15° 



NATURE 



[June 13, 1901 



explaining of the Bible what the children will be taught 

 will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, 

 which all of us desire they should know " (ii. 344)- 



He fought, therefore, " for the retention of the Bible, 

 to the great scandal of some of my Liberal friends," 

 and "never had the slightest sympathy with those who, 

 as the Germans say, would ' throw the child away 

 along with the bath ' " (ii. g). 



Years after he remained of the same mind : — 



"I do believe that the human race is not yet, pos- 

 sibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it " 

 (ii. 300). 



Ethical and religious problems occupied so large a 

 place towards the en.d of Huxley's life that it was im- 

 possible to leave them out of sight. But a sharp dis- 

 tinction is, I think, to be drawn between what he 

 accomplished in this field and what he did for knowledge. 

 The latter was eminently constructive : he reconstituted 

 biological science in this country from the foundations 

 upwards. The former was only critical and, as he did 

 ■iiot deny, mainly negative. His defence was that his 

 part had been to clear " the ground for the builders to 

 come after him" (ii. 301). Meanwhile he had nothing 

 but respect for those who honestly held opposite views. 

 But he would have nothing to do with the "half-and- 

 half school," with whom he had less sympathy than 

 ■"with thorough-going orthodoxy '' (i. 471). For Magee, 

 Bishop of Peterborough, he had "a great liking and 

 respect " (ii. 244)- I wish I felt at liberty to amplify 

 what is said (ii. 205) as to the admiration he conceived for 

 Father Steffens. 



Looking back on the whole story as I have attempted 

 to tell it, I am struck with the character of inevitableness 

 about Huxley's career. I do not call to mind any other 

 in which a controlling purpose so definitely manifests 

 itself. "My sole motive," he said in 1891, "is to get at 

 the truth in all things. I do not care one straw about 

 fame, present or posthumous" (ii. 2S1), and certainly, so 

 far as it is given to any one to be successful, he obtained 

 a large measure of success. 



Much has been said of the odium and obloquy he en 

 ■countered in the process. He was certainly supremely 

 indifferent to both, and probably rather enjoyed them. 

 But Englishmen will concede anything to honesty, and 

 Huxley was transparently honest. And obloquy is per- 

 haps not intolerable which is accompanied by the 

 repeated offer of a professorship at Oxford, followed by 

 that of the headship of a college, by the presidency of 

 the Royal Society, and by admission to the Privy 

 Council. 



But it was not merely as a man of science and of affairs 

 that Huxley achieved success. He was possessed of an 

 extraordinary literary gift. " I have," he writes, " a great 

 love and respect for my native tongue, and take great 

 pains to use it properly" (ii. 291). It is much to be 

 wished that scientific men generally would follow his 

 example. He could always, says Sir Spencer Walpole,"put 

 his finger on a wrong word, and he always instinctively 

 .chose the right one" (ii. 25). But this, like everything 

 else that he ever did, was not accomplished without labour. 

 It was from the literature of the eighteenth century that 

 NO. 1650, VOL. 64] 



young Englishmen " would learn to know good English 

 when they see or hear it" (ii. 285). In his own case it 

 helped to make him, as Mr. Arthur Balfour said, a great 

 master of English prose ; perhaps even, as Sir Spencer 

 Walpole thinks, " the greatest master of prose of his time " 

 (ii. 25). 



Nor less sedulously did he cultivate the art of oral 

 exposition and of public speaking, or with less success. 

 Lord Salisbury exclaimed, " What a beautiful speaker 

 he is" (ii. 25). Apart from eloquence as it is ordinarily 

 understood, or rhetorical effect, I myself have never heard 

 any one who in method or manner could compare with 

 him. It is quite consistent with this that he should say, 

 " I funk horribly, though I never get the least credit for 

 it" (i. 311). Before one of his greatest performances he 

 asked me to'take his hand: it was stone-cold. "It is 

 always like that," he said. Yet he held an enormous 

 audience enchained while he unfolded, using no notes, 

 but with faultless choice of words, an intricate and 

 technical argument. 



Nor was he less captivating in conversation. He 

 rises to my mind's eye, drawing down his mouth when 

 he was serious, as if to give momentum to the propulsion 

 of the thought. In a moment, as some humorous aspect 

 of the matter struck him, it would relax into a smile, 

 and then, if one tried too audaciously to attack his argu- 

 ments, his head would go back with a leonine sweep, 

 as much as to say, " young man, be careful." But it 

 was what Mr. Skelton admirably calls " the Shakespearian 

 gaiety of touch " (ii. 16) that made converse with him so 

 unforgettable. Darwin had something of it, but attuned 

 to a gentler key. With Huxley it was irrepressible. " I 

 suppose," he says, " I shall chaff some one on my death- 

 bed " (ii. 76). 



But, in truth, through these two volumes there runs a 

 tragi-comedy, often moving to mirth and not seldom to 

 tears, and sometimes almost Meredithian in intensity. 

 The demon of dyspepsia broods over the drama, as it 

 unfolds, like fate. The wonder is that a man who fought 

 such a life-long battle with ill-health could oppose such 

 a courageous and uncomplaining front to the outside 

 world. He carried the fox gnawing at his vitals with a 

 Spartan fortitude. 



And to ill-health there was added, for no small portion 

 of his life, the no less uncomplaining struggle with 

 poverty. To keep his brother's widow he was even com- 

 pelled to part with his Royal medal (i. 248). When he 

 retired from the public service it was the desire of the 

 Education Department that he should do so on a full 

 pension. This the Treasury were unable to grant. But 

 it is to be counted to the credit of a Tory Government 

 that the amount was eventually made up from the Civil 

 List. 



A l^^ words and I have done. In these volumes the 

 reader has the privilege of being brought into as frank an 

 intimacy with Huxley as was enjoyed by even his closest 

 friends. I am wholly mistaken if there does not emerge 

 from their perusal a personality of singular fascination 

 behind which lay an intellectual and moral force, second 

 perhaps to none in its influence on his countrymen during 

 the latter half of the century which has closed. 



As Lord Hobhouse has said, " he fought the battle 

 of intellectual freedom " (ii. 407), and his success was due 



