lunch we thought we could not do better than repeat the operation yesterday.

I feel quite set up by finding that after standing about for hours I can walk eight miles without any particular fatigue. Life in the old dog yet! Walpole is a capital companion--knows a great many things, and talks well about them, so we get over the ground pleasantly.

April 20.

There was a long day of it yesterday looking over things in the Exhibition till late in the afternoon, and then a mighty dinner in St. Andrew's Hall given by a Piscatorial Society of which my host is President. It was a weary sitting of five hours with innumerable speeches. Of course I had to say "a few words," and if I can get a copy of the papers I will send them to you. I flatter myself they were words of wisdom, though hardly likely to contribute to my popularity among the fishermen.

In 1881, then, at the end of December, he went to North Wales to study on the fresh fish the nature of the epidemic of salmon disease which had broken out in the Conway, in spite of being in such bad health that he was persuaded to let his younger son come and look after him. But this was only a passing premonition of the breakdown which was to come upon him three years after.

One year's work as Inspector was very like another. In 1882, for instance, on January 21, he is at Berwick, "voiceless but jolly"; in the spring he had to attend a Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh, and writes:--]

April 12.

We have opened our Exhibition, and I have been standing about looking at the contents until my back is broken.

April 13.

The weather here is villainous--a regular Edinburgh "coorse day." I have seen all I wanted to see of the Exhibition, eaten two heavy dinners, one with Primrose and one with Young, and want to get home. Walpole and I are dining domestically at home this evening, having virtuously refused all invitations.

I reached here about 5 o'clock, and found the bailiff or whatever they call him of the Board of Conservators, awaiting me with a boat at my disposal. So we went off to look at what they call "The Playground"--two bays in which the salmon coming from the sea rest and disport themselves until a fresh comes down the river and they find it convenient to ascend. Harbottle bailiff in question is greatly disturbed at the amount of poaching that goes on in the playground, and unfolded his griefs to me at length. It was a lovely evening, very calm, and I enjoyed my boat expedition. To-morrow there is to be another to see the operations of a steam trawler, which in all probability I shall not enjoy so much. I shall take a light breakfast.

4 Marlborough Place, June 22, 1881.

My dear Brodrick,

Many thanks for your letter. I can give you my reply at once, as my attention has already been called to the question you ask; and it is that I do not see my way to leaving London for Oxford. My reasons for arriving at this conclusion are various. I am getting old, and you should have a man in full vigour. I doubt whether the psychical atmosphere of Oxford would suit me, and still more, whether I should suit it after a life spent in the absolute freedom of London. And last, but by no means least, for a man with five children to launch into the world, the change would involve a most serious loss of income. No doubt there are great attractions on the other side; and, if I had been ten years younger, I should have been sorely tempted to go to Oxford, if the University would have had me. But things being as they are, I do not see my way to any other conclusion than that which I have reached.

July 21, 1881.

My dear Flower,

I am by no means surprised, and except for the sake of the University, not sorry that you have renounced the Linacre.

Life is like walking along a crowded street--there always seem to be fewer obstacles to getting along on the opposite pavement--and yet, if one crosses over, matters are rarely mended.

I assure you it is a great comfort to me to think that you will stay in London and help in keeping things straight in this world of crookedness.

I have thought a good deal about --, but it would never do. No one could value his excellent qualities of all kinds, and real genius in some directions, more than I do; but, in my judgment, nobody could be less fitted to do the work which ought to be done in Oxford--I mean to give biological science a status in the eyes of the Dons, and to force them to acknowledge it as a part of general education. Moreover, his knowledge, vast and minute as it is in some directions, is very imperfect in others, and the attempt to qualify himself for the post would take him away from the investigations, which are his delight and for which he is specially fitted...

I was very much interested in your account of the poor dear Dean's illness. I called on Thursday morning, meeting Jowett and Grove at the door, and we went in and heard such an account of his state that I had hopes he might pull through. We shall not see his like again.

The last time I had a long talk with him was about the proposal to bury George Eliot in the Abbey, and a curious revelation of the extraordinary catholicity and undaunted courage of the man it was. He would have done it had it been pressed upon him by a strong representation.

I see he is to be buried on Monday, and I suppose and hope I shall have the opportunity of attending.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

Strangely enough, the death of the Dean involved another invitation to Huxley to quit London for Oxford. By the appointment of Dean Bradley to Westminster, the Mastership of University College was left vacant. Huxley, who was so far connected with the college that he had examined there for a science Fellowship, was asked if he would accept it, but after careful consideration declined. He writes to his son, who had heard rumours of the affair in Oxford:--]

4 Marlborough Place, November 4, 1881.

My dear Lens,

There is truth in the rumour; in so far as this that I was asked if I would allow myself to be nominated for the Mastership of University, that I took the question into serious consideration and finally declined.

But I was asked to consider the communication made to me confidential, and I observed the condition strictly. The leakage must have taken place among my Oxford friends, and is their responsibility, but at the same time I would rather you did not contribute to the rumour on the subject. Of course I should have told you if I had not been bound to reticence.

I was greatly tempted for a short time by the prospect of rest, but when I came to look into the matter closely there were many disadvantages. I do not think I am cut out for a Don nor your mother for a Donness--we have had thirty years' freedom in London, and are too old to put in harness.

Moreover, in a monetary sense I should have lost rather than gained.

My astonishment at the proposal was unfeigned, and I begin to think I may yet be a Bishop.

Ever your loving father,

T.H. Huxley.

The Congress detained him in London this summer later than usual. It lasted from the 3rd to the 9th of August, on which day he delivered a concluding address on "The Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine" ("Collected Essays" 3 page 347). He showed how medicine was gradually raised from mere empiricism and based upon true pathological principles, through the independent growth of physiological knowledge, and its correlation to chemistry and physics.] "It is a peculiarity," [he remarks,] "of the physical sciences that they are independent in proportion as they are imperfect." "there could be no real science of pathology until the science of physiology had reached a degree of perfection unattained, and indeed unattainable, until quite recent times." [Historically speaking, modern physiology, he pointed out, began with Descartes' attempt to explain bodily phenomena on purely physical principles; but the Cartesian notion of one controlling central mechanism had to give way before the proof of varied activities residing in various tissues, until the cell-theory united something of either view. "The body is a machine of the nature of an army, not that of a watch or of a hydraulic apparatus." On this analogy, diseases are derangements either of the physiological units of the body, or of their coordinating machinery: and the future of medicine depends on exact knowledge of these derangements and of the precise alteration of the conditions by the administration of drugs or other treatment, which will redress those derangements without disturbing the rest of the body.

A few extracts from letters to his wife describe his occupation at the Congress, which involved too much "society" for his liking.]

August 4.

The Congress began with great eclat yesterday, and the latter part of Paget's address was particularly fine. After, there was the lunch at the Paget's with the two Royalties. After that, an address by Virchow. After that, dinner at Sanderson's, with a confused splutter of German to the neighbours on my right. After that a tremendous soiree at South Kensington, from which I escaped as soon as I could, and got home at midnight. There is a confounded Lord Mayor's dinner this evening ("The usual turtle and speeches to the infinite bewilderment and delight of the foreigners," August 6), and to-morrow a dinner at the Physiological Society. But I have got off the Kew party, and mean to go quietly down to the Spottiswoodes [i.e. at Sevenoaks] on Saturday afternoon, and get out of the way of everything except the College of Surgeons' Soiree, till Tuesday. Commend me for my prudence.

I have been toiling at my address this morning. It is all printed, but I must turn it inside out, and make a speech of it if I am to make any impression on the audience in St. James' Hall. Confound all such bobberies.

August 9.

I got through my address to-day as well as I ever did anything. There was a large audience, as it was the final meeting of the Congress, and to my surprise I found myself in excellent voice and vigour. So there is life in the old dog yet. But I am greatly relieved it is over, as I have been getting rather shaky.

The above paper is to be found in "Collected Essays," 4 page 24. In it he concludes an historical survey of the views held about fossils by a comparison of the opposite hypothesis upon which the vast store of recently accumulated facts may be interpreted; and declaring for the hypothesis of evolution, repeats the remarkable words of the "Coming of Age of the Origin of Species," that] "the paleontological discoveries of the last decade are so completely in accordance with the requirements of this hypothesis that, if it had not existed, the paleontologist would have had to invent it."

Anything I can do to help in raising a memorial to Carlyle shall be most willingly done. Few men can have dissented more strongly from his way of looking at things than I; but I should not yield to the most devoted of his followers in gratitude for the bracing wholesome influence of his writings when, as a very young man, I was essaying without rudder or compass to strike out a course for myself.

4 Marlborough Place, March 25, 1881.

My dear Mrs. Tyndall,

But where is his last note to me? That is the question on which I have been anxiously hoping for light since I received yours and the enclosure, which contains such a very sensible proposition that I should like to know how it came into existence, abiogenetically or otherwise.

As I am by way of forgetting everything myself just now, it is a comfort to me to believe that Tyndall has forgotten he forgot to send the letter of which he forgot the inclosure. The force of disremembering could no further go.

In affectionate bewilderment, ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, June 10, 1881.

My dear Mrs. May,

I promised your daughter the other day that I would send you the Bishop of Natal's letter to me. Unfortunately I had mislaid it, and it only turned up just now when I was making one of my periodical clearances in the chaos of papers that accumulates on my table.

You will be pleased to see how fully the good Bishop appreciates Stuart's excellent qualities, and as to the physical part of the business, though it is sad enough that a young man should be impeded in this way, I think you should be hopeful. Delicate young people often turn out strong old people--I was a thread paper of a boy myself, and now I am an extremely tough old personage...

With our united kind regards to Mr. May and yourself,

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, London, N.W., July 5 [1881?].

My dear Skelton,

It is a great deal more than I would say for everybody, but I am sure Tyndall will be very much obliged to me for making you known to him; and if you, insignificant male creature, how very much more for the opportunity of knowing Mrs. Skelton!

For which last pretty speech I hope the lady will make a prettier curtsey. So go boldly across the Aletsch, and if they have a knocker (which I doubt), knock and it shall be opened unto you.

I wish I were going to be there too; but Royal Commissions are a kind of endemic in my constitution, and I have a very bad one just now. [The Medical Acts Commission 1881-2.]

With kind remembrances to Mrs. Skelton,

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

August 18, 1881.

My dear Donnelly,

I am astonished that you don't known that a letter to a Dean ought to be addressed "The Very Reverend." I don't generally stand much upon etiquette, but when my sacred character is touched I draw the line.

We had athletics here yesterday, and as it was a lovely day, all Cumberland and Westmoreland sent contingents to see the fun...

This would be a grand place if it were drier, but the rain it raineth every day--yesterday being the only really fine day since our arrival.

However, we all thrive, so I suppose we are adapting ourselves to the medium, and shall be scaly and finny before long.

Haven't you done with Babylon yet? It is high time you were out of it.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.