Part 13

True that they did not see eye to eye on some of the most fundamental matters of social and political principle, and where they did Tyndall's vehement enthusiasm would sometimes sweep him into activities where his friend could not follow. But these things were no bar to their mutual affection and esteem, and in token of this two letters of 1866 may be quoted, when England was sharply divided on the question of Governor Eyre's action in suppressing an incipient revolt in Jamaica.

In particular, a negro preacher named Gordon had been arrested, court-martialled, and summarily executed. A Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the case declared that the evidence given appeared to be wholly insufficient to establish the charge upon which the prisoner took his trial, and that in the evidence adduced they could not see any sufficient proof of Gordon's complicity in the outbreak, or of having been a party to any general conspiracy against the Government.

To many thoughtful and law-abiding persons such a proceeding appeared to be no better than judicial murder, constituting a hideous precedent; a committee was formed to present a formal indictment against Governor Eyre and obtain a judicial pronouncement on the question, quite apart from the two other questions persistently confused with it--namely, was Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing firebrand, and was Governor Eyre actuated by the highest and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken rashness or worse impulses?

With this high constitutional end in view--the protection of individual liberty--Huxley joined the committee. To Charles Kingsley, who confessed to taking the hero-worshipper's view of Governor Eyre, Huxley replied:--

I dare say he did all this with the best of motives and in a heroic vein. But if English law will not declare that heroes have no more right to kill people in this fashion than other folk, I shall take an early opportunity of migrating to Texas or some other quiet place where there is less hero-worship and more respect for justice, which is to my mind of much more importance than hero-worship.

In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so much by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as their deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use of the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is that it will help a great many people to find out what their profoundest political beliefs are.

The hero-worshippers who believe that the world is to be governed by its great men, who are to lead the little ones, justly if they can, but, if not, unjustly drive or kick them the right way, will sympathize with Mr. Eyre.

The other sect (to which I belong), who look upon hero-worship as no better than any other idolatry and upon the attitude of mind of the hero-worshipper as essentially immoral; who think it is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains; who look upon the observance of inflexible justice as between man and man as of far greater importance than even the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain a declaration that their belief is in accordance with the law of England.

People who differ on fundamentals are not likely to convert one another. To you, as to my dear friend Tyndall, with whom I almost always act, but who in this matter is as much opposed to me as you are, I can only say, let us be strong enough and wise enough to fight the question out as a matter of principle and without bitterness.

To Tyndall, whose convictions were bred in Ulster and fostered by an ardent devotion to Carlyle, he wrote in the same strain, apropos of a friend's banter on their sudden division:--

I replied to the jest earnestly enough--that I hoped and believed our old friendship was strong enough to stand any strain that might be put on it, much as I grieved that we should be ranged in opposite camps in this or any other case.

That you and I have fundamentally different political principles must, I think, have become obvious to both of us during the progress of the American War. The fact is made still more plain by your printed letter, the tone and spirit of which I greatly admire, without being able to recognize in it any important fact or argument which had not passed through my mind before I joined the Jamaica Committee.

Thus there is nothing for it but for us to agree to differ, each supporting his own side to the best of his ability and respecting his friend's freedom as he would his own, and doing his best to remove all petty bitterness from that which is at bottom one of the most important constitutional battles in which Englishmen have for many years been engaged.

If you and I are strong enough and wise enough, we shall be able to do this, and yet preserve that love for one another which I value as one of the good things of my life.

That public controversy could be conducted without loss of friendship he showed also in debate with Herbert Spencer. Their private encounters in argument were often very lively, for Spencer was a most tenacious disputant, to whom argument was as the breath of life.

It was probably after a meeting of the x Club, in the freedom of which debate was likely to be of the liveliest, that Spencer wrote accusing himself of losing his temper, and received the following reply:--

Your conscience has been treating you with the most extreme and unjust severity.

I recollect you looked rather savage at one point in our discussion, but I do assure you that you committed no overt act of ferocity; and if you had, I think I should have fully deserved it for joining in the ferocious onslaught we all made upon you.

What your sins may be in this line to other folk I don't know, but, so far as I am concerned, I assure you I have often said that I know no one who takes aggravated opposition better than yourself, and that I have not a few times been ashamed of the extent to which I have tried your patience.

So you see that you have what the Buddhists call a stock of accumulated merit, envers moi; and if you should ever feel inclined to "d---- my eyes," you can do so and have a balance left.

Seriously, my old friend, you must not think it necessary to apologize to me about any such matters, but believe me (d--ned or und--d),--Ever yours faithfully....

If he was comrade and brother among the friends of his own generation, he was a living inspiration to the friends of the next generation, especially to the pupils and teaching lieutenants who worked in close touch with him. His younger disciples always felt that in acute criticism and vast learning nobody surpassed him; but what they yet more admired than his learning was his wisdom. It was a delight to read an essay fresh from his pen, but an ever so much higher delight to hear him talk for five minutes. "His," says Professor Hubrecht, "was the most beautiful and the most manly intellect I ever knew of." The personal affection as well as admiration he inspired may be gathered from Sir E. Ray Lankester's words: "There has been no man or woman whom I have met in my journey through life whom I have loved and regarded as I have him, and I feel that the world has shrunk and become a poor thing now that his splendid spirit and delightful presence are gone from it." And Professor Jeffery Parker concludes his Recollections of his old chief with these words:--

Whether a professor is usually a hero to his demonstrator I cannot say; I only know that, looking back across an interval of many years and a distance of half the circumference of the globe, I have never ceased to be impressed with the manliness and sincerity of his character, his complete honesty of purpose, his high moral standard, his scorn of everything mean or shifty, his firm determination to speak what he held to be truth at whatever cost of popularity. And for these things "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any."

Indeed, his relations with his demonstrators were typical of his judgment of men, his distinction between the essential and the unessential, which made him a successful administrator.

To a new subordinate "The General," as he was always called, was rather stern and exacting; but when once he was convinced that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared." "Never mind, Parker," he said, instantly capping my quotation, "cast four anchors out of the stern and wish for day."

The first passport to his friendship was entire sincerity. Whatever other claims might be advanced, he would shut out from any approach to intimacy those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead of raising it.

XVII

IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE