BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT OXFORD 



397 



Not that I have the slightest doubt about the magnitude of 

 the evils which accrue from the steady increase of European 

 armaments; but because I think that this regrettable fact is 

 merely the superficial expression of social forces, the operation 

 of which cannot be sensibly affected by agreements between 

 Governments. 



In my opinion it is a delusion to attribute the growth of 

 armaments to the " exactions of militarism." The " exactions 

 of industrialism," generated by international commercial com- 

 petition, may, I believe, claim a much larger share in prompting 

 that growth. Add to this the French thirst for revenge, the 

 most just determination of the German and Italian peoples to 

 assert their national unity; the Russian Panslavonic fanaticism 

 and desire for free access to the western seas ; the Papacy stead- 

 ily fishing in the troubled waters for the means of recovering 

 its lost (I hope for ever lost) temporal possessions and spiritual 

 supremacy ; the " sick man," kept alive only because each of 

 his doctors is afraid of the other becoming his heir. 



When I think of the intensity of the perturbing agencies 

 which arise out of these and other conditions of modern Euro- 

 pean society, I confess that the attempt to counteract them by 

 asking Governments to agree to a maximum military expendi- 

 ture, does not appear to me to be worth making; indeed I think 

 it might do harm by leading people to suppose that the desires 

 of Governments are the chief agents in determining whether 

 peace or war shall obtain in Europe. — I am, yours faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Later in the year, on August 8, took place the meeting 

 of the British Association at Oxford, noteworthy for the 

 presidential address delivered by Lord Salisbury, Chancellor 

 of the University, in which the doctrine of evolution was 

 " enunciated as a matter of course — disputed by no reason- 

 able man," although accompanied by a description of the 

 working of the natural selection and variation which ap- 

 peared to the man of science a mere travesty of these doc- 

 trines. 



Huxley had been persuaded to attend this meeting, the 

 more willingly, perhaps, since his reception at Oxford the 

 year before suggested that there would be a special piquancy 

 in the contrast between this and the last meeting of the 

 Association at Oxford in i860. He was not disappointed. 



