Riverside Literature Series HUXLEY Autobiography elected Essays Houghton Mifflin Co. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY Cl)c KitirrstDf ^Literature fer nr s AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED ESSAYS BY THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ADA L. F. SNELL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 85 Fifth Avenue Chicago : 378-388 Wabash Avenue bc tfmersi&c press Cambridge CONTENTS PREFACE iii INTRODUCTION The Life of Huxley iv Subject-matter, Structure, and Style of Essays . . xviii Suggested Studies ........ xxi AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 15 A LIBERAL EDUCATION 35 ON A PIECE OF CHALK 44 THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION . . . .73 THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION ... 85 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFK 95 ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS 115 NOTES . i This edition is published by permission of and special arrangement with Messrs. D. Appleton and Company, the authorized publishers of Huxley's Works. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1101 PREFACE THE purpose of the following selections is to present to students of English a few of Huxley's representative es- says. Some of these selections are complete ; others are extracts. In the latter case, however, they are not extracts in the sense of being incomplete wholes, for each selection given will be found to have, in Aristotle's phrase, " a beginning, a middle, and an end." That they are complete in themselves, although only parts of whole essays, is due to the fact that Huxley, in order to make succeeding ma- terial clear, often prepares the way with a long and careful definition. Such is the nature of the extract A Liberal Education, in reality a definition to make distinct and forcible his ideas on the shortcomings of English schools. Such a definition, also, is The Method of Scientific In- vestigation. The footnotes are those of the author. Other notes on the text have been included for the benefit of schools in- adequately equipped with reference books. It is hoped, however, that the notes may be found not to be so numer- ous as to prevent the training of the student in a self-reliant and scholarly use of dictionaries and reference books ; it is hoped, also, that they may serve to stimulate him to trace out for himself more completely any subject connected with the text in which he may feel a peculiar interest. It should be recognized that notes are of value only as they develop power to read intelligently. If unintelligently relied upon, they may even foster indifference and lazy mental habits. I wish to express my obligation to Miss Flora Bridges, whose careful reading of the manuscript has been most helpful, and to Professor Clara F. Stevens, the head of the English Department at Mount Holyoke College, whose very practical aid made this volume possible. A. L. F. S. INTRODUCTION I THE LIFE OF HUXLEY OF Huxley's life and of the forces which moulded his thought, the Autobiography gives some account ; but many facts which are significant are slighted, and necessarily the later events of his life are omitted. To supplement the story as given by him is the purpose of this sketch. The facts for this account are gathered entirely from the Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, by his son. For a real acquaintance with Huxley, the student should consult this source for himself ; he will count the reading of the Life and Letters among the rare pleasures which have come to him through books. Thomas Henry Huxley was born on May 4, 1825. His autobiography gives a full account of his parents, his early Early boyhood, and his education. Of formal education, education. Huxley had little ; but he had the richer school- ing which nature and life give an eager mind. He read widely ; he talked often with older people ; he was always investigating the why of things. He kept a journal in which he noted thoughts gathered from books, and ideas on the causes of certain phenomena. In this journal he frequently wrote what he had done and had set himself to do in the way of increasing his knowledge. Self-conducted, also, was his later education at the Charing Cross Hospital. Here, like Stevenson in his university days, Huxley seemed to be idle, but in reality, he was always busy on his own private end. So constantly did he work over the microscope that the window at which he sat came to be dubbed by his fellow students " The Sign of the Head and Micro- scope." Moreover, in his regular courses at Charing Cross, he seems to have done work sufficiently notable to be recognized by several prizes and a gold medal. INTRODUCTION v Of his life after the completion of his medical course, of his search for work, of his appointment as assistant surgeon on board the Rattlesnake, and of his search scientific work during the four years' cruise, forwort Huxley gives a vivid description in the autobiography. As a result of his investigations on this voyage, he published various essays which quickly secured for him a position in the scientific world as a naturalist of the first rank. A testimony of the value of this work was his election to membership in the Royal Society. Although Huxley had now, at the age of twenty-six, won distinction in science, he soon discovered that it was not so easy to earn bread thereby. Nevertheless, to earn a living was most important if he were to accomplish the two objects which he had in view. He wished, in the first place, to marry Miss Henrietta Heathorn of Sydney, to whom he had become engaged when on the cruise with the Rattlesnake ; his second object was to follow science as a profession. The struggle to find something connected with science which would pay was long and bitter ; and only a resolute determination to win kept Huxley from aban- doning it altogether. Uniform ill-luck met him everywhere. He has told in his autobiography of his troubles with the Admiralty in the endeavor to get his papers published, and of his failure there. He applied for a position to teach science in Toronto ; being unsuccessful in this attempt, he applied successively for various professorships in the United Kingdom, and in this he was likewise unsuccessful. Some of his friends urged him to hold out, but others thought the fight an unequal one, and advised him to emi- grate to Australia. He himself was tempted to practice medicine in Sydney ; but to give up his purpose seemed to him like cowardice. On the other hand, to prolong the struggle indefinitely when he might quickly earn a living in other ways seemed like selfishness and an injustice to the woman to whom he had been for a long time engaged. Miss Heathorn, however, upheld him in his determination to pursue science ; and his sister also, he writes, cheered him by her advice and encouragement to persist in the struggle. vi INTRODUCTION Something of the man's heroic temper may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to Miss Heathorn when his affairs were darkest. " However painful our separation may be," he says, " the spectacle of a man who had given up the cherished purpose of his life . . . would, before long years were over our heads, be infinitely more painful." He declares that he is hemmed in by all sorts of difficul- ties. " Nevertheless the path has shown itself a fair one, neither more difficult nor less so than most paths in life in which a man of energy may hope to do much if he believes in himself, and is at peace within." Thus relieved in mind, he makes his decision in spite of adverse fate. " My course of life is taken, I will not leave London I will make myself a name and a position as well as an income by some kind of pursuit connected with science which is the thing for which Nature has fitted me if she has ever fitted any one for anything." But suddenly the long wait, the faith in self, were justified, and the turning point came. "There is always a Cape Horn in one's life that one either weathers or wrecks one's self on," he writes to his sister. "Thank God, I think I may say I have weathered mine not without a good deal of damage to spars and rigging though, for it blew deuced hard on the other side." In 1854 a permament Lecture- lectureship was offered him at the Government sMps. School of Mines; also, a lectureship at St. Thomas' Hospital ; and he was asked to give various other lecture courses. He thus found himself able to establish the home for which he had waited eight years. In July, 1855, he was married to Miss Heathorn. The succeeding years from 1855 to 1860 were filled with various kinds of work connected with science : original investigation, printing of monographs, and establishing of natural history museums. His advice concerning local mu- seums is interesting and characteristically expressed. "It [the local museum if properly arranged] will tell both na- tives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, INTRODUCTION vii Hindu idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells who shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their ' Amer- ica is here,' as Wilhelm Meister has it." During this period, also, he began his lectures to workingmen, calling them Peoples' Lectures. "Popular lectures," he said, "I hold to be an abomination unto the Lord." Working- men attended these lectures in great numbers, and to them Huxley seemed to be always able to speak at his best. His purpose in giving these lectures should be expressed in his own words : " I want the working class to understand that Science and her ways are great facts for them that phys- ical virtue is the base of all other, and that they are to be clean and temperate and all the rest not because fellows in black and white ties tell them so, but because there are plain and patent laws which they must obey ' under pen- alties.' " Toward the close of 1859, Darwin's Origin of Species " was published. It raised a great outcry in England ; and Huxley immediately came forward as chief de- Attitnfle fender of the faith therein set forth. He took toward part in debates on this subject, the most famous evolutiolL of which was the one between himself and Bishop Wilber- force at Oxford. The Bishop concluded his speech by turning to Huxley and asking, " Was it through his grand- father or grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey?" Huxley, as is reported by an eye-witness, " slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet and grave, he stood before us and spoke those tremendous words. . . . He was not ashamed to have a monkey for an ancestor ; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth." Another story indicates the temper of that time. Carlyle, whose writing had strongly influenced Hux- ley, and whom Huxley had come to know, could not for- give him for his attitude toward evolution. One day, years after the publication of Man's Place in Nature, Huxley, viii INTRODUCTION seeing Carlyle on the other side of the street, a broken, pathetic figure, walked over and spoke to him. The old man merely remarked, " You 're Huxley, are n't you ? the man that says we are all descended from monkeys," and passed on. Huxley, however, saw nothing degrading to man's dignity in the theory of evolution. In a wonderfully fine sentence he gives his own estimate of the theory as it affects man's future on earth. " Thoughtful men once es- caped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudices, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discover, in his long progress through the past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future." As a result of all these controversies on The Origin of Species and of investigations to uphold Darwin's theory, Huxley wrote his first book, already mentioned, Man's Place in Nature. To read a list of the various kinds of work which Hux- ley was doing from 1870 to 1875 is to be convinced of his Establiali. abundant energy and many interests. At about xnent oi this time Huxley executed the plan which he toriM. had had in mind for a long time, the establish- ment of laboratories for the use of students. His object was to furnish a more exact preliminary training. He com- plains that the student who enters the medical school is ' ' so habituated to learn only from books, or oral teaching, that the attempt to learn from things and to get his know- ledge at first hand is something new and strange." To make this method of teaching successful in the schools, Huxley gave practical instruction in laboratory work to school-masters. " If I am to be remembered at all," Huxley once wrote, " I would rather it should be as a man who did his best to help the people than by any other title." Certainly as much of his time as could be spared from his regular work was given to help others. His lectures to workingmen and school-masters have already been mentioned. In addi- tion, he lectured to women on physiology and to children on elementary science. In order to be of greater service to INTRODUCTION ix the children, Huxley, in spite of delicate health, became a member of the London School Board. His immediate ob- ject was " to temper book-learning with something Servlce to of the direct knowledge of Nature." His other pur- women and poses were to secure a better physical training for children and to give them a clearer understanding of social and moral law. He did not believe, on the one hand, in overcrowding the curriculum, but, on the other hand, he " felt that all education should be thrown open to all that each man might know to what state in life he was called " Another statement of his purpose and beliefs is given by Professor Gladstone, who says of his work on the board : " He resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for churches or hands for factories. He was on the Board as a friend of children. What he sought to do for the child was for the child's sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier life." The immense amount of work which Huxley did in these years told very seriously on his naturally weak con- stitution. It became necessary for him finally vacations for two successive years to stop work altogether. ateoad - In 1872 he went to the Mediterranean and to Egypt. This was a holiday full of interest for a man like Huxley who looked upon the history of the world and man's place in the world with a keen scientific mind. Added to this sci- entific bent of mind, moreover, Huxley had a deep appre- ciation for the picturesque in nature and life. Bits of de- scription indicate his enjoyment in this vacation. He writes of his entrance to the Mediterranean, "It was a lovely morning, and nothing could be grander than Ape Hill on one side and the Rock on the other, looking like great lions or sphinxes on each side of a gateway." In Cairo, Huxley found much to interest him in archaeology, geology, and the every-day life of the streets. At the end of a month, he writes that he is very well and very grateful to Old Nile for all that he has done for him, not the least " for a whole universe of new thoughts and pictures of life." The trip, however, did no lasting good. In 1873 Huxley was again very ill, but was under such heavy costs at this time that x INTRODUCTION another vacation was impossible. At this moment, a criti- cal one in his life, some of his close scientific friends placed to his credit twenty-one hundred pounds to enable him to take the much needed rest. Darwin wrote to Huxley con- cerning the gift : " In doing this we are convinced that we act for the public interest." He assured Huxley that the friends who gave this felt toward him as a brother. " I am sure that you will return this feeling and will therefore be glad to give us the opportunity of aiding you in some degree, as this will be a happiness to us to the last day of our lives." The gift made it possible for Hux- ley to take another long vacation, part of which was spent with Sir Joseph Hooker, a noted English botanist, visiting the volcanoes of Auvergne. After this trip he steadily improved in health, with no other serious illness for ten years. In 1876 Huxley was invited to visit America and to deliver the inaugural address at Johns Hopkins Univer- Vislt to s ity- 1 J u ty f this year accordingly, in company America. with his wife, he crossed to New York. Every- where Huxley was received \nth enthusiasm, for his name was a very familiar one. Two quotations from his address at Johns Hopkins are especially worthy of attention as a part of his message to Americans. "It has been my fate to see great educational funds fossilise into mere bricks and mortar in the petrifying springs of architecture, with nothing left to work them. A great warrior is said to have made a desert and called it peace. Trustees have sometimes made a palace and called it a university." The second quotation is as follows : I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is, what are you going to do with all these things ? . . . The one condition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth and intellectual clearness of the individual citizen. Edu- cation cannot give these, but it can cherish them and bring them to the front in whatever station of society they are to be found, and the universities ought to be, and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the nation. INTRODUCTION xi After the return from America, the same innumerable occupations were continued. It would be impossible in short space even to enumerate all Huxley's various publi- cations of the next ten years. His work, however, A(tal ^i^ changed gradually from scientific investigation tratlve to administrative work, not the least important * of which was the office of Inspector of Fisheries. A second important office was the Presidency of the Royal Society. Of the work of this society Sir Joseph Hooker writes : "The duties of the office are manifold and heavy; they include attendance at all the meetings of the Fellows, and of the councils, committees, and sub-committees of the Society, and especially the supervision of the printing and illustrating all papers on biological subjects that are pub- lished in the Society's Transactions and Proceedings ; the latter often involving a protracted correspondence with the authors. To this muot be added a share in the supervision, of the staff officers, of the library and correspondence, and the details of house-keeping." All the work connected with this and many other offices bespeaks a life too hard-driven and accounts fully for the continued ill-health which finally resulted in a complete break-down. Huxley had always advocated that the age of sixty was the time for "official death," and had looked forward to a peaceful " Indian summer.'" With this object pms^t in mind and troubled by increasing ill-health, he * health, began in 1885 to give up his work. But to live even in comparative idleness, after so many years of activity, was difficult. for it. To fail to teach what you honestly know to be true, because it may harm your reputation, or even because it may give pain to others, is cowardice. "I am not greatly concerned about any reputation," Huxley writes to his wife, " except that of being entirely honest and straightforward." Regardless of warnings that the publica- tion of Man's Place in Nature would ruin his career, INTRODUCTION xvii Huxley passed on to others what nature had revealed to him. He was regardless, also, of the confusion and pain which his view would necessarily bring to those who had been nourished in old traditions. To stand with a man or two and to do battle with the world on the score of its old beliefs, has never been an easy task since the world began. Certainly it required fearlessness and determination to wrestle with the prejudices against science in the middle of the nineteenth century how much may be gathered from the reading of Darwin's Life and Letters. The atti- tude of the times toward science has already been indicated. One may be allowed to give one more example from the reported address of a clergyman. " ye men of science, ye men of science, leave us our ancestors in paradise, and you may have yours in Zoological gardens." The war was, for the most part, between the clergy and the men of science, but it is necessary to remember that Huxley fought not against Christianity, but against dogma ; that he fought not against the past, he had great reverence for the accom- plishment of the past, but against unwillingness to accept the new truth of the present. A scholar of the highest type and a fearless defender of true and honest thinking, Huxley certainly was: but the quality which gives meaning to his work, which A scholar makes it live, is a certain human quality due to the fact that Huxley was always keenly alive to the relation of science to the problems of life. For this reason, he was not content with the mere acquirement of knowledge ; and for this reason, also, he could not quietly wait until the world should come to his way of thinking. Much of the time, therefore, which he would otherwise naturally have spent in research, he spent in contending for and in endeavoring to popularize the facts of science. It was this desire to make his ideas prevail that led Hux- ley to work for a mastery of the technique of speaking and writing. He hated both, but -taught himself to do both well. The end of all his infinite pains about his writing was not because style for its own sake is worth while, but because he saw that the only way to win men to a consid- xviii INTRODUCTION eration of his message was to make it perfectly clear and attractive to them. Huxley's message to the people was that happiness, usefulness, and even material prosperity depend upon an understanding of the laws of nature. He also taught that a knowledge of the facts of science is the soundest basis for moral law ; that a clear sense of the pen- alties which ^Nature inflicts for disobedience of her laws must eventually be the greatest force for the purification of life. If he was to be remembered, therefore, he desired that he should be remembered primarily as one who had helped the people " to think truly and to live rightly." Huxley's writing is, then, something more than a scholarly exposition of abstruse matter ; for it has been further de- voted to the increasing of man's capacity for usefulness, and to the betterment of his life here on earth. II SUBJECT-MATTER, STRUCTURE, AND STYLE From the point of view of subject-matter, structure, and style, Huxley's essays are admirably adapted to the uses of the student in English. The themes of the essays are two, education and science. In these two subjects and Huxley earnestly sought to arouse interest and science. ^ j m p ar ^ knowledge, because he believed that intelligence in these matters is essential for the advance- ment of the race in strength and morality. Both subjects, therefore, should be valuable to the student. In education, certainly, he should be interested, since it is his main occu- pation) if not his chief concern. Essays like A Liberal Ed- ucation and The Principal Subjects of Education may suggest to him the meaning of all his work, and may sug- gest, also, the things which it would be well for him to know ; and, even more, a consideration of these subjects may arouse him to a greater interest and responsibility than he usually assumes toward his own mental equipment. Of greater interest probably will be the subjects which deal with nature ; for the ways of nature are more nearly within INTRODUCTION xix the range of his real concerns than are the wherefores of study. The story of the formation of a piece of chalk, the suhstance which lies at the basis of all life, the habits of sea animals, are all subjects the nature of which is akin to his own eager interest in the world. Undoubtedly the subjects about which Huxley writes will " appeal " to the student ; but it is in analysis that the real discipline lies. For analysis Huxley's essays are excellent. They illustrate "the clear power of exposi- tion," and such power is, as Huxley wrote to Tyndall, the one quality the people want, exposition " so clear that they may think they understand even if they don't." Huxley obtains that perfect clearness in his own work by simple definition, by keeping steadily before his Clearne audience his intention, and by making plain by simple throughout his lecture a well-defined organic d8flniti