Part 5

The general tone of the Metaphysical Society was one of extreme consideration for the feelings of opponents, and your father's speaking formed no exception to the general harmony. At the same time, I seemed to remember him as the most combative of all the speakers who took a leading part in the debates. His habit of never wasting words, and the edge naturally given to his remarks by his genius for clear and effective statement, partly account for this impression; still, I used to think that he liked fighting, and occasionally liked to give play to his sarcastic humour--though always strictly within the limits imposed by courtesy. I remember that on one occasion, when I had read to the Society an essay on "The Incoherence of Empiricism," I looked forward with some little anxiety to his criticisms; and when they came I felt that my anxiety had not been superfluous; he "went for" the weak points of my argument in half-a-dozen trenchant sentences, of which I shall not forget the impression. It was hard hitting, though perfectly courteous and fair.

The paper to be read at each meeting of the Society was printed and circulated in advance, so that all might be prepared with their arguments. Discussion followed the dinner at which the members met. Of these papers Huxley contributed three, the titles of which sufficiently indicate the fundamental points on which his criticism played, questioning current axioms in its search for trustworthy evidence of their validity. The first (1869) was on "The Views of Hume, Kant, and Whately on the Logical Basis of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul," showing that these thinkers agreed in holding that no such basis is given by reasoning apart, for instance, from revelation. The argument is summarized in the essay on Hume (Coll. Ess., vi, 201; 1878).

The second was "Has a Frog a Soul? and if so, of what Nature is that Soul?" (1870), a physiological discussion as to the seat of those purposive actions of which the animal is capable after it has lost ordinary volition and consciousness by the removal of the front part of its brain. Are these things attributes of the soul, and are they resident not even in the brain, but in the spinal marrow? If metaphysics starts from psychology, psychology itself depends greatly upon physiology; current theories need reconsideration. This paper was the starting-point for his larger essay on "Animals as Automata," delivered as an address before the British Association in 1874.

The third paper (1876) was on "The Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection," as to which he, so to say, moved the previous question, arguing that there was no valid evidence of actual death having taken place. The paper was the result of an invitation on the part of some of his metaphysical opponents. As he rejected the miraculous, they asked him to write on a definite miracle, and explain his reasons for not accepting it. He chose this subject because, in the first place, it was a cardinal instance; and, in the second, that as it was a miracle not worked by Christ himself, a discussion of its genuineness could not possibly suggest personal fraud and so inflict gratuitous pain upon believers in it. The question of the fundamentals of Christian evidences had long been in his mind; it was no new subject to him when in the eighties, debarred by his health from physiological researches, he extended his work on Biblical studies.

If the Metaphysical Society effected nothing else, it brought about a personal rapprochement between the representatives of opposing schools of thought. It became clear to the older school that the new thinkers had by no means failed, as they suspected, to examine the older doctrines. Theirs was not dishonest doubt, but a strong demand for better evidence. If the Society itself "died of too much love," it may well have contributed to the greater amenity of public discussion as the years passed, and the diminution of the former rabid denunciations which waned as the new doctrines spread, and were even absorbed and digested by their former antagonists.

VII

CONTROVERSY AND THE BATTLE OF THE "ORIGIN"

The piercing clearness of mind described by Prof. Sidgwick, which could not express itself otherwise than trenchantly and drove straight at the heart of the subject, gave Huxley the popular reputation of being above all things a controversialist. Naturally enough, the public knew little and cared less for the unspectacular researches among the Invertebrates, which had won such high scientific fame. They were only stirred when the results of study in geology, in fossil forms and simian anatomy, clashed with long-established popular conceptions. There was also a gladiatorial delight in watching controversy not simply abstract, but fanned by personal conviction, which marked the champions above all as good fighters.

It must be noted, however, that, vigorous as he was in carrying war into the enemy's country, on two occasions only did Huxley set forth without being first personally attacked. One was his review of the Vestiges of Creation, when he was irritated by the writer's "prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind."

If it had any influence on me at all [he writes], it set me against Evolution; and the only review I ever have qualms of conscience about, on the ground of needless savagery, is one I wrote on the Vestiges while under that influence (1854).

The other was his controversy in 1885-6 with Mr. Gladstone, over the account of the creation in Genesis. But, at least, this was a reply to Mr. Gladstone's attack upon M. Réville and his applications of scientific methods to the problem.

Nevertheless, in this and the similar controversies on Biblical subjects, his chief aim was not simply to confute his adversary. To demolish once more the legend of the Flood, or the literal truth of the Creation myth, in which a multitude of scholars and critics and educated people generally had ceased to believe, was not an otiose slaying of the slain. It made people think of the wider questions involved. To riddle the story of the Gadarene swine was to make a breach in the whole demonology of the New Testament and its claims to superior knowledge of the spiritual world.

It may be noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry, and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on opinions worthy of all respect.

For the rest, as he humorously remarks, when he began in early days to push his researches into the history and origin of the world and its life, he invariably ran up against a sign-board with the notice, "No Thoroughfare--By Order--Moses." Geology and Biology were shut in by a ring-fence; the universe beyond was a Forbidden Land, guarded by the Lamas of ecclesiastical authority.

The first great clash with this authority, which focussed attention upon the scientific struggle for freedom of thought, was that which followed the publication of the Origin of Species at the end of 1859, and culminated in the debate with the Bishop of Oxford at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860. A fierce but more limited struggle for freedom of criticism within the pale of the Church was to follow the publication of Essays and Reviews (1860) and Bishop Colenso's examination of the Pentateuch in 1862 and onwards.

The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on thought at large. Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the book to the public. The reviewer of the Times, knowing nothing about the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the opening paragraphs himself. But it was his retort to the Bishop of Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the challenge of authority was to be taken up. The story is well known; how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to "smash Darwin." Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical degree. He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day, but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop's Quarterly article that was published a few days later.

After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and "spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and unfairness," wrote Hooker.

He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart.... In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey.

Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities. Here was the opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and that ridicule is a two-edged weapon. As he spoke these words Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and whispered: "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands."

The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did not rise until the meeting called for him. Then he "slowly and deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet and very grave." He began with a general statement in defence of Darwin's theory. "I am here only in the interests of science, and I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august client." Darwin's theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural History, as the undulatory theory was of the phenomena of light. No one objected to the latter because an undulation of light had never been arrested and measured. Darwin offered an explanation of facts, and his book was full of new facts, all bearing on his theory. Without asserting that every part of that theory had been confirmed, he maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species which had yet been offered. As to the psychological distinction between men and animals, and the question of the Creation: "You say that development drives out the Creator; but you assert that God made you: and yet you know that you yourself were originally a little piece of matter no bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case." Nobody could say at what moment of the history of his development man became consciously intelligent. The whole question was not so much one of a transmutation or transition of species as of the production of forms which became permanent. The Ancon sheep was not produced gradually; it originated in the birth of the original parent of the whole stock, which had been kept up by a rigid system of artificial selection.

But if the question were to be treated, not as a matter for the calm investigation of science, but as a matter of sentiment, and if he were asked whether he would choose to be descended from the poor animal of low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as we pass, or from a man endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who should use these gifts to discredit and crush humble seekers after truth, he must hesitate what answer to make.

The actual words were not taken down at the time; they were finely eloquent, and gained effect from the clear, deliberate utterance; but the nearest approach to them was recorded in a letter of J.R. Green, the future historian, written immediately after the meeting:--

I asserted--and I repeat--that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man--a man of restless and versatile intellect--who, not content with (an equivocal) success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.

The effect was electrical. When he first rose to speak he had been coldly received--no more than a cheer of encouragement from his immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out. As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main scientific arguments with his own experience on the botanical side. The Bishop, be it recorded, bore no malice. Orator and wit as he was, he no doubt appreciated a debater whose skill in fence matched his own.

VIII

PUBLIC SPEAKING AND LECTURES

For Huxley, one result of the affair was that he became universally known, and not merely as he had been known to his immediate circle, as the most vigorous defender of Darwin--"Darwin's bulldog," as he playfully called himself. Another result was that he changed his idea as to the practical value of the art of public speaking. Walking away from the meeting with that other hater of speech-making, Hooker, he declared that he would thenceforth carefully cultivate it, and try to leave off hating it. The former resolution he carried out faithfully, with the result that he became one of the best speakers of his generation; in the latter he never quite succeeded. The nervous horror before making a public address seldom wholly left him; he used to say that when he stepped on the platform at the Royal Institution and heard the door click behind him, he knew what it must be like to be a condemned man stepping out to the gallows. Happily, no sign of nervousness ever showed itself; he gave the appearance of being equally master of himself and of his subject. His voice was not strong, but he had early learnt the lesson of clear enunciation. There were two letters he received when he began lecturing, and which he kept by him as a perpetual reminder, labelled "Good Advice." One was from a "working man" of his Monday evening audience in Jermyn Street, in 1855; the other, undated, from Mr. Jodrell, a great benefactor of science, who had heard him at the Royal Institution. These warned him against his habits of lecturing in a colloquial tone, which might suit a knot of students gathered round his table, but not a large audience; of running his words, especially technical terms, together, and of pouring out unfamiliar matter at breakneck speed. These early faults were so glaring that one institute in St. John's Wood, after hearing him, petitioned "not to have that young man again." He worked hard to cure himself, and the later audiences who flocked to his lectures could never have guessed at his early failings. The flow was as clear and even as the arrangement of the matter was lucid; the voice was not loud, but so distinct that it carried to the furthest benches. No syllable was slurred, no point hurried over. All this made for the lucid and comprehensible; well-chosen language and fine utterance shaped a perfect vehicle of thought. But it was the lucidity of the thought itself, thus expressed, that gave his lectures their quality. A clever and accomplished lady once, in intimate conversation, asked Mrs. Huxley what the reason could be that every one praised her husband so highly as a lecturer. "I can't understand it. He just lets the subject explain itself, and that's all." Profound, if unintended, compliment. It was his power of seeing things clearly, stripped of their non-essentials, that enabled him to make others see them clearly also. Nor did he forget the saying of that prince of popular expositors, Faraday, who, when asked, "How much may a popular lecturer suppose his audience knows?" replied emphatically, "Nothing." This same faculty, no doubt, was that which enabled him to write such admirable elementary text-books--a task which he regarded as one of the most difficult possible.

A notable description of his public lecturing in the seventies and early eighties is given by G. W. Smalley, correspondent of the New York Tribune, in his "London Letters":--