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diff --git a/1315-0.txt b/1315-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d213143 --- /dev/null +++ b/1315-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5517 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1315 *** + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELECTED ESSAYS + +by + +Thomas Henry Huxley + + + + Note: The notes at the end of the book were originally + referenced by page number. I have instead inserted numbers + within the text in the format [xx] and cross-referenced + these to the appropriate notes.--D.L. + + + + + +Edited, with introduction and notes by Ada L. F. Snell Associate +Professor Of English Mount Holyoke College + +Riverside College Classics Copyright 1909 + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + +INTRODUCTION + +The Life of Huxley + +Subject-matter, Structure, and Style of Essays + +Suggested Studies + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE + +A LIBERAL EDUCATION + +ON A PIECE OF CHALK + +THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION + +THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION + +ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE + +ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS + +NOTES + + + + +PREFACE + + +The purpose of the following selections is to present to students +of English a few of Huxley's representative essays. 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 material 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 Investigation. + +The footnotes are those of the author. Other notes on the text have been +included for the benefit of schools inadequately equipped with reference +books. It is hoped, however, that the notes may be found not to be so +numerous 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 boyhood, and his education. Of +formal education, Huxley had little; but he had the richer schooling +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 Microscope." 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. + +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 scientific work during the four years' cruise, +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 abandoning 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 +emigrate 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. 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 difficulties. +"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 permanent lectureship was offered him at the +Government 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 museums is interesting and characteristically +expressed. "It [the local museum if properly arranged] will tell both +natives 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, 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 'America 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 physical 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 penalties.'" + +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 defender of the faith therein set forth. He took part in debates +on this subject, the most famous of which was the one between himself +and Bishop Wilberforce at Oxford. The Bishop concluded his speech +by turning to Huxley and asking, "Was it through his grandfather 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 +Huxley, and whom Huxley had come to know, could not forgive him for his +attitude toward evolution. One day, years after the publication of Man's +Place in Nature, Huxley, 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, aren'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 escaped 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 Huxley was doing +from 1870 to 1875 is to be convinced of his abundant energy and many +interests. At about this time Huxley executed the plan which he had had +in mind for a long time, the establishment of laboratories for the +use of students. His object was to furnish a more exact preliminary +training. He complains 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 knowledge 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 addition, he lectured to +women on physiology and to children on elementary science. In order +to be of greater service to the children, Huxley, in spite of delicate +health, became a member of the London School Board. His immediate object +was "to temper book-learning with something of the direct knowledge of +Nature." His other purposes 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 constitution. It became necessary for +him finally for two successive years to stop work altogether. 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 +scientific bent of mind, moreover, Huxley had a deep appreciation for +the picturesque in nature and life. Bits of description 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 another vacation was +impossible. At this moment, a critical 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 +concerning 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 Huxley 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 University. In July of this year accordingly, +in company with his wife, he crossed to New York. Everywhere Huxley +was received with 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. Education 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. + + +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 publications of the next ten years. His work, however, +changed gradually from scientific investigation 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 +published in the Society's Transactions and Proceedings; the latter +often involving a protracted correspondence with the authors. To this +must 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 in mind and troubled by increasing ill-health, he began +in 1885 to give up his work. But to live even in comparative idleness, +after so many years of activity, was difficult. "I am sure," he says, +"that the habit of incessant work into which we all drift is as bad +in its way as dram-drinking. In time you cannot be comfortable without +stimulus." But continued bodily weakness told upon him to the extent +that all work became distasteful. An utter weariness with frequent +spells of the blues took possession of him; and the story of his life +for some years is the story of the long pursuit of health in England, +Switzerland, and especially in Italy. + +Although Huxley was wretchedly ill during this period, he wrote letters +which are good to read for their humor and for their pictures of foreign +cities. Rome he writes of as an idle, afternoony sort of place from +which it is difficult to depart. He worked as eagerly over the historic +remains in Rome as he would over a collection of geological specimens. +"I begin to understand Old Rome pretty well and I am quite learned in +the Catacombs, which suit me, as a kind of Christian fossils out of +which one can reconstruct the body of the primitive Church." Florence, +for a man with a conscience and ill-health, had too many picture +galleries. "They are a sore burden to the conscience if you don't go +to see them, and an awful trial to the back and legs if you do," he +complained. He found Florence, nevertheless, a lovely place and full +of most interesting things to see and do. His letters with reference to +himself also are vigorously and entertainingly expressed. He writes in +a characteristic way of his growing difficulty with his hearing. "It +irritates me not to hear; it irritates me still more to be spoken to as +if I were deaf, and the absurdity of being irritated on the last ground +irritates me still more." And again he writes in a more hopeful strain, +"With fresh air and exercise and careful avoidance of cold and night air +I am to be all right again." He then adds: "I am not fond of coddling; +but as Paddy gave his pig the best corner in his cabin--because 'shure, +he paid the rint'--I feel bound to take care of myself as a household +animal of value, to say nothing of other points." + +Although he was never strong after this long illness, Huxley began +in 1889 to be much better. The first sign of returning vigor was the +eagerness with which he entered into a controversy with Gladstone. +Huxley had always enjoyed a mental battle; and some of his fiercest +tilts were with Gladstone. He even found the cause of better health in +this controversy, and was grateful to the "Grand Old Man" for making +home happy for him. From this time to his death, Huxley wrote a number +of articles on politics, science, and religion, many of which were +published in the volume called Controverted Questions. The main value of +these essays lies in the fact that Huxley calls upon men to give clear +reasons for the faith which they claim as theirs, and makes, as a friend +wrote of him, hazy thinking and slovenly, half-formed conclusions seem +the base thing they really are. + +The last years of Huxley's life were indeed the longed-for Indian +summer. Away from the noise of London at Eastbourne by the sea, he spent +many happy hours with old-time friends and in his garden, which was +a great joy to him. His large family of sons and daughters and +grandchildren brought much cheer to his last days. Almost to the end he +was working and writing for publication. Three days before his death +he wrote to his old friend, Hooker, that he didn't feel at all like +"sending in his checks" and hoped to recover. He died very quietly on +June 29, 1895. That he met death with the same calm faith and strength +with which he had met life is indicated by the lines which his wife +wrote and which he requested to be his epitaph:-- + +Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep; For still He giveth His +beloved sleep, And if an endless sleep He wills, so best. + + +To attempt an analysis of Huxley's character, unique and bafflingly +complex as it is, is beyond the scope of this sketch; but to give +only the mere facts of his life is to do an injustice to the vivid +personality of the man as it is revealed in his letters. All his human +interest in people and things--pets, and flowers, and family--brightens +many pages of the two ponderous volumes. Now one reads of his grief over +some backward-going plant, or over some garden tragedy, as "A lovely +clematis in full flower, which I had spent hours in nailing up, has just +died suddenly. I am more inconsolable than Jonah!" Now one is amused +with a nonsense letter to one of his children, and again with an +account of a pet. "I wish you would write seriously to M----. She is +not behaving well to Oliver. I have seen handsomer kittens, but few more +lively, and energetically destructive. Just now he scratched away at +something M---- says cost 13s. 6d. a yard and reduced more or less of it +to combings. M---- therefore excludes him from the dining-room and +all those opportunities of higher education which he would have in MY +house." Frequently one finds a description of some event, so vividly +done that the mere reading of it seems like a real experience. An +account of Tennyson's burial in Westminster is a typical bit of +description:-- + +Bright sunshine streamed through the windows of the nave, while the +choir was in half gloom, and as each shaft of light illuminated the +flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright +succession of his works between the darkness before and the darkness +after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society was represented by four +of its chief officers, and nine of the commonalty, including myself. +Tennyson has a right to that, as the first poet since Lucretius who has +understood the drift of science. + + +No parts of the Life and Letters are more enjoyable than those +concerning the "Happy Family," as a friend of Huxley's names his +household. His family of seven children found their father a most +engaging friend and companion. He could tell them wonderful sea stories +and animal stories and could draw fascinating pictures. His son writes +of how when he was ill with scarlet fever he used to look forward to his +father's home-coming. "The solitary days--for I was the first victim in +the family--were very long, and I looked forward with intense interest +to one half-hour after dinner, when he would come up and draw scenes +from the history of a remarkable bull-terrier and his family that went +to the seaside in a most human and child-delighting manner. I have +seldom suffered a greater disappointment than when, one evening, I fell +asleep just before this fairy half-hour, and lost it out of my life." + +The account of the comradeship between Huxley and his wife reads like +a good old-time romance. He was attracted to her at first by +her "simplicity and directness united with an unusual degree of +cultivation," Huxley's son writes. On her he depended for advice in his +work, and for companionship at home and abroad when wandering in search +of health in Italy and Switzerland. When he had been separated from her +for some time, he wrote, "Nobody, children or anyone else, can be to me +what you are. Ulysses preferred his old woman to immortality, and +this absence has led me to see that he was as wise in that as in other +things." Again he writes, "Against all trouble (and I have had my share) +I weigh a wife-comrade 'trew and fest' in all emergencies." + +The letters also give one a clear idea of the breadth of Huxley's +interests, particularly of his appreciation of the various forms of art. +Huxley believed strongly in the arts as a refining and helpful influence +in education. He keenly enjoyed good music. Professor Hewes writes of +him that one breaking in upon him in the afternoon at South Kensington +would not infrequently be met "with a snatch of some melody of Bach's +fugue." He also liked good pictures, and always had among his friends +well-known artists, as Alma-Tadema, Sir Frederick Leighton, and +Burne-Jones. He read poetry widely, and strongly advocated the teaching +of poetry in English schools. As to poetry, his own preferences are +interesting. Wordsworth he considered too discursive; Shelley was too +diffuse; Keats, he liked for pure beauty, Browning for strength, and +Tennyson for his understanding of modern science; but most frequently of +all he read Milton and Shakespeare. + +As to Huxley's appearance, and as to the impression which his +personality made upon others, the description of a friend, Mr. G. W. +Smalley, presents him with striking force. "The square forehead, the +square jaw, the tense lines of the mouth, the deep flashing dark +eyes, the impression of something more than strength he gave you, an +impression of sincerity, of solid force, of immovability, yet with the +gentleness arising from the serene consciousness of his strength--all +this belonged to Huxley and to him alone. The first glance magnetized +his audience. The eyes were those of one accustomed to command, of one +having authority, and not fearing on occasion to use it. The hair swept +carelessly away from the broad forehead and grew rather long behind, +yet the length did not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was +masculine in everything--look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, +sparing of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, +he had nevertheless the secret of the highest art of all, whether in +oratory or whatever else--he had simplicity." + +Simplicity, directness, sincerity,--all these qualities describe Huxley; +but the one attribute which distinguishes him above all others is love +of truth. A love of truth, as the phrase characterizes Huxley, would +necessarily produce a scholarly habit of mind. It was the zealous search +for truth which determined his method of work. In science, Huxley would +"take at second hand nothing for which he vouched in teaching." Some one +reproached him for wasting time verifying what another had already done. +"If that is his practice," he commented, "his work will never live." The +same motive made him a master of languages. To be able to read at first +hand the writings of other nations, he learned German, French, Italian, +and Greek. One of the chief reasons for learning to read Greek was to +see for himself if Aristotle really did say that the heart had only +three chambers--an error, he discovered, not of Aristotle, but of the +translator. It was, moreover, the scholar in Huxley which made him +impatient of narrow, half-formed, foggy conclusions. His own work has +all the breadth and freedom and universality of the scholar, but it has, +also, a quality equally distinctive of the scholar, namely, an infinite +precision in the matter of detail. + +If love of truth made Huxley a scholar, it made him, also, a courageous +fighter. Man's first duty, as he saw it, was to seek the truth; +his second was to teach it to others, and, if necessary, to contend +valiantly 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 publication of Man's +Place in Nature would ruin his career, 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 attitude 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. "O 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 +accomplishment 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 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 Huxley 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 consideration 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 penalties 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 devoted 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 Huxley earnestly sought to arouse interest and to impart +knowledge, because he believed that intelligence in these matters is +essential for the advancement 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 occupation, if +not his chief concern. Essays like A Liberal Education and The Principal +Subjects of Education may suggest to him the meaning of all his work, +and may suggest, 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 the range of his real concerns than are the wherefores of study. +The story of the formation of a piece of chalk, the substance 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 exposition," 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 +audience his intention, and by making plain throughout his lecture a +well-defined organic structure. No X-ray machine is needful to make the +skeleton visible; it stands forth with the parts all nicely related +and compactly joined. In reference to structure, his son and biographer +writes, "He loved to visualize his object clearly. The framework of +what he wished to say would always be drawn out first." Professor Ray +Lankester also mentions Huxley's love of form. "He deals with form not +only as a mechanical engineer IN PARTIBUS (Huxley's own description of +himself), but also as an artist, a born lover of form, a character which +others recognize in him though he does not himself set it down in his +analysis." Huxley's own account of his efforts to shape his work is +suggestive. "The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my +native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I +write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get them into proper shape; +and I believe I become more fastidious as I grow older." And, indeed, +there is a marked difference in firmness of structure between the +earlier essays, such as On the Educational Value of the Natural History +Sciences, written, as Huxley acknowledges, in great haste, and the +later essays, such as A Liberal Education and The Method of Scientific +Investigation. To trace and to define this difference will be most +helpful to the student who is building up a knowledge of structure for +his own use. + +According to Huxley's biographer in the Life and Letters of Thomas Henry +Huxley, the essays which represent him at his best are those published +in 1868. They are A Piece of Chalk, A Liberal Education, and On the +Physical Basis of Life. In connection with the comment on these essays +is the following quotation which gives one interesting information as to +Huxley's method of obtaining a clear style:-- + +This lecture on A Piece of Chalk together with two others delivered this +year, seems to me to mark the maturing of his style into that mastery of +clear expression for which he deliberately labored, the saying exactly +what he meant, neither too much nor too little, without confusion and +without obscurity. Have something to say, and say it, was the Duke of +Wellington's theory of style; Huxley's was to say that which has to be +said in such language that you can stand cross-examination on each +word. Be clear, though you may be convicted of error. If you are clearly +wrong, you will run up against a fact sometime and get set right. If you +shuffle with your subject, and study chiefly to use language which will +give a loophole of escape either way, there is no hope for you. + +This was the secret of his lucidity. In no one could Buffon's aphorism +on style find a better illustration, Le style c'est l'homme meme. In +him science and literature, too often divorced, were closely united; and +literature owes him a debt for importing into it so much of the highest +scientific habit of mind; for showing that truthfulness need not be +bald, and that real power lies more in exact accuracy than in luxuriance +of diction. + + +Huxley's own theory as to how clearness is to be obtained gets at the +root of the matter. "For my part, I venture to doubt the wisdom of +attempting to mould one's style by any other process than that +of striving after the clear and forcible expression of definite +conceptions; in which process the Glassian precept, first catch your +definite conception, is probably the most difficult to obey." + +Perfect clearness, above every other quality of style, certainly +is characteristic of Huxley; but clearness alone does not make +subject-matter literature. In addition to this quality, Huxley's writing +wins the reader by the racy diction, the homely illustration, the +plain, honest phrasing. All these and other qualities bring one into +an intimate relationship with his subject. A man of vast technical +learning, he is still so interested in the relation of his facts to the +problems of men that he is always able to infuse life into the driest +of subjects, in other words, to HUMANIZE his knowledge; and in the +estimation of Matthew Arnold, this is the true work of the scholar, the +highest mission of style. + + + + +III -- SUGGESTED STUDIES IN SUBJECT-MATTER, STRUCTURE, AND STYLE + + +Although fully realizing that the questions here given are only such as +are generally used everywhere by instructors in English, the editor has, +nevertheless, included them with the hope that some one may find them +helpful. + +The studies given include a few general questions and suggestions on +subject-matter, structure, and style. The questions on structure are +based on an analysis of the whole composition and of the paragraph; +those on style are based on a study of sentences and words. Such +a division of material may seem unwarranted; for, it may be urged, +firmness of structure depends, to a certain extent, upon sentence-form +and words; and clearness of style, to a large extent, upon the form of +the paragraph and whole composition. The two, certainly, cannot be in +justice separated; and especially is it true, more deeply true than the +average student can be brought to believe, that structure, "MIND, in +style" as Pater phrases it, primarily determines not only clearness, but +also such qualities of style as reserve, refinement, and simple Doric +beauty. Since, however, structure is more obviously associated with +the larger groups, and style with the smaller, the questions have been +arranged according to this division. + + +I. Suggestions for the Study of Subject-Matter. + + +1. To whom does Huxley address the essay? + +2. Can you see any adaptation of his material to his audience? + +3. How would A Piece of Chalk be differently presented if given before a +science club? + +4. Does Huxley make his subject interesting? If so, how does he +accomplish this? + +5. Is the personality of Huxley suggested by the essays? See Life and +Letters, vol. ii, p. 293. + + +II. Suggestions for the Study of Structure. + + +A. Analysis of the whole composition. + +1. State in one complete sentence the theme of the essay. + +2. Analyze the essay for the logical development of the thought. + +a. Questions on the Introduction. + +In the introduction, how does the author approach his material? + +Does he give the main points of the essay? + +Does he give his reasons for writing? + +Does he narrow his subject to one point of view? + +Is the introduction a digression? + +b. Questions on the Body. + +Can you find large groups of thought? + +Are these groups closely related to the theme and to each other? + +Do you find any digressions? + +Is the method used in developing the groups inductive or deductive? + +Is the method different in different groups? + +Are the groups arranged for good emphasis in the whole composition? + +c. Questions on the Conclusion. + +How does the author conclude the essay? + +Does the conclusion sum up the points of the essay? + +Are any new points suggested? + +Is the thought of the whole essay stated? + +Do you consider it a strong conclusion? + +3. Make out an outline which shall picture the skeleton of the essay +studied. In making the outline express the topics in the form of +complete statements, phrase the thought for clear sequence, and be +careful about such matters as spacing and punctuation. + +B. Analysis of paragraph structure. + +1. Can a paragraph be analyzed in the same manner as the whole +composition? + +2. Can you express the thought of each paragraph in a complete sentence? + +3. Can you find different points presented in the paragraph developing +the paragraph topic, as the large groups of the whole composition +develop the theme? + +4. Are the paragraphs closely related, and how are they bound together? + +5. Can any of the paragraphs be combined to advantage? + +6. Read from Barrett Wendell's English Composition the chapter on +paragraphs. Are Huxley's paragraphs constructed in accordance with the +principles given in this chapter? + +7. Is the paragraph type varied? For paragraph types, see Scott and +Denny's Paragraph Writing. + +C. Comparative study of the structure of the essay. + +1. Do you find any difference between Huxley's earlier and later +essays as regards the structure of the whole, or the structure of the +paragraph? + +2. Which essay seems to you to be most successful in structure? + +3. Has the character of the audience any influence upon the structure of +the essays? + +4. Compare the structure of one of Huxley's essays with that of some +other essay recently studied. + +5. Has the nature of the material any influence upon the structure of +the essay? + + +III. Suggestions for the Study of Style. + + +A. Exactly what do you mean by style? + +B. Questions on sentence structure. + +1. From any given essay, group together sentences which are long, short, +loose, periodic, balanced, simple, compound; note those peculiar, for +any reason, to Huxley. + +2. Stevenson says, "The one rule is to be infinitely various; to +interest, to disappoint, to surprise and still to gratify; to be ever +changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of +ingenious neatness." + +Do Huxley's sentences conform to Stevenson's rule? Compare Huxley's +sentences with Stevenson's for variety in form. Is there any reason for +the difference between the form of the two writers? + +3. Does this quotation from Pater's essay on Style describe Huxley's +sentences? "The blithe, crisp sentence, decisive as a child's expression +of its needs, may alternate with the long-contending, victoriously +intricate sentence; the sentence, born with the integrity of a single +word, relieving the sort of sentence in which, if you look closely, you +can see contrivance, much adjustment, to bring a highly qualified matter +into compass at one view." + +4. How do Huxley's sentences compare with those of Ruskin, or with those +of any author recently studied? + +5. Are Huxley's sentences musical? How does an author make his sentences +musical? + +C. Questions on words. + +1. Do you find evidence of exactness, a quality which Huxley said he +labored for? + +2. Are the words general or specific in character? + +3. How does Huxley make his subject-matter attractive? + +4. From what sources does Huxley derive his words? Are they every-day +words, or more scholarly in character? + +5. Do you find any figures? Are these mainly ornamental or do they +re-enforce the thought? + +8. Are there many allusions and quotations? Can you easily recognize the +source? + +7. Pater says in his essay on Style that the literary artist "begets +a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his own spirit, and in the +strictest sense original." Do you find that Huxley's vocabulary suggests +the man? + +8. Does Huxley seem to search for "the smooth, or winsome, or forcible +word, as such, or quite simply and honestly, for the word's adjustment +to its meaning"? + +9. Make out a list of the words and proper names in any given essay +which are not familiar to you; write out the explanation of these in the +form of notes giving any information which is interesting and relevant. + +D. General questions on style. + +1. How is Huxley's style adapted to the subject-matter? + +2. Can you explain the difference in style of the different essays by +the difference in purpose? + +3. Compare Huxley's way of saying things with some other author's way of +saying things. + +4. Huxley says of his essays to workingmen, "I only wish I had had the +sense to anticipate the run these have had here and abroad, and I would +have revised them properly. As they stand they are terribly in the +rough, from a literary point of view." + +Do you find evidences of roughness? + + + + +THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY -- AUTOBIOGRAPHY [1] + + +And when I consider, in one view, the many things . . . which I have +upon my hands, I feel the burlesque of being employed in this manner at +my time of life. But, in another view, and taking in all circumstances, +these things, as trifling as they may appear, no less than things of +greater importance, seem to be put upon me to do.--Bishop Butler to the +Duchess of Somerset. + + +The "many things" to which the Duchess's correspondent here refers are +the repairs and improvements of the episcopal seat at Auckland. I doubt +if the great apologist, greater in nothing than in the simple dignity of +his character, would have considered the writing an account of himself +as a thing which could be put upon him to do whatever circumstances +might be taken in. But the good bishop lived in an age when a man +might write books and yet be permitted to keep his private existence +to himself; in the pre-Boswellian [2] epoch, when the germ of the +photographer lay concealed in the distant future, and the interviewer +who pervades our age was an unforeseen, indeed unimaginable, birth of +time. + +At present, the most convinced believer in the aphorism "Bene qui +latuit, bene vixit,"[3] is not always able to act up to it. An +importunate person informs him that his portrait is about to be +published and will be accompanied by a biography which the importunate +person proposes to write. The sufferer knows what that means; either he +undertakes to revise the "biography" or he does not. In the former case, +he makes himself responsible; in the latter, he allows the publication +of a mass of more or less fulsome inaccuracies for which he will be +held responsible by those who are familiar with the prevalent art of +self-advertisement. On the whole, it may be better to get over the +"burlesque of being employed in this manner" and do the thing himself. + +It was by reflections of this kind that, some years ago, I was led to +write and permit the publication of the subjoined sketch. + + +I was born about eight o'clock in the morning on the 4th of May, 1825, +at Ealing, which was, at that time, as quiet a little country village as +could be found within a half-a-dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Now it +is a suburb of London with, I believe, 30,000 inhabitants. My father was +one of the masters in a large semi-public school which at one time had a +high reputation. I am not aware that any portents preceded my arrival +in this world, but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a traditional +account of the manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of +great practical value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in +consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same reason, +probably, a neighbouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony, +pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room when the +horrified nurse shut down the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only +abstained from her ill-timed interference, the swarm might have settled +on my lips, and I should have been endowed with that mellifluous +eloquence which, in this country, leads far more surely than worth, +capacity, or honest work, to the highest places in Church and State. +But the opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged to content myself +through life with saying what I mean in the plainest of plain language, +than which, I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a man's +prospects of advancement. + +Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not know; but it is a curious +chance that my parents should have fixed for my usual denomination upon +the name of that particular Apostle with whom I have always felt +most sympathy. Physically and mentally I am the son of my mother so +completely--even down to peculiar movements of the hands, which made +their appearance in me as I reached the age she had when I noticed +them--that I can hardly find any trace of my father in myself, except an +inborn faculty for drawing, which unfortunately, in my case, has never +been cultivated, a hot temper, and that amount of tenacity of purpose +which unfriendly observers sometimes call obstinacy. + +My mother was a slender brunette, of an emotional and energetic +temperament, and possessed of the most piercing black eyes I ever saw +in a woman's head. With no more education than other women of the middle +classes in her day, she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most +distinguishing characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If +one ventured to suggest she had not taken much time to arrive at any +conclusion, she would say, "I cannot help it, things flash across me." +That peculiarity has been passed on to me in full strength; it has often +stood me in good stead; it has sometimes played me sad tricks, and it +has always been a danger. But, after all, if my time were to come +over again, there is nothing I would less willingly part with than my +inheritance of mother wit. + +I have next to nothing to say about my childhood. In later years my +mother, looking at me almost reproachfully, would sometimes say, "Ah! +you were such a pretty boy!" whence I had no difficulty in concluding +that I had not fulfilled my early promise in the matter of looks. In +fact, I have a distinct recollection of certain curls of which I was +vain, and of a conviction that I closely resembled that handsome, +courtly gentleman, Sir Herbert Oakley, who was vicar of our parish, and +who was as a god to us country folk, because he was occasionally visited +by the then Prince George of Cambridge. [4] I remember turning my +pinafore wrong side forwards in order to represent a surplice, and +preaching to my mother's maids in the kitchen as nearly as possible in +Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday morning when the rest of the family were +at church. That is the earliest indication I can call to mind of the +strong clerical affinities which my friend Mr. Herbert Spencer [5] +has always ascribed to me, though I fancy they have for the most part +remained in a latent state. + +My regular school training was of the briefest, perhaps fortunately, +for though my way of life has made me acquainted with all sorts and +conditions of men, from the highest to the lowest, I deliberately affirm +that the society I fell into at school was the worst I have ever known. +We boys were average lads, with much the same inherent capacity for good +and evil as any others; but the people who were set over us cared +about as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they +were baby-farmers. We were left to the operation of the struggle +for existence among ourselves, and bullying was the least of the ill +practices current among us. Almost the only cheerful reminiscence in +connection with the place which arises in my mind is that of a battle I +had with one of my classmates, who had bullied me until I could stand it +no longer. I was a very slight lad, but there was a wild-cat element +in me which, when roused, made up for lack of weight, and I licked +my adversary effectually. However, one of my first experiences of the +extremely rough-and-ready nature of justice, as exhibited by the course +of things in general, arose out of the fact that I--the victor--had +a black eye, while he--the vanquished--had none, so that I got into +disgrace and he did not. We made it up, and thereafter I was unmolested. +One of the greatest shocks I ever received in my life was to be told +a dozen years afterwards by the groom who brought me my horse in a +stable-yard in Sydney that he was my quondam antagonist. He had a long +story of family misfortune to account for his position, but at that time +it was necessary to deal very cautiously with mysterious strangers in +New South Wales, and on inquiry I found that the unfortunate young man +had not only been "sent out," but had undergone more than one colonial +conviction. + +As I grew older, my great desire was to be a mechanical engineer, but +the fates were against this and, while very young, I commenced the study +of medicine under a medical brother-in-law. But, though the Institute +of Mechanical Engineers would certainly not own me, I am not sure that +I have not all along been a sort of mechanical engineer in partibus +infidelium.[6] I am now occasionally horrified to think how very little +I ever knew or cared about medicine as the art of healing. The only +part of my professional course which really and deeply interested me was +physiology, which is the mechanical engineering of living machines; and, +notwithstanding that natural science has been my proper business, I am +afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me. I never +collected anything, and species work was always a burden to me; what I +cared for was the architectural and engineering part of the business, +the working out of the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands and +thousands of diverse living constructions, and the modifications of +similar apparatuses to serve diverse ends. The extraordinary attraction +I felt towards the study of the intricacies of living structure nearly +proved fatal to me at the outset. I was a mere boy--I think between +thirteen and fourteen years of age--when I was taken by some older +student friends of mine to the first post-mortem examination I ever +attended. All my life I have been most unfortunately sensitive to the +disagreeables which attend anatomical pursuits, but on this occasion my +curiosity overpowered all other feelings, and I spent two or three +hours in gratifying it. I did not cut myself, and none of the ordinary +symptoms of dissection-poison supervened, but poisoned I was somehow, +and I remember sinking into a strange state of apathy. By way of a last +chance, I was sent to the care of some good, kind people, friends of +my father's, who lived in a farmhouse in the heart of Warwickshire. +I remember staggering from my bed to the window on the bright spring +morning after my arrival, and throwing open the casement. Life seemed to +come back on the wings of the breeze, and to this day the faint odor of +wood-smoke, like that which floated across the farm-yard in the early +morning, is as good to me as the "sweet south upon a bed of violets."[7] +I soon recovered, but for years I suffered from occasional paroxysms of +internal pain, and from that time my constant friend, hypochondriacal +dyspepsia, commenced his half century of co-tenancy of my fleshly +tabernacle. + +Looking back on my "Lehrjahre,"[8] I am sorry to say that I do not think +that any account of my doings as a student would tend to edification. +In fact, I should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to avoid imitating +my example. I worked extremely hard when it pleased me, and when it did +not--which was a very frequent case--I was extremely idle (unless making +caricatures of one's pastors and masters is to be called a branch +of industry), or else wasted my energies in wrong directions. I read +everything I could lay hands upon, including novels, and took up all +sorts of pursuits to drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt it was +very largely my own fault, but the only instruction from which I ever +obtained the proper effect of education was that which I received from +Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on physiology at the Charing +Cross School of Medicine. The extent and precision of his knowledge +impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of his method of +lecturing was quite to my taste. I do not know that I have ever felt so +much respect for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked hard +to obtain his approbation, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the +youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had +any right to do. It was he who suggested the publication of my first +scientific paper--a very little one--in the Medical Gazette of 1845, and +most kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded in it, short as +it was; for at that time, and for many years afterwards, I detested the +trouble of writing, and would take no pains over it. + +It was in the early spring of 1846, that, having finished my obligatory +medical studies and passed the first M. D. examination at the London +University,--though I was still too young to qualify at the College +of Surgeons,--I was talking to a fellow-student (the present eminent +physician, Sir Joseph Fayrer), and wondering what I should do to meet +the imperative necessity for earning my own bread, when my friend +suggested that I should write to Sir William Burnett, at that +time Director-General for the Medical Service of the Navy, for an +appointment. I thought this rather a strong thing to do, as Sir William +was personally unknown to me, but my cheery friend would not listen to +my scruples, so I went to my lodgings and wrote the best letter I could +devise. A few days afterwards I received the usual official circular +acknowledgment, but at the bottom there was written an instruction +to call at Somerset House on such a day. I thought that looked like +business, so at the appointed time I called and sent in my card, while +I waited in Sir William's ante-room. He was a tall, shrewd-looking old +gentleman, with a broad Scotch accent--and I think I see him now as he +entered with my card in his hand. The first thing he did was to return +it, with the frugal reminder that I should probably find it useful on +some other occasion. The second was to ask whether I was an Irishman. +I suppose the air of modesty about my appeal must have struck him. I +satisfied the Director-General that I was English to the backbone, and +he made some inquiries as to my student career, finally desiring me +to hold myself ready for examination. Having passed this, I was in Her +Majesty's Service, and entered on the books of Nelson's [9] old ship, +the Victory, for duty at Haslar Hospital, about a couple of months after +I made my application. + +My official chief at Haslar was a very remarkable person, the late +Sir John Richardson, an excellent naturalist, and far-famed as an +indomitable Arctic traveller. He was a silent, reserved man, outside the +circle of his family and intimates; and, having a full share of youthful +vanity, I was extremely disgusted to find that "Old John," as we +irreverent youngsters called him, took not the slightest notice of my +worshipful self either the first time I attended him, as it was my duty +to do, or for some weeks afterwards. I am afraid to think of the lengths +to which my tongue may have run on the subject of the churlishness +of the chief, who was, in truth, one of the kindest-hearted and most +considerate of men. But one day, as I was crossing the hospital square, +Sir John stopped me, and heaped coals of fire on my head by telling +me that he had tried to get me one of the resident appointments, much +coveted by the assistant surgeons, but that the Admiralty had put in +another man. "However," said he, "I mean to keep you here till I can get +you something you will like," and turned upon his heel without waiting +for the thanks I stammered out. That explained how it was I had not been +packed off to the West Coast of Africa like some of my juniors, and why, +eventually, I remained altogether seven months at Haslar. + +After a long interval, during which "Old John" ignored my existence +almost as completely as before, he stopped me again as we met in a +casual way, and describing the service on which the Rattlesnake was +likely to be employed, said that Captain Owen Stanley, who was to +command the ship, had asked him to recommend an assistant surgeon who +knew something of science; would I like that? Of course I jumped at +the offer. "Very well, I give you leave; go to London at once and see +Captain Stanley." I went, saw my future commander, who was very civil +to me, and promised to ask that I should be appointed to his ship, as in +due time I was. It is a singular thing that, during the few months of my +stay at Haslar, I had among my messmates two future Directors-General +of the Medical Service of the Navy (Sir Alexander Armstrong and Sir John +Watt-Reid), with the present President of the College of Physicians and +my kindest of doctors, Sir Andrew Clark. + +Life on board Her Majesty's ship in those days was a very different +affair from what it is now, and ours was exceptionally rough, as we +were often many months without receiving letters or seeing any civilised +people but ourselves. In exchange, we had the interest of being about +the last voyagers, I suppose, to whom it could be possible to meet with +people who knew nothing of fire-arms--as we did on the south coast of +New Guinea--and of making acquaintance with a variety of interesting +savage and semi-civilised people. But, apart from experience of +this kind and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me, +personally, the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for me to +live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by +living on bare necessaries; to find out how extremely well worth living +life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, +with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect +for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of +what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I +along with it. My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ought +to be and generally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared +anything about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so zealous +in pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies,[10] christened +"Buffons," after the title conspicuous on a volume of the Suites a +Buffon,[11] which stood on my shelf in the chart room. + +During the four years of our absence, I sent home communication after +communication to the "Linnean Society,"[12] with the same result as that +obtained by Noah when he sent the raven out of his ark. Tired at last +of hearing nothing about them, I determined to do or die, and in 1849 +I drew up a more elaborate paper and forwarded it to the Royal +Society.[13] This was my dove, if I had only known it. But owing to the +movements of the ship, I heard nothing of that either until my return +to England in the latter end of the year 1850, when I found that it was +printed and published, and that a huge packet of separate copies awaited +me. When I hear some of my young friends complain of want of sympathy +and encouragement, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the +least valuable part of my education. + +Three years after my return were occupied by a battle between my +scientific friends on the one hand and the Admiralty on the other, as +to whether the latter ought, or ought not, to act up to the spirit of a +pledge they had given to encourage officers who had done scientific +work by contributing to the expense of publishing mine. At last the +Admiralty, getting tired, I suppose, cut short the discussion by +ordering me to join a ship, which thing I declined to do, and as +Rastignac,[14] in the Pere Goriot [15] says to Paris, I said to London +"a nous deux." I desired to obtain a Professorship of either Physiology +or Comparative Anatomy, and as vacancies occurred I applied, but in +vain. My friend, Professor Tyndall,[16] and I were candidates at the +same time, he for the Chair of Physics and I for that of Natural History +in the University of Toronto, which, fortunately, as it turned out, +would not look at either of us. I say fortunately, not from any lack of +respect for Toronto, but because I soon made up my mind that London was +the place for me, and hence I have steadily declined the inducements to +leave it, which have at various times been offered. At last, in 1854, on +the translation of my warm friend Edward Forbes, to Edinburgh, Sir Henry +de la Beche, the Director-General of the Geological Survey, offered +me the post Forbes vacated of Paleontologist and Lecturer on Natural +History. I refused the former point blank, and accepted the latter only +provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, +and that I should give up Natural History as soon as I could get a +physiological post. But I held the office for thirty-one years, and a +large part of my work has been paleontological. + +At that time I disliked public speaking, and had a firm conviction that +I should break down every time I opened my mouth. I believe I had every +fault a speaker could have (except talking at random or indulging +in rhetoric), when I spoke to the first important audience I ever +addressed, on a Friday evening at the Royal Institution, in 1852. Yet, +I must confess to having been guilty, malgre moi, of as much public +speaking as most of my contemporaries, and for the last ten years it +ceased to be so much of a bugbear to me. I used to pity myself for +having to go through this training, but I am now more disposed to +compassionate the unfortunate audiences, especially my ever friendly +hearers at the Royal Institution, who were the subjects of my oratorical +experiments. + +The last thing that it would be proper for me to do would be to speak of +the work of my life, or to say at the end of the day whether I think +I have earned my wages or not. Men are said to be partial judges +of themselves. Young men may be, I doubt if old men are. Life seems +terribly foreshortened as they look back and the mountain they set +themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably +higher ranges when, by failing breath, they reach the top. But if I may +speak of the objects I have had more or less definitely in view since I +began the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote +the increase of natural knowledge and to forward the application of +scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to the +best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown with my growth +and strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the +sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the +resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe +by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off. + +It is with this intent that I have subordinated any reasonable, or +unreasonable, ambition for scientific fame which I may have permitted +myself to entertain to other ends; to the popularization of science; to +the development and organisation of scientific education; to the +endless series of battles and skirmishes over evolution; and to untiring +opposition to that ecclesiastical spirit,[17] that clericalism, which in +England, as everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, +is the deadly enemy of science. + +In striving for the attainment of these objects, I have been but one +among many, and I shall be well content to be remembered, or even not +remembered, as such. Circumstances, among which I am proud to reckon the +devoted kindness of many friends, have led to my occupation of various +prominent positions, among which the Presidency of the Royal Society is +the highest. It would be mock modesty on my part, with these and other +scientific honours which have been bestowed upon me, to pretend that I +have not succeeded in the career which I have followed, rather because +I was driven into it than of my own free will; but I am afraid I should +not count even these things as marks of success if I could not hope that +I had somewhat helped that movement of opinion which has been called the +New Reformation.[18] + + + + +ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE [19] + + +This time two hundred years ago--in the beginning of January, +1666--those of our forefathers who inhabited this great and ancient +city, took breath between the shocks of two fearful calamities: one not +quite past, although its fury had abated; the other to come. + +Within a few yards of the very spot [20] on which we are assembled, so +the tradition runs, that painful and deadly malady, the plague, appeared +in the latter months of 1664; and, though no new visitor, smote the +people of England, and especially of her capital, with a violence +unknown before, in the course of the following year. The hand of a +master has pictured what happened in those dismal months; and in that +truest of fictions, The History of the Plague Year, Defoe [21] shows +death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the +narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence +broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by +the woeful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder +yells of despairing profligates. + +But, about this time in 1666, the death-rate had sunk to nearly its +ordinary amount; a case of plague occurred only here and there, and +the richer citizens who had flown from the pest had returned to their +dwellings. The remnant of the people began to toil at the accustomed +round of duty, or of pleasure; and the stream of city life bid fair to +flow back along its old bed, with renewed and uninterrupted vigour. + +The newly kindled hope was deceitful. The great plague, indeed, returned +no more; but what it had done for the Londoners, the great fire, which +broke out in the autumn of 1666, did for London; and, in September of +that year, a heap of ashes and the indestructible energy of the people +were all that remained of the glory of five-sixths of the city within +the walls. + + +Our forefathers had their own ways of accounting for each of these +calamities. They submitted to the plague in humility and in penitence, +for they believed it to be the judgment of God. But, towards the fire +they were furiously indignant, interpreting it as the effect of the +malice of man,--as the work of the Republicans, or of the Papists, +according as their prepossessions ran in favour of loyalty or of +Puritanism. + +It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one who, standing where I +now stand, in what was then a thickly peopled and fashionable part of +London, should have broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now +propound to you--that all their hypotheses were alike wrong; that the +plague was no more, in their sense, Divine judgment, than the fire was +the work of any political, or of any religious sect; but that they were +themselves the authors of both plague and fire, and that they must look +to themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities, to all appearance +so peculiarly beyond the reach of human control--so evidently the result +of the wrath of God, or of the craft and subtlety of an enemy. + +And one may picture to one's self how harmoniously the holy cursing of +the Puritan of that day would have chimed in with the unholy cursing +and the crackling wit of the Rochesters and Sedleys,[22] and with the +revilings of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer +had gone on to say that, if the return of such misfortunes were ever +rendered impossible, it would not be in virtue of the victory of the +faith of Laud,[23] or of that of Milton; and, as little, by the triumph +of republicanism, as by that of monarchy. But that the one thing needful +for compassing this end was, that the people of England should second +the efforts of an insignificant corporation, the establishment of which, +a few years before the epoch of the great plague and the great fire, had +been as little noticed, as they were conspicuous. + + +Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague a few calm and +thoughtful students banded themselves together for the purpose, as they +phrased it, of "improving natural knowledge." The ends they proposed +to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the words of one of the +founders of the organisation:-- + +"Our business was (precluding matters of theology and state affairs) to +discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries, and such as related +thereunto:--as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, +Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments; +with the state of these studies and their cultivation at home and +abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves +in the veins, the venae lacteae, the lymphatic vessels, the Copernican +hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of +Jupiter, the oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots +on the sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and +selenography [24] of the moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, +the improvement of telescopes and grinding of glasses for that purpose, +the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities +and nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment [25] in +quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degree of acceleration +therein, with divers other things of like nature, some of which were +then but new discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced +as now they are; with other things appertaining to what hath been called +the New Philosophy, which from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir +Francis Bacon [26] (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated +in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in +England." + +The learned Dr. Wallis,[27] writing in 1696, narrates in these words, +what happened half a century before, or about 1645. The associates met +at Oxford, in the rooms of Dr. Wilkins, who was destined to become a +bishop; and subsequently coming together in London, they attracted +the notice of the king. And it is a strange evidence of the taste for +knowledge which the most obviously worthless of the Stuarts shared with +his father and grandfather, that Charles the Second was not content with +saying witty things about his philosophers, but did wise things with +regard to them. For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as he +could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but, being in his usual +state of impecuniosity, begged for them of the Duke of Ormond; and, that +step being without effect, gave them Chelsea College, a charter, and +a mace: crowning his favours in the best way they could be crowned, by +burdening them no further with royal patronage or state interference. + +Thus it was that the half-dozen young men, studious of the "New +Philosophy," [28] who met in one another's lodgings in Oxford or in +London, in the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in numerical and +in real strength, until, in its latter part, the "Royal Society for the +Improvement of Natural Knowledge" had already become famous, and had +acquired a claim upon the veneration of Englishmen, which it has ever +since retained, as the principal focus of scientific activity in our +islands, and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to support. + +It was by the aid of the Royal Society [29] that Newton [30] published +his Principia. If all the books in the world, except the Philosophical +Transactions, [31] were destroyed, it is safe to say that the +foundations of physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast +intellectual progress of the last two centuries would be largely, though +incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of halting or of decrepitude +manifested themselves in our own times. As in Dr. Wallis's days, so +in these, "our business is, precluding theology and state affairs, +to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries." But our +"Mathematick" is one which Newton would have to go to school to +learn; our "Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural +Experiments" constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a +glimpse at which would compensate Galileo [32] for the doings of a score +of inquisitorial cardinals; our "Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced +such infinite varieties of beings, have laid open such new worlds in +time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex +problems, that the eyes of Vesalius [33] and of Harvey [34] might be +dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of +mustard seed. + +The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too little, forced upon one's +notice, nowadays, that all this marvellous intellectual growth has a no +less wonderful expression in practical life; and that, in this respect, +if in no other, the movement symbolised by the progress of the Royal +Society stands without a parallel in the history of mankind. + +A series of volumes as bulky as the "Transactions of the Royal Society" +might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations [35] of the +Schoolmen;[36] not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products +of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of +time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy"; but +though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer +time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in +water,"[37] so far as our social state is concerned. + +On the other hand, if the noble first President of the Royal Society +could revisit the upper air and once more gladden his eyes with a sight +of the familiar mace, he would find himself in the midst of a material +civilisation more different from that of his day, than that of the +seventeenth was from that of the first century. And if Lord Brouncker's +[38] native sagacity had not deserted his ghost, he would need no long +reflection to discover that all these great ships, these railways, these +telegraphs, these factories, these printing-presses, without which the +whole fabric of modern English society would collapse into a mass of +stagnant and starving pauperism,--that all these pillars of our State +are but the ripples and the bubbles upon the surface of that great +spiritual stream, the springs of which only, he and his fellows were +privileged to see; and seeing, to recognise as that which it behoved +them above all things to keep pure and undefiled. + +It may not be too great a flight of imagination to conceive our noble +revenant [39] not forgetful of the great troubles of his own day, and +anxious to know how often London had been burned down since his time +and how often the plague had carried off its thousands. He would have to +learn that, although London contains tenfold the inflammable matter that +it did in 1666; though, not content with filling our rooms with woodwork +and light draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and explosive gases +into every corner of our streets and houses, we never allow even a +street to burn down. And if he asked how this had come about, we should +have to explain that the improvement of natural knowledge has furnished +us with dozens of machines for throwing water upon fires, any one of +which would have furnished the ingenious Mr. Hooke, the first "curator +and experimenter" of the Royal Society, with ample materials for +discourse before half a dozen meetings of that body; and that, to say +truth, except for the progress of natural knowledge, we should not +have been able to make even the tools by which these machines are +constructed. And, further, it would be necessary to add, that although +severe fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage, the loss is very +generally compensated by societies, the operations of which have been +rendered possible only by the progress of natural knowledge in the +direction of mathematics, and the accumulation of wealth in virtue of +other natural knowledge. + +But the plague? My Lord Brouncker's observation would not, I fear, lead +him to think that Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purer in +life, or more fervent in religious faith, than the generation which +could produce a Boyle,[40] an Evelyn,[41] and a Milton. He might find +the mud of society at the bottom, instead of at the top, but I fear that +the sum total would be as deserving of swift judgment as at the time of +the Restoration.[42] And it would be our duty to explain once more, and +this time not without shame, that we have no reason to believe that it +is the improvement of our faith, nor that of our morals, which keeps +the plague from our city; but, again, that it is the improvement of our +natural knowledge. + +We have learned that pestilences will only take up their abode among +those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for them. +Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated +garbage. Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated. +Their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-clothed. The London +of 1665 was such a city. The cities of the East, where plague has an +enduring dwelling, are such cities. We, in later times, have learned +somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial +improvement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional obedience, +we have no plague; because that knowledge is still very imperfect and +that obedience yet incomplete, typhoid is our companion and cholera our +visitor. But it is not presumptuous to express the belief that, when +our knowledge is more complete and our obedience the expression of our +knowledge, London will count her centuries of freedom from typhoid +and cholera, as she now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of +ignorance of that plague which swooped upon her thrice in the first half +of the seventeenth century. + +Surely, there is nothing in these explanations which is not fully +borne out by the facts? Surely, the principles involved in them are now +admitted among the fixed beliefs of all thinking men? Surely, it is true +that our countrymen are less subject to fire, famine, pestilence, +and all the evils which result from a want of command over and due +anticipation of the course of Nature, than were the countrymen of +Milton; and health, wealth, and well-being are more abundant with us +than with them? But no less certainly is the difference due to the +improvement of our knowledge of Nature, and the extent to which that +improved knowledge has been incorporated with the household words of +men, and has supplied the springs of their daily actions. + +Granting for a moment, then, the truth of that which the depreciators of +natural knowledge are so fond of urging, that its improvement can only +add to the resources of our material civilisation; admitting it to be +possible that the founders of the Royal Society themselves looked +for not other reward than this, I cannot confess that I was guilty +of exaggeration when I hinted, that to him who had the gift of +distinguishing between prominent events and important events, the origin +of a combined effort on the part of mankind to improve natural knowledge +might have loomed larger than the Plague and have outshone the glare +of the Fire; as a something fraught with a wealth of beneficence to +mankind, in comparison with which the damage done by those ghastly evils +would shrink into insignificance. + +It is very certain that for every victim slain by the plague, hundreds +of mankind exist and find a fair share of happiness in the world by the +aid of the spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its worst, could +not have burned the supply of coal, the daily working of which, in the +bowels of the earth, made possible by the steam pump, gives rise to an +amount of wealth to which the millions lost in old London are but as an +old song. + + +But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after all, but toys, possessing +an accidental value; and natural knowledge creates multitudes of more +subtle contrivances, the praises of which do not happen to be sung +because they are not directly convertible into instruments for creating +wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squandering such gifts +among men, the only appropriate comparison I can find for her is to +liken her to such a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever +upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on her home; but +yet without effort and without thought, knitting for her children. +Now stockings are good and comfortable things, and the children +will undoubtedly be much the better for them; but surely it would be +short-sighted, to say the least of it, to depreciate this toiling mother +as a mere stocking-machine--a mere provider of physical comforts? + +However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not a few of them, +who take this view of natural knowledge, and can see nothing in the +bountiful mother of humanity but a sort of comfort-grinding machine. +According to them, the improvement of natural knowledge always has been, +and always must be, synonymous with no more than the improvement of the +material resources and the increase of the gratifications of men. + +Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of mankind, bringing +them up with kindness, and, if need be, with sternness, in the way they +should go, and instructing them in all things needful for their welfare; +but a sort of fairy god-mother, ready to furnish her pets with shoes of +swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omnipotent Aladdin's lamps,[43] so +that they may have telegraphs to Saturn, and see the other side of the +moon, and thank God they are better than their benighted ancestors. + +If this talk were true, I, for one, should not greatly care to toil +in the service of natural knowledge. I think I would just as soon be +quietly chipping my own flint axe, after the manner of my forefathers +a few thousand years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of +thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But I venture to +say that such views are contrary alike to reason and to fact. Those who +discourse in such fashion seem to me to be so intent upon trying to see +what is above Nature, or what is behind her, that they are blind to what +stares them in the face in her. + +I should not venture thus to speak strongly if my justification were not +to be found in the simplest and most obvious facts,--if it needed more +than an appeal to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion, +that the improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direction it has +taken, and however low the aims of those who may have commenced it--has +not only conferred practical benefits on men, but, in so doing, has +effected a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of +themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of thinking and +their views of right and wrong. I say that natural knowledge, seeking +to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still +spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to +ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of +conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality. + + +Let us take these points separately; and first, what great ideas has +natural knowledge introduced into men's minds? + +I cannot but think that the foundations of all natural knowledge were +laid when the reason of man first came face to face with the facts of +Nature; when the savage first learned that the fingers of one hand are +fewer than those of both; that it is shorter to cross a stream than to +head it; that a stone stops where it is unless it be moved, and that it +drops from the hand which lets it go; that light and heat come and go +with the sun; that sticks burn away in a fire; that plants and animals +grow and die; that if he struck his fellow savage a blow he would make +him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return, while if he offered him a +fruit he would please him, and perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When +men had acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though they +were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral, +economical, and political science, were sketched. Nor did the germ of +religion fail when science began to bud. Listen to words which, though +new, are yet three thousand years old:-- + +. . . When in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all +the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And +valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and +all the stars Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart.[44] + + +If the half savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is +irrational to doubt that he went further, to find as we do, that upon +that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,--the little light of +awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss +of the unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do more than +illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations +that cannot be realised, of man's own nature. But in this sadness, this +consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an open secret +which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of all religion; and the +attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by the intellect is the +origin of the higher theologies. + +Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the foundations of all +knowledge--secular or sacred--were laid when intelligence dawned, though +the superstructure remained for long ages so slight and feeble as to be +compatible with the existence of almost any general view respecting the +mode of governance of the universe. No doubt, from the first, there were +certain phenomena which, to the rudest mind, presented a constancy of +occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at any rate, among +them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers ever imagined that +a stone must have a god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had +a god within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such matters +as these, it is hardly questionable that mankind from the first took +strictly positive and scientific views. + +But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences which present +themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has always taken himself as the +standard of comparison, as the centre and measure of the world; nor +could be well avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently uncaused +will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many occurrences, he +naturally enough ascribed other and greater events to other and greater +volitions and came to look upon the world and all that therein is, as +the product of the volitions of persons like himself, but stronger, and +capable of being appeased or angered, as he himself might be soothed +or irritated. Through such conceptions of the plan and working of +the universe all mankind have passed, or are passing. And we may +now consider what has been the effect of the improvement of natural +knowledge on the views of men who have reached this stage, and who +have begun to cultivate natural knowledge with no desire but that of +"increasing God's honour and bettering man's estate."[45] + +For example, what could seem wiser, from a mere material point of view, +more innocent, from a theological one, to an ancient people, than that +they should learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for +their husbandmen; or the position of the stars, as guides to their +rude navigators?[46] But what has grown out of this search for natural +knowledge of so merely useful a character? You all know the reply. +Astronomy,--which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general +ideas of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has, +more than any other, rendered it impossible for them to accept the +beliefs of their fathers. Astronomy,--which tells them that this so vast +and seemingly solid earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling, no man +knows whither, through illimitable space; which demonstrates that what +we call the peaceful heaven above us, is but that space, filled by an +infinitely subtle matter whose particles are seething and surging, like +the waves of an angry sea; which opens up to us infinite regions where +nothing is known, or ever seems to have been known, but matter and +force, operating according to rigid rules; which leads us to contemplate +phaenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have +had a beginning, and that they must have an end, but the very nature of +which also proves that the beginning was, to our conceptions of time, +infinitely remote, and that the end is as immeasurably distant. + +But it is not alone those who pursue astronomy who ask for bread +and receive ideas. What more harmless than the attempt to lift and +distribute water by pumping it; what more absolutely and grossly +utilitarian? Yet out of pumps grew the discussions about Nature's +abhorrence of a vacuum; and then it was discovered that Nature does not +abhor a vacuum, but that air has weight; and that notion paved the way +for the doctrine that all matter has weight, and that the force which +produces weight is co-extensive with the universe,--in short, to the +theory of universal gravitation and endless force. While learning how +to handle gases led to the discovery of oxygen, and to modern chemistry, +and to the notion of the indestructibility of matter. + +Again, what simpler, or more absolutely practical, than the attempt to +keep the axle of a wheel from heating when the wheel turns round very +fast? How useful for carters and gig drivers to know something about +this; and how good were it, if any ingenious person would find out the +cause of such phaenomena, and thence educe a general remedy for +them. Such an ingenious person was Count Rumford;[47] and he and +his successors have landed us in the theory of the persistence, or +indestructibility, of force. And in the infinitely minute, as in the +infinitely great, the seekers after natural knowledge of the kinds +called physical and chemical, have everywhere found a definite order and +succession of events which seem never to be infringed. + +And how has it fared with "Physick" and Anatomy? Have the anatomist, +the physiologist, or the physician, whose business it has been to devote +themselves assiduously to that eminently practical and direct end, +the alleviation of the sufferings of mankind,--have they been able to +confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful? I fear they +are the worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before +us the infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the +duration of the universe; if the physical and chemical philosophers have +demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent parts, and +the practical eternity of matter and of force; and if both have alike +proclaimed the universality of a definite and predicable order and +succession of events, the workers in biology have not only accepted all +these, but have added more startling theses of their own. For, as the +astronomers discover in the earth no centre of the universe, but an +eccentric [48] speck, so the naturalists find man to be no centre of the +living world, but one amidst endless modifications of life; and as the +astronomers observe the mark of practically endless time set upon +the arrangements of the solar system so the student of life finds the +records of ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages, +which, in relation to human experience, are infinite. + +Furthermore, the physiologist finds life to be as dependent for its +manifestation of particular molecular arrangements as any physical or +chemical phenomenon; and wherever he extends his researches, fixed order +and unchanging causation reveal themselves, as plainly as in the rest of +Nature. + +Nor can I find that any other fate has awaited the germ of Religion. +Arising, like all other kinds of knowledge, out of the action and +interaction of man's mind, with that which is not man's mind, it has +taken the intellectual coverings of Fetishism or Polytheism; of Theism +or Atheism; of Superstition or Rationalism. With these, and their +relative merits and demerits, I have nothing to do; but this it is +needful for my purpose to say, that if the religion of the present +differs from that of the past, it is because the theology of the present +has become more scientific than that of the past; because it has not +only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see +the necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and +traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs: and of cherishing the +noblest and most human of man's emotions, by worship "for the most part +of the silent sort" at the Altar of the Unknown. + +Such are a few of the new conceptions implanted in our minds by the +improvement of natural knowledge. Men have acquired the ideas of +the practically infinite extent of the universe and of its practical +eternity; they are familiar with the conception that our earth is but an +infinitesimal fragment of that part of the universe which can be seen; +and that, nevertheless, its duration is, as compared with our standards +of time, infinite. They have further acquired the idea that man is but +one of innumerable forms of life now existing on the globe, and that +the present existences are but the last of an immeasurable series of +predecessors. Moreover, every step they have made in natural knowledge +has tended to extend and rivet in their minds the conception of a +definite order of the universe--which is embodied in what are called, +by an unhappy metaphor, the laws of Nature--and to narrow the range and +loosen the force of men's belief in spontaneity, or in changes other +than such as arise out of that definite order itself. + +Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is not the question. No one +can deny that they exist, and have been the inevitable outgrowth of the +improvement of natural knowledge. And if so, it cannot be doubted that +they are changing the form of men's most cherished and most important +convictions. + + +And as regards the second point--the extent to which the improvement +of natural knowledge has remodelled and altered what may be termed the +intellectual ethics of men,--what are among the moral convictions most +fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? + +They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of +belief; that merit attaches to a readiness to believe; that the doubting +disposition is a bad one, and scepticism a sin; that when good authority +has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason +has no further duty. There are many excellent persons who yet hold by +these principles, and it is not my present business, or intention, to +discuss their views. All I wish to bring clearly before your minds is +the unquestionable fact, that the improvement of natural knowledge +is effected by methods which directly give the lie to all these +convictions, and assume the exact reverse of each to be true. + +The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge +authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind +faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every +great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection +of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation +of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science +holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates +hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and +wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses +to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, +Nature--whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment +and to observation--Nature will confirm them. The man of science has +learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. + +Thus, without for a moment pretending to despise the practical results +of the improvement of natural knowledge, and its beneficial influence +on material civilisation, it must, I think, be admitted that the great +ideas, some of which I have indicated, and the ethical spirit which +I have endeavoured to sketch, in the few moments which remained at my +disposal, constitute the real and permanent significance of natural +knowledge. + +If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to be more and more +firmly established as the world grows older; if that spirit be fated, as +I believe it is, to extend itself into all departments of human thought, +and to become co-extensive with the range of knowledge; if, as our race +approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I believe it will, that there +is but one kind of knowledge and but one method of acquiring it; then +we, who are still children, may justly feel it our highest duty to +recognise the advisableness of improving natural knowledge, and so to +aid ourselves and our successors in our course towards the noble goal +which lies before mankind. + + + + +A LIBERAL EDUCATION [49] + + +The business which the South London Working Men's College has undertaken +is a great work; indeed, I might say, that Education, with which that +college proposes to grapple, is the greatest work of all those which lie +ready to a man's hand just at present. + +And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recognised. You +cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused and +contradictory talk on this subject--nor can you fail to notice that, +in one point at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like +discussions in former days. Nobody outside the agricultural interest now +dares to say that education is a bad thing. If any representative of the +once large and powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimed this +opinion, still exists in the semi-fossil state, he keeps his thoughts +to himself. In fact, there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in +their harmony, raised in favour of the doctrine that education is +the great panacea for human troubles, and that, if the country is not +shortly to go to the dogs, everybody must be educated. + +The politicians tell us, "You must educate the masses because they are +going to be masters." The clergy join in the cry for education, for they +affirm that the people are drifting away from church and chapel into +the broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capitalists swell +the chorus lustily. They declare that ignorance makes bad workmen; that +England will soon be unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam engines, +cheaper than other people; and then, Ichabod! Ichabod![50] the glory +will be departed from us. And a few voices are lifted up in favour of +the doctrine that the masses should be educated because they are men and +women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffering, and that +it is as true now, as it ever was, that the people perish for lack of +knowledge. + +These members of the minority, with whom I confess I have a good deal of +sympathy, are doubtful whether any of the other reasons urged in favour +of the education of the people are of much value--whether, indeed, some +of them are based upon either wise or noble grounds of action. They +question if it be wise to tell people that you will do for them, out +of fear of their power, what you have left undone, so long as your only +motive was compassion for their weakness and their sorrows. And, if +ignorance of everything which is needful a ruler should know is likely +to do so much harm in the governing classes of the future, why is it, +they ask reasonably enough, that such ignorance in the governing classes +of the past has not been viewed with equal horror? + +Compare the average artisan and the average country squire, and it may +be doubted if you will find a pin to choose between the two in point of +ignorance, class feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the ignorance is +of a different sort--that the class feeling is in favour of a different +class and that the prejudice has a distinct savour of wrong-headedness +in each case--but it is questionable if the one is either a bit better, +or a bit worse, than the other. The old protectionist theory is the +doctrine of trades unions as applied by the squires, and the modern +trades unionism is the doctrine of the squires applied by the artisans. +Why should we be worse off under one regime than under the other? + +Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think whether it +is really want of education which keeps the masses away from their +ministrations--whether the most completely educated men are not as open +to reproach on this score as the workmen; and whether, perchance, this +may not indicate that it is not education which lies at the bottom of +the matter? + +Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, venture to doubt +whether the glory which rests upon being able to undersell all the rest +of the world, is a very safe kind of glory--whether we may not purchase +it too dear; especially if we allow education, which ought to be +directed to the making of men, to be diverted into a process of +manufacturing human tools, wonderfully adroit in the exercise of some +technical industry, but good for nothing else. + +And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the masses alone who +need a reformed and improved education. They ask whether the richest of +our public schools might not well be made to supply knowledge, as well +as gentlemanly habits, a strong class feeling, and eminent proficiency +in cricket. They seem to think that the noble foundations of our old +universities are hardly fulfilling their functions in their present +posture of half-clerical seminaries, half racecourses, where men are +trained to win a senior wranglership,[51] or a double-first,[52] as +horses are trained to win a cup, with as little reference to the needs +of after-life in the case of a man as in that of the racer. And, while +as zealous for education as the rest, they affirm that, if the education +of the richer classes were such as to fit them to be the leaders and +the governors of the poorer; and, if the education of the poorer classes +were such as to enable them to appreciate really wise guidance and good +governance, the politicians need not fear mob-law, nor the clergy lament +their want of flocks, nor the capitalists prognosticate the annihilation +of the prosperity of the country. + +Such is the diversity of opinion upon the why and the wherefore of +education. And my hearers will be prepared to expect that the practical +recommendations which are put forward are not less discordant. There is +a loud cry for compulsory education. We English, in spite of constant +experience to the contrary, preserve a touching faith in the efficacy of +acts of Parliament; and I believe we should have compulsory education +in the courses of next session, if there were the least probability that +half a dozen leading statesmen of different parties would agree what +that education should be. + +Some hold that education without theology is worse than none. Others +maintain, quite as strongly, that education with theology is in the same +predicament. But this is certain, that those who hold the first opinion +can by no means agree what theology should be taught; and that those who +maintain the second are in a small minority. + +At any rate "make people learn to read, write, and cipher," say a great +many; and the advice is undoubtedly sensible as far as it goes. But, +as has happened to me in former days, those who, in despair of getting +anything better, advocate this measure, are met with the objection that +it is very like making a child practise the use of a knife, fork, and +spoon, without giving it particle of meat. I really don't know what +reply is to be made to such an objection. + +But it would be unprofitable to spend more time in disentangling, +or rather in showing up the knots in, the ravelled skeins of our +neighbours. Much more to the purpose is it to ask if we possess any clue +of our own which may guide us among these entanglements. And by way of +a beginning, let us ask ourselves--What is education? Above all things, +what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?--of that education +which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves--of that +education which, if we could mould the fates to our own will, we would +give our children? Well, I know not what may be your conceptions upon +this matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our +views are not very discrepant. + + +Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one +of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game +of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary +duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have +a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and +getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a +disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, +or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a +pawn from a knight? + +Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, +and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who +are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules +of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is +a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us +being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard +is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules +of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other +side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, +and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a +mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who +plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing +generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who +plays ill is checkmated--without haste, but without remorse. + +My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which +Retzsch [53] has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. +Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel +who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win--and +I should accept it as an image of human life. + +Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty +game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in +the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things +and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the +affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in +harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less +than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be +tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will +not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of +numbers, upon the other side. + +It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing +as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, +in the full vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the +world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best +might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature +would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the +properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling +him to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive +an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate +to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few +accomplishments. + +And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam or, better still, an +Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would +be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem +but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and +sorrow would take the place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain; +but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the natural +consequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature +of man. + +To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And +then, long before we were susceptible of any other modes of instruction, +Nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its +educational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance with +Nature's laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross +disobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as past +for any one, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh +as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who +has the eyes to see them. And Nature is still continuing her patient +education of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are +all members--Nature having no Test-Acts.[54] + +Those who take honours in Nature's university, who learn the laws which +govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful +men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the "Poll,"[55] who +pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who +won't learn at all are plucked;[56] and then you can't come up again. +Nature's pluck means extermination. + +Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature +is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long +ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and +wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful +disobedience--incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. +Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; +but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your +ears are boxed. + +The object of what we commonly call education--that education in which +man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as artificial education--is +to make good these defects in Nature's methods; to prepare the child to +receive Nature's education, neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with +wilful disobedience; and to understand the preliminary symptoms of +her pleasure, without waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all +artificial education ought to be an anticipation of natural education. +And a liberal education is an artificial education which has not only +prepared a man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural +laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards, +which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. + +That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained +in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with +ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; +whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of +equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, +to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as +forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge +of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her +operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, +but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the +servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, +whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others +as himself. + +Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for +he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. He will +make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; +she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her conscious +self, her minister and interpreter. + + + + +ON A PIECE OF CHALK [57] + + +If a well were sunk at our feet in the midst of the city of Norwich, the +diggers would very soon find themselves at work in that white substance +almost too soft to be called rock, with which we are all familiar as +"chalk." + +Not only here, but over the whole county of Norfolk, the well-sinker +might carry his shaft down many hundred feet without coming to the end +of the chalk; and, on the sea-coast, where the waves have pared away +the face of the land which breasts them, the scarped faces of the high +cliffs are often wholly formed of the same material. Northward, the +chalk may be followed as far as Yorkshire; on the south coast it appears +abruptly in the picturesque western bays of Dorset, and breaks into +the Needles of the Isle of Wight;[58] while on the shores of Kent it +supplies that long line of white cliffs to which England owes her name +of Albion. + +Were the thin soil which covers it all washed away, a curved band +of white chalk, here broader, and there narrower, might be followed +diagonally across England from Lulworth in Dorset, to Flamborough Head +[59] in Yorkshire--a distance of over two hundred and eighty miles as +the crow flies. + +From this band to the North Sea, on the east, and the Channel, on the +South, the chalk is largely hidden by other deposits; but, except in the +Weald [60] of Kent and Sussex, it enters into the very foundation of all +the south-eastern counties. + +Attaining, as it does in some places, a thickness of more than a +thousand feet, the English chalk must be admitted to be a mass of +considerable magnitude. Nevertheless, it covers but an insignificant +portion of the whole area occupied by the chalk formation of the globe, +which has precisely the same general characters as ours, and is found +in detached patches, some less, and others more extensive, than the +English. + +Chalk occurs in north-west Ireland; it stretches over a large part of +France,--the chalk which underlies Paris being, in fact, a continuation +of that of the London basin; it runs through Denmark and Central Europe, +and extends southward to North Africa; while eastward, it appears in the +Crimea and in Syria, and may be traced as far as the shores of the Sea +of Aral, in Central Asia. + +If all the points at which true chalk occurs were circumscribed, they +would lie within an irregular oval about three thousand miles in long +diameter--the area of which would be as great as that of Europe, and +would many times exceed that of the largest existing inland sea--the +Mediterranean. + +Thus the chalk is no unimportant element in the masonry of the earth's +crust, and it impresses a peculiar stamp, varying with the conditions to +which it is exposed, on the scenery of the districts in which it occurs. +The undulating downs and rounded coombs, covered with sweet-grassed +turf, of our inland chalk country, have a peacefully domestic and +mutton-suggesting prettiness, but can hardly be called either grand +or beautiful. But on our southern coasts, the wall-sided cliffs, many +hundred feet high, with vast needles and pinnacles standing out in +the sea, sharp and solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary +cormorant confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur upon the chalk +headlands. And, in the East, chalk has its share in the formation of +some of the most venerable of mountain ranges, such as the Lebanon. + + +What is this wide-spread component of the surface of the earth? and +whence did it come? + +You may think this no very hopeful inquiry. You may not unnaturally +suppose that the attempt to solve such problems as these can lead to +no result, save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, +incapable of refutation and of verification. + +If such were really the case, I should have selected some other subject +than a "piece of chalk" for my discourse. But, in truth, after much +deliberation, I have been unable to think of any topic which would so +well enable me to lead you to see how solid is the foundation upon which +some of the most startling conclusions of physical science rest. + +A great chapter of the history of the world is written in the chalk. Few +passages in the history of man can be supported by such an overwhelming +mass of direct and indirect evidence as that which testifies to the +truth of the fragment of the history of the globe, which I hope to +enable you to read, with your own eyes, tonight. + +Let me add, that few chapters of human history have a more profound +significance for ourselves. I weigh my words well when I assert, that +the man who should know the true history of the bit of chalk which every +carpenter carries about in his breeches-pocket, though ignorant of all +other history, is likely, if he will think his knowledge out to its +ultimate results, to have a truer, and therefore a better, conception +of this wonderful universe, and of man's relation to it, than the most +learned student who is deep-read in the records of humanity and ignorant +of those of Nature. + +The language of the chalk is not hard to learn, not nearly so hard as +Latin, if you only want to get at the broad features of the story it has +to tell; and I propose that we now set to work to spell that story out +together. + +We all know that if we "burn" chalk the result is quicklime. Chalk, in +fact, is a compound of carbonic acid gas, and lime, and when you make it +very hot the carbonic acid flies away and the lime is left. + +By this method of procedure we see the lime, but we do not see the +carbonic acid. If, on the other hand, you were to powder a little chalk +and drop it into a good deal of strong vinegar, there would be a great +bubbling and fizzing, and, finally, a clear liquid, in which no sign of +chalk would appear. Here you see the carbonic acid in the bubbles; the +lime, dissolved in the vinegar, vanishes from sight. There are a +great many other ways of showing that chalk is essentially nothing but +carbonic acid and quicklime. Chemists enunciate the result of all the +experiments which prove this, by stating that chalk is almost wholly +composed of "carbonate of lime." + +It is desirable for us to start from the knowledge of this fact, though +it may not seem to help us very far towards what we seek. For carbonate +of lime is a widely spread substance, and is met with under very various +conditions. All sorts of limestones are composed of more or less pure +carbonate of lime. The crust which is often deposited by waters which +have drained through limestone rocks, in the form of what are called +stalagmites and stalactites, is carbonate of lime. Or, to take a more +familiar example, the fur on the inside of a tea-kettle is carbonate of +lime; and, for anything chemistry tells us to the contrary, the chalk +might be a kind of gigantic fur upon the bottom of the earth-kettle, +which is kept pretty hot below. + +Let us try another method of making the chalk tell us its own history. +To the unassisted eye chalk looks simply like a very loose and open kind +of stone. But it is possible to grind a slice of chalk down so thin that +you can see through it--until it is thin enough, in fact, to be examined +with any magnifying power that may be thought desirable. A thin slice of +the fur of a kettle might be made in the same way. If it were examined +microscopically, it would show itself to be a more or less distinctly +laminated mineral substance and nothing more. + +But the slice of chalk presents a totally different appearance when +placed under the microscope. The general mass of it is made up of very +minute granules; but, imbedded in this matrix, are innumerable bodies, +some smaller and some larger, but, on a rough average, not more than +a hundredth of an inch in diameter, having a well-defined shape and +structure. A cubic inch of some specimens of chalk may contain hundreds +of thousands of these bodies, compacted together with incalculable +millions of the granules. + +The examination of a transparent slice gives a good notion of the manner +in which the components of the chalk are arranged, and of their relative +proportions. But, by rubbing up some chalk with a brush in water and +then pouring off the milky fluid, so as to obtain sediments of different +degrees of fineness, the granules and the minute rounded bodies may be +pretty well separated from one another, and submitted to microscopic +examination, either as opaque or as transparent objects. By combining +the views obtained in these various methods, each of the rounded bodies +may be proved to be a beautifully constructed calcareous fabric, made +up of a number of chambers, communicating freely with one another. The +chambered bodies are of various forms. One of the commonest is something +like a badly grown raspberry, being formed of a number of nearly +globular chambers of different sizes congregated together. It is called +Globigerina, and some specimens of chalk consist of little else than +Globigerina and granules. + +Let us fix our attention upon the Globigerina. It is the spoor of +the game we are tracking. If we can learn what it is and what are the +conditions of its existence, we shall see our way to the origin and past +history of the chalk. + +A suggestion which may naturally enough present itself is, that these +curious bodies are the result of some process of aggregation which has +taken place in the carbonate of lime; that, just as in winter, the rime +on our windows simulates the most delicate and elegantly arborescent +foliage--proving that the mere mineral water may, under certain +conditions, assume the outward form of organic bodies--so this mineral +substance, carbonate of lime, hidden away in the bowels of the earth, +has taken the shape of these chambered bodies. I am not raising a merely +fanciful and unreal objection. Very learned men, in former days, have +even entertained the notion that all the formed things found in rocks +are of this nature; and if no such conception is at present held to be +admissible, it is because long and varied experience has now shown +that mineral matter never does assume the form and structure we find +in fossils. If any one were to try to persuade you that an oyster-shell +(which is also chiefly composed of carbonate of lime) had crystallized +out of sea-water, I suppose you would laugh at the absurdity. Your +laughter would be justified by the fact that all experience tends to +show that oyster-shells are formed by the agency of oysters, and in no +other way. And if there were no better reasons, we should be justified, +on like grounds, in believing that Globigerina is not the product of +anything but vital activity. + +Happily, however, better evidence in proof of the organic nature of the +Globigerinae than that of analogy is forthcoming. It so happens that +calcareous skeletons, exactly similar to the Globigerinae of the chalk, +are being formed, at the present moment, by minute living creatures, +which flourish in multitudes, literally more numerous than the sands of +the sea-shore, over a large extent of that part of the earth's surface +which is covered by the ocean. + +The history of the discovery of these living Globigerinae, and of the +part which they play in rock building, is singular enough. It is a +discovery which, like others of no less scientific importance, has +arisen, incidentally, out of work devoted to very different and +exceedingly practical interests. + +When men first took to the sea, they speedily learned to look out for +shoals and rocks; and the more the burthen of their ships increased, +the more imperatively necessary it became for sailors to ascertain with +precision the depths of the waters they traversed. Out of this +necessity grew the use of the lead and sounding line; and, ultimately, +marine-surveying, which is the recording of the form of coasts and of +the depth of the sea, as ascertained by the sounding-lead, upon charts. + +At the same time, it became desirable to ascertain and to indicate the +nature of the sea-bottom, since this circumstance greatly affects its +goodness as holding ground for anchors. Some ingenious tar, whose name +deserves a better fate than the oblivion into which it has fallen, +attained this object by "arming" the bottom of the lead with a lump of +grease, to which more or less of the sand or mud, or broken shells, as +the case might be, adhered, and was brought to the surface. But, however +well adapted such an apparatus might be for rough nautical purposes, +scientific accuracy could not be expected from the armed lead, and to +remedy its defects (especially when applied to sounding in great depths) +Lieut. Brooke,[61] of the American Navy, some years ago invented a most +ingenious machine, by which a considerable portion of the superficial +layer of the sea-bottom can be scooped out and brought up from any depth +to which the lead descends. + +In 1853, Lieut. Brooke obtained mud from the bottom of the North +Atlantic, between Newfoundland and the Azores, at a depth of more than +ten thousand feet, or two miles, by the help of this sounding apparatus. +The specimens were sent for examination to Ehrenberg [62] of Berlin, +and to Bailey of West Point,[63] and those able microscopists found +that this deep-sea mud was almost entirely composed of the skeletons of +living organisms--the greater proportion of these being just like the +Globigerinae already known to occur in the chalk. + +Thus far, the work had been carried on simply in the interests of +science, but Lieut. Brooke's method of sounding acquired a high +commercial value, when the enterprise of laying down the telegraph-cable +[64] between this country and the United States was undertaken. For it +became a matter of immense importance to know, not only the depth of the +sea over the whole line along which the cable was to be laid, but the +exact nature of the bottom, so as to guard against chances of cutting +or fraying the strands of that costly rope. The Admiralty consequently +ordered Captain Dayman, an old friend and shipmate of mine, to ascertain +the depth over the whole line of the cable, and to bring back specimens +of the bottom. In former days, such a command as this might have sounded +very much like one of the impossible things which the young prince in +the Fairy Tales is ordered to do before he can obtain the hand of the +Princess. However, in the months of June and July, 1857, my friend +performed the task assigned to him with great expedition and precision +without, so far as I know, having met with any reward of that kind. +The specimens of Atlantic mud which he procured were sent to me to be +examined and reported upon.* + + * See Appendix to Captain Dayman's "Deep-sea Soundings in + the North Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and Newfoundland, + made in H.M.S. Cyclops. Published by order of the Lords + Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1858." They have since + formed the subject of an elaborate Memoir by Messrs. Parker + and Jones, published in the Philosophical Transactions for + 1865. + +The result of all these operations is, that we know the contours and the +nature of the surface-soil covered by the North Atlantic, for a distance +of seventeen hundred miles from east to west, as well as we know that of +any part of the dry land. + +It is a prodigious plain--one of the widest and most even plains in the +world. If the sea were drained off, you might drive a wagon all the +way from Valentia, on the west coast of Ireland, to Trinity Bay, in +Newfoundland. And, except upon one sharp incline about two hundred miles +from Valentia, I am not quite sure that it would even be necessary to +put the skid on, so gentle are the ascents and descents upon that long +route. From Valentia the road would lie down-hill for about 200 miles +to the point at which the bottom is now covered by 1700 fathoms of +sea-water. Then would come the central plain, more than a thousand +miles wide, the inequalities of the surface of which would be hardly +perceptible, though the depth of water upon it now varies from 10,000 +to 15,000 feet; and there are places in which Mont Blanc might be sunk +without showing its peak above water. Beyond this, the ascent on the +American side commences, and gradually leads, for about 300 miles, to +the Newfoundland shore. + +Almost the whole of the bottom of this central plain (which extends for +many hundred miles in a north and south direction) is covered by a fine +mud, which, when brought to the surface, dries into a greyish-white +friable substance. You can write with this on a blackboard, if you are +so inclined; and, to the eye, it is quite like very soft, greyish chalk. +Examined chemically, it proves to be composed almost wholly of carbonate +of lime; and if you make a section of it, in the same way as that of the +piece of chalk was made, and view it with the microscope, it presents +innumerable Globigerinae embedded in a granular matrix. + +Thus this deep-sea mud is substantially chalk. I say substantially, +because there are a good many minor differences; but as these have no +bearing on the question immediately before us,--which is the nature of +the Globigerinae of the chalk,--it is unnecessary to speak of them. + +Globigerinae of every size, from the smallest to the largest, are +associated together in the Atlantic mud, and the chambers of many are +filled by a soft animal matter. This soft substance is, in fact, the +remains of the creature to which the Globigerina shell, or rather +skeleton, owes its existence--and which is an animal of the simplest +imaginable description. It is, in fact, a mere particle of living jelly, +without defined parts of any kind--without a mouth, nerves, muscles, +or distinct organs, and only manifesting its vitality to ordinary +observation by thrusting out and retracting from all parts of its +surface, long filamentous processes, which serve for arms and legs. +Yet this amorphous particle, devoid of everything which, in the higher +animals, we call organs, is capable of feeding, growing and multiplying; +of separating from the ocean the small proportion of carbonate of lime +which is dissolved in sea-water; and of building up that substance into +a skeleton for itself, according to a pattern which can be imitated by +no other known agency. + +The notion that animals can live and flourish in the sea, at the vast +depths from which apparently living Globigerinae have been brought +up, does not agree very well with our usual conceptions respecting the +conditions of animal life; and it is not so absolutely impossible as +it might at first appear to be, that the Globigerinae of the Atlantic +sea-bottom do not live and die where they are found. + +As I have mentioned, the soundings from the great Atlantic plain are +almost entirely made up of Globigerinae, with the granules which +have been mentioned and some few other calcareous shells; but a small +percentage of the chalky mud--perhaps at most some five per cent of +it--is of a different nature, and consists of shells and skeletons +composed of silex, or pure flint. These silicious bodies belong partly +to the lowly vegetable organisms which are called Diatomaceae, and +partly to the minute, and extremely simple, animals, termed Radiolaria. +It is quite certain that these creatures do not live at the bottom of +the ocean, but at its surface--where they may be obtained in prodigious +numbers by the use of a properly constructed net. Hence it follows that +these silicious organisms, though they are not heavier than the lightest +dust, must have fallen, in some cases, through fifteen thousand feet of +water, before they reached their final resting-place on the ocean floor. +And, considering how large a surface these bodies expose in proportion +to their weight, it is probable that they occupy a great length of time +in making their burial journey from the surface of the Atlantic to the +bottom. + +But if the Radiolaria and Diatoms are thus rained upon the bottom of the +sea, from the superficial layer of its waters in which they pass their +lives, it is obviously possible that the Globigerinae may be similarly +derived; and if they were so, it would be much more easy to +understand how they obtain their supply of food than it is at present. +Nevertheless, the positive and negative evidence all points the other +way. The skeletons of the full-grown, deep-sea Globigerinae are so +remarkably solid and heavy in proportion to their surface as to seem +little fitted for floating; and, as a matter of fact, they are not to be +found along with the Diatoms and Radiolaria, in the uppermost stratum of +the open ocean. + +It has been observed, again, that the abundance of Globigerinae, in +proportion to other organisms, of like kind, increases with the depth +of the sea; and that deep-water Globigerinae are larger than those +which live in shallower parts of the sea; and such facts negative the +supposition that these organisms have been swept by currents from the +shallows into the deeps of the Atlantic. + +It therefore seems to be hardly doubtful that these wonderful creatures +live and die at the depths in which they are found. + +However, the important points for us are, that the living Globigerinae +are exclusively marine animals, the skeletons of which abound at the +bottom of deep seas; and that there is not a shadow of reason for +believing that the habits of the Globigerinae of the chalk differed from +those of the existing species. But if this be true, there is no escaping +the conclusion that the chalk itself is the dried mud of an ancient deep +sea. + +In working over the soundings collected by Captain Dayman, I was +surprised to find that many of what I have called the "granules" of that +mud, were not, as one might have been tempted to think at first, the +mere powder and waste of Globigerinae, but that they had a definite form +and size. I termed these bodies "coccoliths," and doubted their +organic nature. Dr. Wallich [65] verified my observation, and added the +interesting discovery, that, not unfrequently, bodies similar to these +"coccoliths" were aggregated together into spheroids, which he termed +"coccospheres." So far as we knew, these bodies, the nature of which +is extremely puzzling and problematical, were peculiar to the Atlantic +soundings. + +But, a few years ago, Mr. Sorby,[66] in making a careful examination +of the chalk by means of thin sections and otherwise, observed, as +Ehrenberg had done before him, that much of its granular basis possesses +a definite form. Comparing these formed particles with those in the +Atlantic soundings, he found the two to be identical; and thus proved +that the chalk, like the soundings, contains these mysterious +coccoliths and coccospheres. Here was a further and a most interesting +confirmation, from internal evidence, of the essential identity of +the chalk with modern deep-sea mud. Globigerinae, coccoliths, and +coccospheres are round as the chief constituents of both, and testify +to the general similarity of the conditions under which both have been +formed. + +The evidence furnished by the hewing, facing, and superposition of the +stones of the Pyramids, that these structures were built by men, has +no greater weight than the evidence that the chalk was built by +Globigerinae; and the belief that those ancient pyramid-builders were +terrestrial and air-breathing creatures like ourselves, is it not better +based than the conviction that the chalk-makers lived in the sea? + +But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by men is not only +grounded on the internal evidences afforded by these structures, but +gathers strength from multitudinous collateral proofs, and is clinched +by the total absence of any reason for a contrary belief; so the +evidence drawn from the Globigerinae that the chalk is an ancient +sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable independent lines of evidence; +and our belief in the truth of the conclusion to which all positive +testimony tends, receives the like negative justification from the fact +that no other hypothesis has a shadow of foundation. + +It may be worth while briefly to consider a few of these collateral +proofs that the chalk was deposited at the bottom of the sea. + +The great mass of the chalk is composed, as we have seen, of the +skeletons of Globigerinae, and other simple organisms, imbedded in +granular matter. Here and there, however, this hardened mud of the +ancient sea reveals the remains of higher animals which have lived and +died, and left their hard parts in the mud, just as the oysters die and +leave their shells behind them, in the mud of the present seas. + +There are, at the present day, certain groups of animals which are never +found in fresh waters, being unable to live anywhere but in the sea. +Such are the corals; those corallines which are called Polycoa; those +creatures which fabricate the lamp-shells, and are called Brachiopoda; +the pearly Nautilus, and all animals allied to it; and all the forms of +sea-urchins and star-fishes. + +Not only are all these creatures confined to salt water at the present +day; but, so far as our records of the past go, the conditions of their +existence have been the same: hence, their occurrence in any deposit is +as strong evidence as can be obtained, that that deposit was formed in +the sea. Now the remains of animals of all the kinds which have been +enumerated, occur in the chalk, in greater or less abundance; while not +one of those forms of shell-fish which are characteristic of fresh water +has yet been observed in it. + +When we consider that the remains of more than three thousand distinct +species of aquatic animals have been discovered among the fossils of the +chalk, that the great majority of them are of such forms as are now met +with only in the sea, and that there is no reason to believe that any +one of them inhabited fresh water--the collateral evidence that the +chalk represents an ancient sea-bottom acquires as great force as the +proof derived from the nature of the chalk itself. I think you will now +allow that I did not overstate my case when I asserted that we have +as strong grounds for believing that all the vast area of dry land, at +present occupied by the chalk, was once at the bottom of the sea, as we +have for any matter of history whatever; while there is no justification +for any other belief. + +No less certain it is that the time during which the countries we now +call south-east England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Egypt, Arabia, +Syria, were more or less completely covered by a deep sea, was of +considerable duration. + +We have already seen that the chalk is, in places, more than a thousand +feet thick. I think you will agree with me, that it must have taken +some time for the skeletons of animalcules of a hundredth of an inch in +diameter to heap up such a mass as that. I have said that throughout the +thickness of the chalk the remains of other animals are scattered. +These remains are often in the most exquisite state of preservation. +The valves of the shell-fishes are commonly adherent; the long spines +of some of the sea-urchins, which would be detached by the smallest +jar, often remain in their places. In a word, it is certain that these +animals have lived and died when the place which they now occupy was +the surface of as much of the chalk as had then been deposited; and that +each has been covered up by the layer of Globigerina mud, upon which the +creatures imbedded a little higher up have, in like manner, lived and +died. But some of these remains prove the existence of reptiles of vast +size in the chalk sea. These lived their time, and had their ancestors +and descendants, which assuredly implies time, reptiles being of slow +growth. + +There is more curious evidence, again, that the process of covering up, +or, in other words, the deposit of Globigerina skeletons, did not go on +very fast. It is demonstrable that an animal of the cretaceous sea might +die, that its skeleton might lie uncovered upon the sea-bottom long +enough to lose all its outward coverings and appendages by putrefaction; +and that, after this had happened, another animal might attach itself +to the dead and naked skeleton, might grow to maturity, and might itself +die before the calcareous mud had buried the whole. + +Cases of this kind are admirably described by Sir Charles Lyell.[67] +He speaks of the frequency with which geologists find in the chalk a +fossilized sea-urchin, to which is attached the lower valve of a Crania. +This is a kind of shell-fish, with a shell composed of two pieces, of +which, as in the oyster, one is fixed and the other free. + +"The upper valve is almost invariably wanting, though occasionally found +in a perfect state of preservation in the white chalk at some distance. +In this case, we see clearly that the sea-urchin first lived from youth +to age, then died and lost its spines, which were carried away. Then the +young Crania adhered to the bared shell, grew and perished in its turn; +after which, the upper valve was separated from the lower, before the +Echinus [68] became enveloped in chalky mud." + +A specimen in the Museum of Practical Geology, in London, still further +prolongs the period which must have elapsed between the death of the +sea-urchin, and its burial by the Globigerinae. For the outward face of +the valve of a Crania, which is attached to a sea-urchin (Micraster), +is itself overrun by an incrusting coralline, which spreads thence over +more or less of the surface of the sea-urchin. It follows that, after +the upper valve of the Crania fell off, the surface of the attached +valve must have remained exposed long enough to allow of the growth of +the whole corraline, since corallines do not live imbedded in mud. + +The progress of knowledge may, one day, enable us to deduce from such +facts as these the maximum rate at which the chalk can have accumulated, +and thus to arrive at the minimum duration of the chalk period. Suppose +that the valve of the Crania upon which a coralline has fixed itself in +the way just described, is so attached to the sea-urchin that no part of +it is more than an inch above the face upon which the sea-urchin rests. +Then, as the coralline could not have fixed itself, if the Crania had +been covered up with chalk mud, and could not have lived had itself +been so covered it follows, that an inch of chalk mud could not have +accumulated within the time between the death and decay of the soft +parts of the sea-urchin and the growth of the coralline to the full size +which it has attained. If the decay of the soft parts of the sea-urchin; +the attachment, growth to maturity, and decay of the Crania; and the +subsequent attachment and growth of the coralline, took a year (which is +a low estimate enough), the accumulation of the inch of chalk must have +taken more than a year: and the deposit of a thousand feet of chalk +must, consequently, have taken more than twelve thousand years. + +The foundation of all this calculation is, of course, a knowledge of the +length of time the Crania and the coralline needed to attain their full +size; and, on this head, precise knowledge is at present wanting. But +there are circumstances which tend to show, that nothing like an inch of +chalk has accumulated during the life of a Crania; and, on any probable +estimate of the length of that life, the chalk period must have had a +much longer duration than that thus roughly assigned to it. + + +Thus, not only is it certain that the chalk is the mud of an ancient +sea-bottom; but it is no less certain, that the chalk sea existed +during an extremely long period, though we may not be prepared to give +a precise estimate of the length of that period in years. The relative +duration is clear, though the absolute duration may not be definable. +The attempt to affix any precise date to the period at which the chalk +sea began, or ended, its existence, is baffled by difficulties of +the same kind. But the relative age of the cretaceous epoch may be +determined with as great ease and certainty as the long duration of that +epoch. + +You will have heard of the interesting discoveries recently made, in +various parts of Western Europe, of flint implements, obviously worked +into shape by human hands, under circumstances which show conclusively +that man is a very ancient denizen of these regions. + +It has been proved that the old populations of Europe, whose existence +has been revealed to us in this way, consisted of savages, such as the +Esquimaux are now; that, in the country which is now France, they hunted +the reindeer, and were familiar with the ways of the mammoth and the +bison. The physical geography of France was in those days different from +what it is now--the river Somme,[69] for instance, having cut its bed +a hundred feet deeper between that time and this; and, it is probable, +that the climate was more like that of Canada or Siberia, than that of +Western Europe. + +The existence of these people is forgotten even in the traditions of +the oldest historical nations. The name and fame of them had utterly +vanished until a few years back; and the amount of physical change which +has been effected since their day, renders it more than probable that, +venerable as are some of the historical nations, the workers of the +chipped flints of Hoxne or of Amiens [70] are to them, as they are to +us, in point of antiquity. + +But, if we assign to these hoar relics of long-vanished generations of +men the greatest age that can possibly be claimed for them, they are +not older than the drift, or boulder clay, which, in comparison with the +chalk, is but a very juvenile deposit. You need go no further than your +own sea-board for evidence of this fact. At one of the most charming +spots on the coast of Norfolk, Cromer, you will see the boulder clay +forming a vast mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must consequently +have come into existence after it. Huge boulders of chalk are, in fact, +included in the clay, and have evidently been brought to the position +they now occupy, by the same agency as that which has planted blocks of +syenite from Norway side by side with them. + +The chalk, then, is certainly older than the boulder clay. If you ask +how much, I will again take you no further than the same spot upon your +own coasts for evidence. I have spoken of the boulder clay and drift as +resting upon the chalk. That is not strictly true. Interposed between +the chalk and the drift is a comparatively insignificant layer, +containing vegetable matter. But that layer tells a wonderful history. +It is full of stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir-trees are there +with their cones, and hazel-bushes with their nuts; there stand the +stools of oak and yew trees, beeches and alders. Hence this stratum is +appropriately called the "forest-bed." + +It is obvious that the chalk must have been up-heaved and converted into +dry land, before the timber trees could grow upon it. As the boles of +some of these trees are from two to three feet in diameter, it is no +less clear that the dry land this formed remained in the same condition +for long ages. And not only do the remains of stately oaks and +well-grown firs testify to the duration of this condition of things, +but additional evidence to the same effect is afforded by the abundant +remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotomuses and other great wild +beasts, which it has yielded to the zealous search of such men as the +Rev. Mr. Gunn.[71] + +When you look at such a collection as he has formed, and bethink you +that these elephantine bones did veritably carry their owners about, and +these great grinders crunch, in the dark woods of which the forest-bed +is now the only trace, it is impossible not to feel that they are +as good evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings of the +tree-stumps. + +Thus there is a writing upon the walls of cliffs at Cromer, and whoso +runs may read it. It tells us, with an authority which cannot be +impeached, that the ancient sea-bed of the chalk sea was raised up, and +remained dry land, until it was covered with forest, stocked with the +great game whose spoils have rejoiced your geologists. How long it +remained in that condition cannot be said; but "the whirligig of time +[72] brought its revenges" in those days as in these. That dry land, +with the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived elephants, hidden +away among the gnarled roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, sank +gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered it with huge +masses of drift and boulder clay. Sea-beasts, such as the walrus, now +restricted to the extreme north, paddled about where birds had twittered +among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How long this state of things +endured we know not, but at length it came to an end. The upheaved +glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once +more, the wolf and the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant; +and at length what we call the history of England dawned. + +Thus you have within the limits of your own county, proof that the chalk +can justly claim a very much greater antiquity than even the oldest +physical traces of mankind. But we may go further and demonstrate, by +evidence of the same authority as that which testifies to the existence +of the father of men, that the chalk is vastly older than Adam himself. + +The Book of Genesis informs us that Adam, immediately upon his creation, +and before the appearance of Eve, was placed in the Garden of Eden. +The problem of the geographical position of Eden has greatly vexed +the spirits of the learned in such matters, but there is one point +respecting which, so far as I know, no commentator has ever raised a +doubt. This is, that of the four rivers which are said to run out of it, +Euphrates and Hiddekel [73] are identical with the rivers now known by +the names of Euphrates and Tigris. + +But the whole country in which these mighty rivers take their origin, +and through which they run, is composed of rocks which are either of the +same age as the chalk, or of later date. So that the chalk must not only +have been formed, but, after its formation, the time required for the +deposit of these later rocks, and for their upheaval into dry land, must +have elapsed, before the smallest brook which feeds the swift stream of +"the great river, the river of Babylon,"[74] began to flow. + + +Thus, evidence which cannot be rebutted, and which need not be +strengthened, though if time permitted I might indefinitely increase its +quantity, compels you to believe that the earth, from the time of the +chalk to the present day, has been the theatre of a series of changes as +vast in their amount, as they were slow in their progress. The area +on which we stand has been first sea and then land, for at least four +alternations; and has remained in each of these conditions for a period +of great length. + +Nor have these wonderful metamorphoses of sea into land, and of land +into sea, been confined to one corner of England. During the chalk +period, or "cretaceous epoch," not one of the present great physical +features of the globe was in existence. Our great mountain ranges, +Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, Andes, have all been upheaved since the chalk +was deposited, and the cretaceous sea flowed over the sites of Sinai and +Ararat. + +All this is certain, because rocks of cretaceous, or still later, date +have shared in the elevatory movements which gave rise to these mountain +chains; and may be found perched up, in some cases, many thousand feet +high upon their flanks. And evidence of equal cogency demonstrates that, +though, in Norfolk, the forest-bed rests directly upon the chalk, yet +it does so, not because the period at which the forest grew immediately +followed that at which the chalk was formed, but because an immense +lapse of time, represented elsewhere by thousands of feet of rock, is +not indicated at Cromer. + +I must ask you to believe that there is no less conclusive proof that a +still more prolonged succession of similar changes occurred, before the +chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term +in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved +to us are sands, and mud, and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which +were formed in still older oceans. + +But, great as is the magnitude of these physical changes of the world, +they have been accompanied by a no less striking series of modifications +in its living inhabitants. + +All the great classes of animals, beasts of the field, fowls of the air, +creeping things, and things which dwell in the waters, flourished upon +the globe long ages before the chalk was deposited. Very few, however, +if any, of these ancient forms of animal life were identical with those +which now live. Certainly not one of the higher animals was of the same +species as any of those now in existence. The beasts of the field, in +the days before the chalk, were not our beasts of the field, nor the +fowls of the air such as those which the eye of men has seen flying, +unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back than we at present +surmise. If we could be carried back into those times, we should be as +one suddenly set down in Australia before it was colonized. We should +see mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, snails, and the like, +clearly recognisable as such, and yet not one of them would be just the +same as those with which we are familiar, and many would be extremely +different. + +From that time to the present, the population of the world has undergone +slow and gradual, but incessant changes. There has been no grand +catastrophe--no destroyer has swept away the forms of life of one +period, and replaced them by a totally new creation; but one species +has vanished and another has taken its place; creatures of one type of +structure have diminished, those of another have increased, as time has +passed on. And thus, while the differences between the living creatures +of the time before the chalk and those of the present day appear +startling, if placed side by side, we are led from one to the other by +the most gradual progress, if we follow the course of Nature through +the whole series of those relics of her operations which she has left +behind. + +And it is by the population of the chalk sea that the ancient and the +modern inhabitants of the world are most completely connected. The +groups which are dying out flourish, side by side, with the groups which +are now the dominant forms of life. + +Thus the chalk contains remains of those strange flying and swimming +reptiles, the pterodactyl, the ichthyosaurus, and the plesiosaurus, +which are found in no later deposits, but abounded in preceding ages. +The chambered shells called ammonites and belemnites, which are so +characteristic of the period preceding the cretaceous, in like manner +die with it. + +But, amongst these fading remainders of a previous state of things, +are some very modern forms of life, looking like Yankee pedlars among +a tribe of Red Indians. Crocodiles of modern type appear; bony fishes, +many of them very similar to existing species almost supplant the forms +of fish which predominate in more ancient seas; and many kinds of living +shellfish first become known to us in the chalk. The vegetation acquires +a modern aspect. A few living animals are not even distinguishable as +species, from those which existed at that remote epoch. The Globigerina +of the present day, for example, is not different specifically from that +of the chalk; and the same may be said of many other Foraminifera. I +think it probable that critical and unprejudiced examination will show +that more than one species of much higher animals have had a similar +longevity; but the only example, which I can at present give confidently +is the snake's-head lamp-shell (Terebratulina caput serpentis), which +lives in our English seas and abounded (as Terebratulina striata of +authors) in the chalk. + +The longest line of human ancestry must hide its diminished head before +the pedigree of this insignificant shell-fish. We Englishmen are proud +to have an ancestor who was present at the Battle of Hastings. The +ancestors of Terebratulina caput serpentis may have been present at a +battle of Ichthyosauria in that part of the sea which, when the chalk +was forming, flowed over the site of Hastings. While all around has +changed, this Terebratulina has peacefully propagated its species from +generation to generation, and stands to this day, as a living testimony +to the continuity of the present with the past history of the globe. + + +Up to this moment I have stated, so far as I know, nothing but +well-authenticated facts, and the immediate conclusions which they force +upon the mind. + +But the mind is so constituted that it does not willingly rest in facts +and immediate causes, but seeks always after a knowledge of the remoter +links in the chain of causation. + +Taking the many changes of any given spot of the earth's surface, from +sea to land and from land to sea, as an established fact, we cannot +refrain from asking ourselves how these changes have occurred. And when +we have explained them--as they must be explained--by the alternate slow +movements of elevation and depression which have affected the crust of +the earth, we go still further back, and ask, Why these movements? + +I am not certain that any one can give you a satisfactory answer to that +question. Assuredly I cannot. All that can be said, for certain, is, +that such movements are part of the ordinary course of nature, inasmuch +as they are going on at the present time. Direct proof may be given, +that some parts of the land of the northern hemisphere are at this +moment insensibly rising and others insensibly sinking; and there is +indirect, but perfectly satisfactory, proof, that an enormous area now +covered by the Pacific has been deepened thousands of feet, since the +present inhabitants of that sea came into existence. + +Thus there is not a shadow of a reason for believing that the physical +changes of the globe, in past times have been effected by other than +natural causes. + +Is there any more reason for believing that the concomitant +modifications in the forms of the living inhabitants of the globe have +been brought about in other ways? + +Before attempting to answer this question, let us try to form a distinct +mental picture of what has happened, in some special case. + +The crocodiles are animals which, as a group, have a very vast +antiquity. They abounded ages before the chalk was deposited; they +throng the rivers in warm climates, at the present day. There is a +difference in the form of the joints of the back-bone, and in some minor +particulars, between the crocodiles of the present epoch and those which +lived before the chalk; but in the cretaceous epoch, as I have already +mentioned, the crocodiles had assumed the modern type of structure. +Notwithstanding this, the crocodiles of the chalk are not identically +the same as those which lived in the times called "older tertiary," +which succeeded the cretaceous epoch; and the crocodiles of the older +tertiaries are not identical with those of the newer tertiaries, nor are +these identical with existing forms. I leave open the question whether +particular species may have lived on from epoch to epoch. But each +epoch has had its peculiar crocodiles; though all, since the chalk, have +belonged to the modern type, and differ simply in their proportions, and +in such structural particulars as are discernible only to trained eyes. + +How is the existence of this long succession of different species of +crocodiles to be accounted for? + +Only two suppositions seem to be open to us--Either each species of +crocodile has been specially created, or it has arisen out of some +pre-existing form by the operation of natural causes. + +Choose your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I can find no warranty for +believing in the distinct creation of a score of successive species of +crocodiles in the course of countless ages of time. Science gives no +countenance to such a wild fancy; nor can even the perverse ingenuity +of a commentator pretend to discover this sense, in the simple words +in which the writer of Genesis records the proceedings of the fifth and +sixth days of the Creation. + +On the other hand, I see no good reason for doubting the necessary +alternative, that all these varied species have been evolved from +pre-existing crocodilian forms, by the operation of causes as completely +a part of the common order of nature, as those which have effected the +changes of the inorganic world. + +Few will venture to affirm that the reasoning which applies to +crocodiles loses its force among other animals, or among plants. If one +series of species has come into existence by the operation of natural +causes, it seems folly to deny that all may have arisen in the same way. + + +A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to put the bit +of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame of burning +hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun. It seems to me that +this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been +the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise +brilliant, thought to-night. It has become luminous, and its clear rays, +penetrating the abyss of the remote past, have brought within our ken +some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting "without +haste, but without rest"[75] of the land and sea, as in the endless +variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we have observed +nothing but the natural product of the forces originally possessed by +the substance of the universe. + + + + +THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION [76] + + +I know quite well that launching myself into this discussion [77] is a +very dangerous operation; that it is a very large subject, and one +which is difficult to deal with, however much I may trespass upon +your patience in the time allotted to me. But the discussion is so +fundamental, it is so completely impossible to make up one's mind on +these matters until one has settled the question, that I will even +venture to make the experiment. A great lawyer-statesman and philosopher +of a former age--I mean Francis Bacon [78]--said that truth came out +of error much more rapidly than it came out of confusion. There is a +wonderful truth in that saying. Next to being right in this world, the +best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you +will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and +wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are +absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of +these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against +a fact, and that sets you all straight again. So I will not trouble +myself as to whether I may be right or wrong in what I am about to say, +but at any rate I hope to be clear and definite; and then you will be +able to judge for yourselves whether, in following out the train of +thought I have to introduce, you knock your heads against facts or not. + +I take it that the whole object of education is, in the first place, +to train the faculties of the young in such a manner as to give their +possessors the best chance of being happy [79] and useful in their +generation; and, in the second place, to furnish them with the most +important portions of that immense capitalised experience of the human +race which we call knowledge of various kinds. I am using the term +knowledge in its widest possible sense; and the question is, what +subjects to select by training and discipline, in which the object I +have just defined may be best attained. + +I must call your attention further to this fact, that all the subjects +of our thoughts--all feelings and propositions (leaving aside our +sensations as the mere materials and occasions of thinking and feeling), +all our mental furniture--may be classified under one of two heads--as +either within the province of the intellect, something that can be put +into propositions and affirmed or denied; or as within the province +of feeling, or that which, before the name was defiled, was called +the aesthetic side of our nature, and which can neither be proved nor +disproved, but only felt and known. + +According to the classification which I have put before you, then, the +subjects of all knowledge are divisible into the two groups, matters +of science and matters of art; for all things with which the reasoning +faculty alone is occupied, come under the province of science; and in +the broadest sense, and not in the narrow and technical sense in which +we are now accustomed to use the word art, all things feelable, all +things which stir our emotions, come under the term of art, in the sense +of the subject-matter of the aesthetic faculty. So that we are shut +up to this--that the business of education is, in the first place, to +provide the young with the means and the habit of observation; and, +secondly, to supply the subject-matter of knowledge either in the shape +of science or of art, or of both combined. + +Now, it is a very remarkable fact--but it is true of most things in this +world--that there is hardly anything one-sided, or of one nature; and +it is not immediately obvious what of the things that interest us may be +regarded as pure science, and what may be regarded as pure art. It may +be that there are some peculiarly constituted persons who, before they +have advanced far into the depths of geometry, find artistic beauty +about it; but, taking the generality of mankind, I think it may be +said that, when they begin to learn mathematics, their whole souls +are absorbed in tracing the connection between the premisses and the +conclusion, and that to them geometry is pure science. So I think it +may be said that mechanics and osteology are pure science. On the other +hand, melody in music is pure art. You cannot reason about it; there +is no proposition involved in it. So, again, in the pictorial art, an +arabesque, or a "harmony in grey,"[80] touches none but the aesthetic +faculty. But a great mathematician, and even many persons who are not +great mathematicians, will tell you that they derive immense pleasure +from geometrical reasonings. Everybody knows mathematicians speak of +solutions and problems as "elegant," and they tell you that a certain +mass of mystic symbols is "beautiful, quite lovely." Well, you do not +see it. They do see it, because the intellectual process, the process of +comprehending the reasons symbolised by these figures and these signs, +confers upon them a sort of pleasure, such as an artist has in visual +symmetry. Take a science of which I may speak with more confidence, and +which is the most attractive of those I am concerned with. It is what we +call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of +the infinitely diversified structures of animals and plants. I cannot +give you any example of a thorough aesthetic pleasure more intensely +real than a pleasure of this kind--the pleasure which arises in one's +mind when a whole mass of different structures run into one harmony +as the expression of a central law. That is where the province of art +overlays and embraces the province of intellect. And, if I may venture +to express an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms of +art are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be--pure +art; but they derive much of their quality from simultaneous and even +unconscious excitement of the intellect. + +When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; and it so +happened that I had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Among +other things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that great old +master, Sebastian Bach. I remember perfectly well--though I knew +nothing about music then, and, I may add, know nothing whatever about it +now--the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening, by +the hour together, to Bach's fugues. It is a pleasure which remains with +me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to find out +the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the pleasure +derived from musical compositions of this kind is essentially of the +same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are commonly +regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source of pleasure is +exactly the same as in most of my problems in morphology--that you +have the theme in one of the old master's works followed out in all its +endless variations, always appearing and always reminding you of unity +in variety. So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" is the +intellectual element coming in, and truth to nature depends entirely +upon the intellectual culture of the person to whom art is addressed. If +you are in Australia, you may get credit for being a good artist--I +mean among the natives--if you can draw a kangaroo after a fashion. But, +among men of higher civilisation, the intellectual knowledge we possess +brings its criticism into our appreciation of works of art, and we are +obliged to satisfy it, as well as the mere sense of beauty in colour and +in outline. And so, the higher the culture and information of those +whom art addresses, the more exact and precise must be what we call its +"truth to nature." + +If we turn to literature, the same thing is true, and you find works +of literature which may be said to be pure art. A little song of +Shakespeare or of Goethe is pure art; it is exquisitely beautiful, +although its intellectual content may be nothing. A series of pictures +is made to pass before your mind by the meaning of words, and the effect +is a melody of ideas. Nevertheless, the great mass of the literature +we esteem is valued, not merely because of having artistic form, but +because of its intellectual content; and the value is the higher the +more precise, distinct, and true is that intellectual content. And, +if you will let me for a moment speak of the very highest forms of +literature, do we not regard them as highest simply because the more we +know the truer they seem, and the more competent we are to appreciate +beauty the more beautiful they are? No man ever understands Shakespeare +until he is old, though the youngest may admire him, the reason being +that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the youngest and harmonises +with the ripest and richest experience of the oldest. + +I have said this much to draw your attention to what, in my mind, lies +at the root of all this matter, and at the understanding of one another +by the men of science on the one hand, and the men of literature, and +history, and art, on the other. It is not a question whether one order +of study or another should predominate. It is a question of what +topics of education you shall select which will combine all the needful +elements in such due proportion as to give the greatest amount of +food, support, and encouragement to those faculties which enable us to +appreciate truth, and to profit by those sources of innocent happiness +which are open to us, and, at the same time, to avoid that which is bad, +and coarse, and ugly, and keep clear of the multitude of pitfalls and +dangers which beset those who break through the natural or moral laws. + +I address myself, in this spirit, to the consideration of the question +of the value of purely literary education. Is it good and sufficient, or +is it insufficient and bad? Well, here I venture to say that there are +literary educations and literary educations. If I am to understand +by that term the education that was current in the great majority of +middle-class schools, and upper schools too, in this country when I was +a boy, and which consisted absolutely and almost entirely in keeping +boys for eight or ten years at learning the rules of Latin and Greek +grammar, construing certain Latin and Greek authors, and possibly making +verses which, had they been English verses, would have been condemned +as abominable doggerel,--if that is what you mean by liberal education, +then I say it is scandalously insufficient and almost worthless. My +reason for saying so is not from the point of view of science at all, +but from the point of view of literature. I say the thing professes to +be literary education that is not a literary education at all. It was +not literature at all that was taught, but science in a very bad form. +It is quite obvious that grammar is science and not literature. The +analysis of a text by the help of the rules of grammar is just as much a +scientific operation as the analysis of a chemical compound by the help +of the rules of chemical analysis. There is nothing that appeals to the +aesthetic faculty in that operation; and I ask multitudes of men of +my own age, who went through this process, whether they ever had a +conception of art or literature until they obtained it for themselves +after leaving school? Then you may say, "If that is so, if the education +was scientific, why cannot you be satisfied with it?" I say, because +although it is a scientific training, it is of the most inadequate and +inappropriate kind. If there is any good at all in scientific education +it is that men should be trained, as I said before, to know things for +themselves at first hand, and that they should understand every step of +the reason of that which they do. + +I desire to speak with the utmost respect of that science--philology--of +which grammar is a part and parcel; yet everybody knows that grammar, as +it is usually learned at school, affords no scientific training. It is +taught just as you would teach the rules of chess or draughts. On the +other hand, if I am to understand by a literary education the study +of the literatures of either ancient or modern nations--but especially +those of antiquity, and especially that of ancient Greece; if this +literature is studied, not merely from the point of view of philological +science, and its practical application to the interpretation of texts, +but as an exemplification of and commentary upon the principles of +art; if you look upon the literature of a people as a chapter in the +development of the human mind, if you work out this in a broad spirit, +and with such collateral references to morals and politics, and physical +geography, and the like as are needful to make you comprehend what the +meaning of ancient literature and civilisation is,--then, assuredly, +it affords a splendid and noble education. But I still think it is +susceptible of improvement, and that no man will ever comprehend the +real secret of the difference between the ancient world and our present +time, unless he has learned to see the difference which the late +development of physical science has made between the thought of this day +and the thought of that, and he will never see that difference, unless +he has some practical insight into some branches of physical science; +and you must remember that a literary education such as that which I +have just referred to, is out of the reach of those whose school life is +cut short at sixteen or seventeen. + +But, you will say, all this is fault-finding; let us hear what you have +in the way of positive suggestion. Then I am bound to tell you that, +if I could make a clean sweep of everything--I am very glad I cannot +because I might, and probably should, make mistakes,--but if I could +make a clean sweep of everything and start afresh, I should, in the +first place, secure that training of the young in reading and writing, +and in the habit of attention and observation, both to that which is +told them, and that which they see, which everybody agrees to. But in +addition to that, I should make it absolutely necessary for everybody, +for a longer or shorter period, to learn to draw. Now, you may say, +there are some people who cannot draw, however much they may be taught. +I deny that in toto, because I never yet met with anybody who could not +learn to write. Writing is a form of drawing; therefore if you give the +same attention and trouble to drawing as you do to writing, depend upon +it, there is nobody who cannot be made to draw, more or less well. +Do not misapprehend me. I do not say for one moment you would make an +artistic draughtsman. Artists are not made; they grow. You may improve +the natural faculty in that direction, but you cannot make it; but you +can teach simple drawing, and you will find it an implement of learning +of extreme value. I do not think its value can be exaggerated, because +it gives you the means of training the young in attention and accuracy, +which are the two things in which all mankind are more deficient than in +any other mental quality whatever. The whole of my life has been spent +in trying to give my proper attention to things and to be accurate, and +I have not succeeded as well as I could wish; and other people, I am +afraid, are not much more fortunate. You cannot begin this habit too +early, and I consider there is nothing of so great a value as the habit +of drawing, to secure those two desirable ends. + +Then we come to the subject-matter, whether scientific or aesthetic, of +education, and I should naturally have no question at all about teaching +the elements of physical science of the kind I have sketched, in a +practical manner; but among scientific topics, using the word scientific +in the broadest sense, I would also include the elements of the theory +of morals and of that of political and social life, which, strangely +enough, it never seems to occur to anybody to teach a child. I would +have the history of our own country, and of all the influences which +have been brought to bear upon it, with incidental geography, not as +a mere chronicle of reigns and battles, but as a chapter in the +development of the race, and the history of civilisation. + +Then with respect to aesthetic knowledge and discipline, we have happily +in the English language one of the most magnificent storehouses of +artistic beauty and of models of literary excellence which exists in +the world at the present time. I have said before, and I repeat it here, +that if a man cannot get literary culture of the highest kind out of +his Bible, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Hobbes,[81] and +Bishop Berkeley,[82] to mention only a few of our illustrious writers--I +say, if he cannot get it out of those writers he cannot get it out of +anything; and I would assuredly devote a very large portion of the time +of every English child to the careful study of the models of English +writing of such varied and wonderful kind as we possess, and, what is +still more important and still more neglected, the habit of using that +language with precision, with force, and with art. I fancy we are almost +the only nation in the world who seem to think that composition comes +by nature. The French attend to their own language, the Germans study +theirs; but Englishmen do not seem to think it is worth their while. +Nor would I fail to include, in the course of study I am sketching, +translations of all the best works of antiquity, or of the modern world. +It is a very desirable thing to read Homer in Greek; but if you don't +happen to know Greek, the next best thing we can do is to read as good a +translation of it as we have recently been furnished with in prose.[83] +You won't get all you would get from the original, but you may get a +great deal; and to refuse to know this great deal because you cannot get +all, seems to be as sensible as for a hungry man to refuse bread because +he cannot get partridge. Finally, I would add instruction in either +music or painting, or, if the child should be so unhappy, as sometimes +happens, as to have no faculty for either of those, and no possibility +of doing anything in any artistic sense with them, then I would see what +could be done with literature alone; but I would provide, in the fullest +sense, for the development of the aesthetic side of the mind. In my +judgment, those are all the essentials of education for an English +child. With that outfit, such as it might be made in the time given +to education which is within the reach of nine-tenths of the +population--with that outfit, an Englishman, within the limits of +English life, is fitted to go anywhere, to occupy the highest positions, +to fill the highest offices of the State, and to become distinguished +in practical pursuits, in science, or in art. For, if he have the +opportunity to learn all those things, and have his mind disciplined +in the various directions the teaching of those topics would have +necessitated, then, assuredly, he will be able to pick up, on his road +through life, all the rest of the intellectual baggage he wants. + +If the educational time at our disposition were sufficient, there +are one or two things I would add to those I have just now called the +essentials; and perhaps you will be surprised to hear, though I hope you +will not, that I should add, not more science, but one, or, if possible, +two languages. The knowledge of some other language than one's own is, +in fact, of singular intellectual value. Many of the faults and mistakes +of the ancient philosophers are traceable to the fact that they knew +no language but their own, and were often led into confusing the symbol +with the thought which it embodied. I think it is Locke [84] who says +that one-half of the mistakes of philosophers have arisen from questions +about words; and one of the safest ways of delivering yourself from the +bondage of words is, to know how ideas look in words to which you are +not accustomed. That is one reason for the study of language; another +reason is, that it opens new fields in art and in science. Another is +the practical value of such knowledge; and yet another is this, that +if your languages are properly chosen, from the time of learning the +additional languages you will know your own language better than ever +you did. So, I say, if the time given to education permits, add Latin +and German. Latin, because it is the key to nearly one-half of English +and to all the Romance languages; and German, because it is the key to +almost all the remainder of English, and helps you to understand a +race from whom most of us have sprung, and who have a character and +a literature of a fateful force in the history of the world, such as +probably has been allotted to those of no other people, except the Jews, +the Greeks, and ourselves. Beyond these, the essential and the eminently +desirable elements of all education, let each man take up his special +line--the historian devote himself to his history, the man of science +to his science, the man of letters to his culture of that kind, and the +artist to his special pursuit. + + +Bacon has prefaced some of his works with no more than this: Franciscus +Bacon sic cogitavit;[85] let "sic cogitavi" be the epilogue to what I +have ventured to address to you to-night. + + + + +THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION [86] + + +The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of +the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode +at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and +exact. There is no more difference, but there is just the same kind of +difference, between the mental operations of a man of science and those +of an ordinary person, as there is between the operations and methods of +a baker or of a butcher weighing out his goods in common scales, and the +operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis +by means of his balance and finely graduated weights. It is not that +the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, +differ in the principles of their construction or manner of working; but +the beam of one is set on an infinitely finer axis than the other, and +of course turns by the addition of a much smaller weight. + +You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you some familiar +example. You have all heard it repeated, I dare say, that men of science +work by means of induction and deduction, and that by the help of these +operations, they, in a sort of sense, wring from Nature certain other +things, which are called natural laws, and causes, and that out of +these, by some cunning skill of their own, they build up hypotheses and +theories. And it is imagined by many, that the operations of the common +mind can be by no means compared with these processes, and that they +have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to the craft. +To hear all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of +science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men; but +if you will not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are +quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus [87] are being used +by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives. + +There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere's plays,[88] where the +author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he +had been talking prose during the whole of his life. In the same way, I +trust, that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on +the discovery that you have been acting on the principles of inductive +and deductive philosophy during the same period. Probably there is not +one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in +motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though +differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes +through in tracing the causes of natural phenomena. + +A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify this. Suppose you +go into a fruiterer's shop, wanting an apple,--you take up one, and, on +biting it, you find it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard +and green. You take up another one, and that too is hard, green, and +sour. The shopman offers you a third; but, before biting it, you examine +it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you +will not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have already +tried. + +Nothing can be more simple than that, you think; but if you will take +the trouble to analyse and trace out into its logical elements what has +been done by the mind, you will be greatly surprised. In the first place +you have performed the operation of induction. You found that, in +two experiences, hardness and greenness in apples went together with +sourness. It was so in the first case, and it was confirmed by the +second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it is enough to make +an induction from; you generalise the facts, and you expect to find +sourness in apples where you get hardness and greenness. You found upon +that a general law that all hard and green apples are sour; and that, +so far as it goes, is a perfect induction. Well, having got your natural +law in this way, when you are offered another apple which you find is +hard and green, you say, "All hard and green apples are sour; this +apple is hard and green, therefore this apple is sour." That train of +reasoning is what logicians call a syllogism, and has all its various +parts and terms,--its major premiss, its minor premiss and its +conclusion. And, by the help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out, +would have to be exhibited in two or three other syllogisms, you arrive +at your final determination, "I will not have that apple." So that, you +see, you have, in the first place, established a law by induction, and +upon that you have founded a deduction, and reasoned out the special +particular case. Well now, suppose, having got your conclusion of the +law, that at some time afterwards, you are discussing the qualities +of apples with a friend: you will say to him, "It is a very curious +thing,--but I find that all hard and green apples are sour!" Your friend +says to you, "But how do you know that?" You at once reply, "Oh, because +I have tried them over and over again, and have always found them to be +so." Well, if we were talking science instead of common sense, we should +call that an experimental verification. And, if still opposed, you go +further, and say, "I have heard from the people in Somersetshire and +Devonshire, where a large number of apples are grown, that they have +observed the same thing. It is also found to be the case in Normandy, +and in North America. In short, I find it to be the universal experience +of mankind wherever attention has been directed to the subject." +Whereupon, your friend, unless he is a very unreasonable man, agrees +with you, and is convinced that you are quite right in the conclusion +you have drawn. He believes, although perhaps he does not know he +believes it, that the more extensive verifications are,--that the more +frequently experiments have been made, and results of the same kind +arrived at,--that the more varied the conditions under which the same +results are attained, the more certain is the ultimate conclusion, and +he disputes the question no further. He sees that the experiment has +been tried under all sorts of conditions, as to time, place, and people, +with the same result; and he says with you, therefore, that the law you +have laid down must be a good one, and he must believe it. + +In science we do the same thing;--the philosopher exercises precisely +the same faculties, though in a much more delicate manner. In scientific +inquiry it becomes a matter of duty to expose a supposed law to every +possible kind of verification, and to take care, moreover, that this is +done intentionally, and not left to a mere accident, as in the case of +the apples. And in science, as in common life, our confidence in a law +is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result of our +experimental verifications. For instance, if you let go your grasp of +an article you may have in your hand, it will immediately fall to +the ground. That is a very common verification of one of the best +established laws of nature--that of gravitation. The method by which men +of science establish the existence of that law is exactly the same as +that by which we have established the trivial proposition about +the sourness of hard and green apples. But we believe it in such an +extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal +experience of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any +time; and that is the strongest possible foundation on which any natural +law can rest. + +So much, then, by way of proof that the method of establishing laws in +science is exactly the same as that pursued in common life. Let us now +turn to another matter (though really it is but another phase of the +same question), and that is, the method by which, from the relations of +certain phenomena, we prove that some stand in the position of causes +towards the others. + +I want to put the case clearly before you, and I will therefore show you +what I mean by another familiar example. I will suppose that one of you, +on coming down in the morning to the parlor of your house, finds that a +tea-pot and some spoons which had been left in the room on the previous +evening are gone,--the window is open, and you observe the mark of a +dirty hand on the window-frame, and perhaps, in addition to that, you +notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these +phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and before two seconds +have passed you say, "Oh, somebody has broken open the window, entered +the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!" That speech is +out of your mouth in a moment. And you will probably add, "I know there +has; I am quite sure of it!" You mean to say exactly what you know; +but in reality you are giving expression to what is, in all essential +particulars, an hypothesis. You do not KNOW it at all; it is nothing but +an hypothesis rapidly framed in your own mind. And it is an hypothesis +founded on a long train of inductions and deductions. + +What are those inductions and deductions, and how have you got at this +hypothesis? You have observed in the first place, that the window +is open; but by a train of reasoning involving many inductions and +deductions, you have probably arrived long before at the general +law--and a very good one it is--that windows do not open of themselves; +and you therefore conclude that something has opened the window. A +second general law that you have arrived at in the same way is, that +tea-pots and spoons do not go out of a window spontaneously, and you are +satisfied that, as they are not now where you left them, they have been +removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the windowsill, +and the shoe-marks outside, and you say that in all previous experience +the former kind of mark has never been produced by anything else but +the hand of a human being; and the same experience shows that no other +animal but man at present wears shoes with hob-nails in them such as +would produce the marks in the gravel. I do not know, even if we could +discover any of those "missing links" that are talked about, that they +would help us to any other conclusion! At any rate the law which states +our present experience is strong enough for my present purpose. You next +reach the conclusion that, as these kind [89] of marks have not been +left by any other animal than man, or are liable to be formed in any +other way than a man's hand and shoe, the marks in question have been +formed by a man in that way. You have, further, a general law, founded +on observation and experience, and that, too, is, I am sorry to say, a +very universal and unimpeachable one,--that some men are thieves; +and you assume at once from all these premisses--and that is what +constitutes your hypothesis--that the man who made the marks outside and +on the window-sill, opened the window, got into the room, and stole +your tea-pot and spoons. You have now arrived at a vera causa;--you +have assumed a cause which, it is plain, is competent to produce all the +phenomena you have observed. You can explain all these phenomena only by +the hypothesis of a thief. But that is a hypothetical conclusion, of the +justice of which you have no absolute proof at all; it is only rendered +highly probable by a series of inductive and deductive reasonings. + +I suppose your first action, assuming that you are a man of ordinary +common sense, and that you have established this hypothesis to your own +satisfaction, will very likely be to go off for the police, and set +them on the track of the burglar, with the view to the recovery of your +property. But just as you are starting with this object, some person +comes in, and on learning what you are about, says, "My good friend, +you are going on a great deal too fast. How do you know that the man who +really made the marks took the spoons? It might have been a monkey that +took them, and the man may have merely looked in afterwards." You would +probably reply, "Well, that is all very well, but you see it is contrary +to all experience of the way tea-pots and spoons are abstracted; so +that, at any rate, your hypothesis is less probable than mine." While +you are talking the thing over in this way, another friend arrives, one +of the good kind of people that I was talking of a little while ago. And +he might say, "Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going on a great +deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You admit that all these +occurrences took place when you were fast asleep, at a time when you +could not possibly have known anything about what was taking place. How +do you know that the laws of Nature are not suspended during the night? +It may be that there has been some kind of supernatural interference in +this case." In point of fact, he declares that your hypothesis is one +of which you cannot at all demonstrate the truth, and that you are by no +means sure that the laws of Nature are the same when you are asleep as +when you are awake. + +Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer that kind of reasoning. You +feel that your worthy friend has you somewhat at a disadvantage. You +will feel perfectly convinced in your own mind, however, that you are +quite right, and you say to him, "My good friend, I can only be guided +by the natural probabilities of the case, and if you will be kind enough +to stand aside and permit me to pass, I will go and fetch the police." +Well, we will suppose that your journey is successful, and that by good +luck you meet with a policeman; that eventually the burglar is found +with your property on his person, and the marks correspond to his hand +and to his boots. Probably any jury would consider those facts a very +good experimental verification of your hypothesis, touching the cause +of the abnormal phenomena observed in your parlor, and would act +accordingly. + +Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken phenomena of a very +common kind, in order that you might see what are the different steps in +an ordinary process of reasoning, if you will only take the trouble to +analyse it carefully. All the operations I have described, you will +see, are involved in the mind of any man of sense in leading him to +a conclusion as to the course he should take in order to make good a +robbery and punish the offender. I say that you are led, in that case, +to your conclusion by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which +a man of science pursues when he is endeavouring to discover the origin +and laws of the most occult phenomena. The process is, and always must +be, the same; and precisely the same mode of reasoning was employed by +Newton [90] and Laplace [91] in their endeavours to discover and define +the causes of the movements of the heavenly bodies, as you, with your +own common sense, would employ to detect a burglar. The only difference +is, that the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse, every step has +to be most carefully watched, so that there may not be a single crack +or flaw in your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses +of daily life may be of little or no moment as affecting the general +correctness of the conclusions at which we may arrive; but, in a +scientific inquiry, a fallacy, great or small, is always of importance, +and is sure to be in the long run constantly productive of mischievous +if not fatal results. + +Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the common notion that an +hypothesis is untrustworthy simply because it is an hypothesis. It is +often urged, in respect to some scientific conclusion, that, after +all, it is only an hypothesis. But what more have we to guide us in +nine-tenths of the most important affairs of daily life than hypotheses, +and often very ill-based ones? So that in science, where the evidence of +an hypothesis is subjected to the most rigid examination, we may rightly +pursue the same course. You may have hypotheses, and hypotheses. A man +may say, if he likes, that the moon is made of green cheese: that is an +hypothesis. But another man, who has devoted a great deal of time and +attention to the subject, and availed himself of the most powerful +telescopes and the results of the observations of others, declares that +in his opinion it is probably composed of materials very similar to +those of which our own earth is made up: and that is also only an +hypothesis. But I need not tell you that there is an enormous difference +in the value of the two hypotheses. That one which is based on sound +scientific knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; and that +which is a mere hasty random guess is likely to have but little value. +Every great step in our progress in discovering causes has been made +in exactly the same way as that which I have detailed to you. A person +observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally +enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in Nature +applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery? +Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be +proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been +tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs +of practical life: the guess of the fool will be folly, while the guess +of the wise man will contain wisdom. In all cases, you see that the +value of the result depends on the patience and faithfulness with +which the investigator applies to his hypothesis every possible kind of +verification. + + + + +ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE [92] + + +In order to make the title of this discourse generally intelligible, I +have translated the term "Protoplasm," which is the scientific name of +the substance of which I am about to speak, by the words "the physical +basis of life." I suppose that, to many, the idea that there is such a +thing as a physical basis, or matter, of life may be novel--so widely +spread is the conception of life as a something which works through +matter, but is independent of it; and even those who are aware that +matter and life are inseparably connected, may not be prepared for +the conclusion plainly suggested by the phrase, "THE physical basis or +matter of life," that there is some one kind of matter which is common +to all living beings, and that their endless diversities are bound +together by a physical, as well as an ideal, unity. In fact, when first +apprehended, such a doctrine as this appears almost shocking to common +sense. + +What, truly, can seem to be more obviously different from one another, +in faculty, in form, and in substance, than the various kinds of +living beings? What community of faculty can there be between the +bright-coloured lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral +incrustation of the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter, to +whom it is instinct with beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds with +knowledge? + +Again, think of the microscopic fungus--a mere infinitesimal ovoid +particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into +countless millions in the body of a living fly; and then of the wealth +of foliage, the luxuriance of flower and fruit, which lies between this +bald sketch of a plant and the giant pine of California, towering to the +dimensions of a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig, which covers acres +with its profound shadow, and endures while nations and empires come and +go around its vast circumference. Or, turning to the other half of the +world of life, picture to yourselves the great Finner whale,[93] hugest +of beasts that live, or have lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet +of bone, muscle and blubber, with easy roll, among waves in which the +stoutest ship that ever left dockyard would flounder hopelessly; and +contrast him with the invisible animalcules--mere gelatinous specks, +multitudes of which could, in fact, dance upon the point of a needle +with the same ease as the angels of the Schoolmen could, in imagination. +With these images before your minds, you may well ask, what community +of form, or structure, is there between the animalcule and the whale; +or between the fungus and the fig-tree? And, a fortiori,[94] between all +four? + +Finally, if we regard substance, or material composition, what hidden +bond can connect the flower which a girl wears in her hair and the blood +which courses through her youthful veins; or, what is there in common +between the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric +of the tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy jelly which may be seen +pulsating through the waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to mere +films in the hand which raises them out of their element? + +Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of every +one who ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single +physical basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital +existence; but I propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding +these apparent difficulties, a threefold unity--namely, a unity of +power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial +composition--does pervade the whole living world. + + +No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in the first place to prove +that the powers, or faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse as +they may be in degree, are substantially similar in kind. + +Goethe has condensed a survey of all powers of mankind into the +well-known epigram:--[95] + +"Warum treibt sich das Volk so und schreit? Es will sich ernahren Kinder +zeugen, und die nahren so gut es vermag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell' er sich wie er auch will." + + +In physiological language this means, that all the multifarious and +complicated activities of man are comprehensible under three categories. +Either they are immediately directed towards the maintenance and +development of the body, or they effect transitory changes in the +relative positions of parts of the body, or they tend towards the +continuance of the species. Even those manifestations of intellect, of +feeling, and of will, which we rightly name the higher faculties, are +not excluded from this classification, inasmuch as to every one but +the subject of them, they are known only as transitory changes in the +relative positions of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every +other form of human action are, in the long run, resolvable into +muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is but a transitory +change in the relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But the +scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of the highest +form of life, covers all those of the lower creatures. The lowest plant, +or animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces its kind. In addition, all +animals manifest those transitory changes of form which we class under +irritability and contractility; and, it is more than probable, that when +the vegetable world is thoroughly explored, we shall find all plants in +possession of the same powers, at one time or other of their existence. + +I am not now alluding to such phaenomena, at once rare and conspicuous, +as those exhibited by the leaflets of the sensitive plants, or the +stamens of the barberry, but to much more widely spread, and at the same +time, more subtle and hidden, manifestations of vegetable contractility. +You are doubtless aware that the common nettle owes its stinging +property to the innumerable stiff and needle-like, though exquisitely +delicate, hairs which cover its surface. Each stinging-needle tapers +from a broad base to a slender summit, which, though rounded at the end, +is of such microscopic fineness that it readily penetrates, and breaks +off in, the skin. The whole hair consists of a very delicate outer case +of wood, closely applied to the inner surface of which is a layer of +semi-fluid matter, full of innumerable granules of extreme minuteness. +This semi-fluid lining is protoplasm, which thus constitutes a kind of +bag, full of a limpid liquid, and roughly corresponding in form with +the interior of the hair which it fills. When viewed with a sufficiently +high magnifying power, the protoplasmic layer of the nettle hair is seen +to be in a condition of unceasing activity. Local contractions of the +whole thickness of its substance pass slowly and gradually from point to +point, and give rise to the appearance of progressive waves, just as the +bending of successive stalks of corn by a breeze produces the apparent +billows of a cornfield. + +But, in addition to these movements, and independently of them, the +granules are driven, in relatively rapid streams, through channels in +the protoplasm which seem to have a considerable amount of persistence. +Most commonly, the currents in adjacent parts of the protoplasm take +similar directions; and, thus, there is a general stream up one side of +the hair and down the other. But this does not prevent the existence of +partial currents which take different routes; and sometimes trains of +granules may be seen coursing swiftly in opposite directions within +a twenty-thousandth of an inch of one another; while, occasionally, +opposite streams come into direct collision, and, after a longer or +shorter struggle, one predominates. The cause of these currents seems to +lie in contractions of the protoplasm which bounds the channels in which +they flow, but which are so minute that the best microscopes show only +their effects, and not themselves. + +The spectacle afforded by the wonderful energies prisoned within the +compass of the microscopic hair of a plant, which we commonly regard +as a merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has +watched its display, continued hour after hour, without pause or sign +of weakening. The possible complexity of many other organic forms, +seemingly as simple as the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; +and the comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an internal +circulation, which has been put forward by an eminent physiologist, +loses much of its startling character. Currents similar to those of +the hairs of the nettle have been observed in a great multitude of +very different plants, and weighty authorities have suggested that +they probably occur, in more or less perfection, in all young vegetable +cells. If such be the case, the wonderful noonday silence of a tropical +forest is, after all, due only to the dulness of our hearing; and could +our ears catch the murmur of these tiny Maelstroms, [96] as they whirl +in the innumerable myriads of living cells which constitute each tree, +we should be stunned, as with the roar of a great city. + +Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the exception, that +contractility should be still more openly manifested at some periods of +their existence. The protoplasm of Algae and Fungi becomes, under many +circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, +and exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the +contractility of one, or more, hair-like prolongations of its body, +which are called vibratile cilia. And, so far as the conditions of the +manifestation of the phaenomena of contractility have yet been studied, +they are the same for the plant as for the animal. Heat and electric +shocks influence both, and in the same way, though it may be in +different degrees. It is by no means my intention to suggest that there +is no difference in faculty between the lowest plant and the highest, or +between plants and animals. But the difference between the powers of the +lowest plant, or animal, and those of the highest, is one of degree, +not of kind, and depends, as Milne-Edwards [97] long ago so well pointed +out, upon the extent to which the principle of the division of labour is +carried out in the living economy. In the lowest organism all parts +are competent to perform all functions, and one and the same portion of +protoplasm may successfully take on the function of feeding, moving, or +reproducing apparatus. In the highest, on the contrary, a great number +of parts combine to perform each function, each part doing its allotted +share of the work with great accuracy and efficiency, but being useless +for any other purpose. + +On the other hand, notwithstanding all the fundamental resemblances +which exist between the powers of the protoplasm in plants and in +animals, they present a striking difference (to which I shall advert +more at length presently), in the fact that plants can manufacture fresh +protoplasm out of mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to +procure it ready made, and hence, in the long run, depend upon plants. +Upon what condition this difference in the powers of the two great +divisions of the world of life depends, nothing is at present known. + +With such qualifications as arises [98] out of the last-mentioned +fact, it may be truly said that the acts of all living things are +fundamentally one. Is any such unity predicable of their forms? Let us +seek in easily verified facts for a reply to this question. If a drop +of blood be drawn by pricking one's finger, and viewed with proper +precautions, and under a sufficiently high microscopic power, there will +be seen, among the innumerable multitude of little, circular, discoidal +bodies, or corpuscles, which float in it and give it its colour, a +comparatively small number of colourless corpuscles, of somewhat larger +size and very irregular shape. If the drop of blood be kept at the +temperature of the body, these colourless corpuscles will be seen to +exhibit a marvellous activity, changing their forms with great rapidity, +drawing in and thrusting out prolongations of their substance, and +creeping about as if they were independent organisms. + +The substance which is thus active is a mass of protoplasm, and its +activity differs in detail, rather than in principle, from that of the +protoplasm of the nettle. Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies +and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of which is seen +a smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or less hidden, +in the living corpuscle, and is called its nucleus. Corpuscles of +essentially similar structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining +of the mouth, and scattered through the whole framework of the body. +Nay, more; in the earliest condition of the human organism, in that +state in which it has but just become distinguishable from the egg in +which it arises, it is nothing but an aggregation of such corpuscles, +and every organ of the body was, once, no more than such an aggregation. + +Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out to be what may be termed +the structural unit of the human body. As a matter of fact, the body, in +its earliest state, is a mere multiple of such units; and in its perfect +condition, it is a multiple of such units, variously modified. + +But does the formula which expresses the essential structural character +of the highest animal cover all the rest, as the statement of its powers +and faculties covered that of all others? Very nearly. Beast and +fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, worm, and polype, are all composed of +structural units of the same character, namely, masses of protoplasm +with a nucleus. There are sundry very low animals, each of which, +structurally, is a mere colourless blood-corpuscle, leading an +independent life. But, at the very bottom of the animal scale, even +this simplicity becomes simplified, and all the phaenomena of life are +manifested by a particle of protoplasm without a nucleus. Nor are such +organisms insignificant by reason of their want of complexity. It is a +fair question whether the protoplasm of those simplest forms of life, +which people an immense extent of the bottom of the sea, would not +outweigh that of all the higher living beings which inhabit the land put +together. And in ancient times, no less than at the present day, such +living beings as these have been the greatest of rock builders. + +What has been said of the animal world is no less true of plants. +Imbedded in the protoplasm at the broad, or attached, end of the nettle +hair, there lies a spheroidal nucleus. Careful examination further +proves that the whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition +of such masses of nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a wooden case, +which is modified in form, sometimes into a woody fibre, sometimes into +a duct or spiral vessel, sometimes into a pollen grain, or an ovule. +Traced back to its earliest state, the nettle arises as the man does, in +a particle of nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest plants, as in +the lowest animals, a single mass of such protoplasm may constitute the +whole plant, or the protoplasm may exist without a nucleus. + +Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how is one mass of +non-nucleated protoplasm to be distinguished from another? why call one +"plant" and the other "animal"? + +The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned, plants and animals +are not separable, and that, in many cases, it is a mere matter of +convention whether we call a given organism an animal or a plant. There +is a living body called Aethalium septicum, which appears upon decaying +vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms, is common upon the +surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition it is, to all intents and +purposes, a fungus, and formerly was always regarded as such; but the +remarkable investigations of De Bary [99] have shown that, in another +condition, the Aethalium is an actively locomotive creature, and takes +in solid matters, upon which, apparently, it feeds, thus exhibiting the +most characteristic feature of animality. Is this a plant; or is it an +animal? Is it both; or is it neither? Some decide in favour of the last +supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of biological +No Man's Land [100] for all these questionable forms. But, as it is +admittedly impossible to draw any distinct boundary line between this +no man's land and the vegetable world on the one hand, or the animal, +on the other, it appears to me that this proceeding merely doubles the +difficulty which, before, was single. + +Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is +the clay of the potter: which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains +clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from the commonest brick +or sun-dried clod. + +Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are cognate, and that all +living forms are fundamentally of one character. The researches of +the chemist have revealed a no less striking uniformity of material +composition in living matter. + +In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigation can tell +us little or nothing, directly, of the composition of living matter, +inasmuch as such matter must needs die in the act of analysis,--and upon +this very obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to me to be +somewhat frivolous, have been raised to the drawing of any conclusions +whatever respecting the composition of actually living matter, from +that of the dead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But +objectors of this class do not seem to reflect that it is also, in +strictness, true that we know nothing about the composition of any body +whatever, as it is. The statement that a crystal of calc-spar +consists of carbonate of lime, is quite true, if we only mean that, +by appropriate processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid and +quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the very quicklime +thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of lime again; but it will +not be calc-spar, nor anything like it. Can it, therefore, be said that +chemical analysis teaches nothing about the chemical composition of +calc-spar? Such a statement would be absurd; but it is hardly more so +than the talk one occasionally hears about the uselessness of applying +the results of chemical analysis to the living bodies which have yielded +them. + +One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such refinements, and this is, +that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain +the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very +complex union, and that they behave similarly towards several reagents. +To this complex combination, the nature of which has never been +determined with exactness, the name of Protein has been applied. And +if we use this term with such caution as may properly arise out of our +comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands, it may be +truly said, that all protoplasm is proteinaceous, or, as the white, or +albumen, of an egg is one of the commonest examples of a nearly pure +proteine matter, we may say that all living matter is more or less +albuminoid. + +Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are +affected by the direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of +cases in which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be affected by +this agency increases every day. + +Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence, that all forms of +protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a +temperature of 40-50 degrees centigrade, which has been called +"heat-stiffening," though Kuhne's [101] beautiful researches have proved +this occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, +that it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all. + + +Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence of a general +uniformity in the character of the protoplasm, or physical basis, of +life, in whatever group of living beings it may be studied. But it will +be understood that this general uniformity by no means excludes any +amount of special modifications of the fundamental substance. The +mineral, carbonate of lime, assumes an immense diversity of characters, +though no one doubts that, under all these Protean changes, it is one +and the same thing. + +And now, what is the ultimate fate, and what the origin, of the matter +of life? + +Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed, diffused throughout +the universe in molecules, which are indestructible and unchangeable +in themselves; but, in endless transmigration, unite in innumerable +permutations, into the diversified forms of life we know? Or, is the +matter of life composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in +the manner in which its atoms are aggregated? Is it built up of ordinary +matter, and again resolved into ordinary matter when its work is done? + +Modern science does not hesitate a moment between these alternatives. +Physiology writes over the portals of life-- + +"Debemur morti nos nostraque,"[102] + +with a profounder meaning than the Roman poet attached to that +melancholy line. Under whatever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus +or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and +is resolved into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always +dying, and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it +died. + +In the wonderful story of the Peau de Chagrin,[103] the hero becomes +possessed of a magical wild ass' skin, which yields him the means of +gratifying all his wishes. But its surface represents the duration of +the proprietor's life; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks +in proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length life and +the last handbreadth of the peau de chagrin, disappear with the +gratification of a last wish. + +Balzac's [104] studies had led him over a wide range of thought and +speculation, and his shadowing forth of physiological truth in this +strange story may have been intentional. At any rate, the matter of life +is a veritable peau de chagrin, and for every vital act it is somewhat +the smaller. All work implies waste, and the work of life results, +directly or indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm. + +Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss; and, +in the strictest sense, he burns that others may have light--so much +eloquence, so much of his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and +urea. It is clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on for +ever. But, happily, the protoplasmic peau de chagrin differs from +Balzac's in its capacity of being repaired, and brought back to its full +size, after every exertion. + +For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellectual worth +to you, has a certain physical value to me, which is, conceivably, +expressible by the number of grains of protoplasm and other bodily +substance wasted in maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. +My peau de chagrin will be distinctly smaller at the end of the +discourse than it was at the beginning. By and by, I shall probably have +recourse to the substance commonly called mutton, for the purpose of +stretching it back to its original size. Now this mutton was once the +living protoplasm, more or less modified, of another animal--a sheep. As +I shall eat it, it is the same matter altered, not only by death, but by +exposure to sundry artificial operations in the process of cooking. + +But these changes, whatever be their extent, have not rendered it +incompetent to resume its old functions as matter of life. A singular +inward laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain portion of +the modified protoplasm; the solution so formed will pass into my +veins; and the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will +convert the dead protoplasm into living protoplasm, and transubstantiate +sheep into man. + +Nor is this all. If digestion were a thing to be trifled with, I might +sup upon lobster, and the matter of life of the crustacean would undergo +the same wonderful metamorphosis into humanity. And were I to return to +my own place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the crustacean might, and +probably would, return the compliment, and demonstrate our common nature +by turning my protoplasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing better were +to be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and I should find +the protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man, with no +more trouble than that of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than +that of the lobster. + +Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment what animal, or what +plant, I lay under contribution for protoplasm, and the fact speaks +volumes for the general identity of that substance in all living beings. +I share this catholicity of assimilation with other animals, all of +which, so far as we know, could thrive equally well on the protoplasm of +any of their fellows, or of any plant; but here the assimilative powers +of the animal world cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water, with +an infinitesimal proportion of some other saline matters, contains all +the elementary bodies which enter into the composition of protoplasm; +but, as I need hardly say, a hogshead of that fluid would not keep a +hungry man from starving, nor would it save any animal whatever from a +like fate. An animal cannot make protoplasm, but must take it ready-made +from some other animal, or some plant--the animal's highest feat of +constructive chemistry being to convert dead protoplasm into that living +matter of life which is appropriate to itself. + +Therefore, in seeking for the origin of protoplasm, we must eventually +turn to the vegetable world. A fluid containing carbonic acid, water, +and nitrogenous salts, which offers such a Barmecide feast [105] to the +animal, is a table richly spread to multitudes of plants; and, with a +due supply of only such materials, many a plant will not only maintain +itself in vigour, but grow and multiply until it has increased a +million-fold, or a million million-fold, the quantity of protoplasm +which it originally possessed; in this way building up the matter of +life, to an indefinite extent, from the common matter of the universe. + +Thus, the animal can only raise the complex substance of dead protoplasm +to the higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm; while the +plant can raise the less complex substances--carbonic acid, water, and +nitrogenous salts--to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the +same level. But the plant also has its limitations. Some of the fungi, +for example, appear to need higher compounds to start with; and no known +plant can live upon the uncompounded elements of protoplasm. A plant +supplied with pure carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, phosphorus, +sulphur, and the like, would as infallibly die as the animal in his bath +of smelling-salts, though it would be surrounded by all the constituents +of protoplasm. Nor, indeed, need the process of simplification of +vegetable food be carried so far as this, in order to arrive at the +limit of the plant's thaumaturgy. Let water, carbonic acid, and all the +other needful constituents be supplied except nitrogenous salts, and an +ordinary plant will still be unable to manufacture protoplasm. + +Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it (and we have no right to +speculate on any other), breaks up, in consequence of that continual +death which is the condition of its manifesting vitality, into carbonic +acid, water, and nitrogenous compounds, which certainly possess no +properties but those of ordinary matter. And out of these same forms of +ordinary matter, and from none which are simpler, the vegetable world +builds up all the protoplasm which keeps the animal world a-going. +Plants are the accumulators of the power which animals distribute and +disperse. + +But it will be observed, that the existence of the matter of life +depends on the pre-existence of certain compounds; namely, carbonic +acid, water, and certain nitrogenous bodies. Withdraw any one of these +three from the world, and all vital phaenomena come to an end. They are +as necessary to the protoplasm of the plant, as the protoplasm of the +plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen +are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain +proportions and under certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid; +hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and other elements give rise +to nitrogenous salts. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies +of which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought +together, under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more +complex body, protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phaenomena of +life. + +I see no break in this series of steps in molecular complication, and I +am unable to understand why the language which is applicable to any one +term of the series may not be used to any of the others. We think fit to +call different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, +and to speak of the various powers and activities of these substances as +the properties of the matter of which they are composed. + +When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain proportion, and an +electric spark is passed through them, they disappear, and a quantity +of water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their +place. There is not the slightest parity between the passive and active +powers of the water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which +have given rise to it. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and far below that +temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose +particles tend to rush away from one another with great force. Water, at +the same temperature, is a strong though brittle solid whose particles +tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up +frosty imitations of the most complex forms of vegetable foliage. + +Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange phaenomena, the +properties of the water, and we do not hesitate to believe that, in +some way or another, they result from the properties of the component +elements of the water. We do not assume that a something called +"aquosity" entered into and took possession of the oxidated hydrogen as +soon as it was formed, and then guided the aqueous particles to their +places in the facets of the crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the +hoar-frost. On the contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that, +by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by and by be able to see +our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of +water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the +form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together. + +Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and +nitrogenous salts disappear, and in their place, under the influence of +pre-existing living protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the matter of +life makes its appearance? + +It is true that there is no sort of parity between the properties of the +components and the properties of the resultant, but neither was there in +the case of the water. It is also true that what I have spoken of as +the influence of pre-existing living matter is something quite +unintelligible; but does anybody quite comprehend the modus operandi +[106] of an electric spark, which traverses a mixture of oxygen and +hydrogen? + +What justification is there, then, for the assumption of the existence +in the living matter of a something which has no representative, or +correlative, in the not living matter which gave rise to it? What better +philosophical status has "vitality" than "aquosity"? And why should +"vitality" hope for a better fate than the other "itys" which have +disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus [107] accounted for the operation +of the meat-jack [108] by its inherent "meat-roasting quality," and +scorned the "materialism" of those who explained the turning of the spit +by a certain mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney. + +If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant +signification whenever it is employed, it seems to me that we are +logically bound to apply to the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, +the same conceptions as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere. +If the phaenomena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those +presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. + +If the properties of water may be properly said to result from the +nature and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no +intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of +protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules. + +But I bid you beware that, in accepting these conclusions, you are +placing your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people's +estimation, is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of +heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions +of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their protoplasm, +and are the direct results of the nature of the matter of which they +are composed. But if, as I have endeavoured to prove to you, their +protoplasm is essentially identical with, and most readily converted +into, that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting-place +between the admission that such is the case, and the further concession +that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be said to be the +result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it. And +if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the same extent, that +the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your thoughts +regarding them, are the expression of molecular changes in that matter +of life which is the source of our other vital phaenomena.[109] + + + + +ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS [110] + + +The marine productions which are commonly known by the names of "Corals" +and "Corallines," were thought by the ancients to be sea-weeds, which +had the singular property of becoming hard and solid, when they were +fished up from their native depths and came into contact with the air. + + +"Sic et curalium, quo primum contigit auras Tempore durescit: mollis +fuit herba sub undis,"[111] + + +says Ovid (Metam. xv); and it was not until the seventeenth century that +Boccone [112] was emboldened, by personal experience of the facts, to +declare that the holders of this belief were no better than "idiots," +who had been misled by the softness of the outer coat of the living red +coral to imagine that it was soft all through. + +Messer Boccone's strong epithet is probably undeserved, as the notion he +controverts, in all likelihood, arose merely from the misinterpretation +of the strictly true statement which any coral fisherman would make to +a curious inquirer; namely, that the outside coat of the red coral is +quite soft when it is taken out of the sea. At any rate, he did good +service by eliminating this much error from the current notions about +coral. But the belief that corals are plants remained, not only in the +popular, but in the scientific mind; and it received what appeared to be +a striking confirmation from the researches of Marsigli [113] in 1706. +For this naturalist, having the opportunity of observing freshly-taken +red coral, saw that its branches were beset with what looked like +delicate and beautiful flowers each having eight petals. It was true +that these "flowers" could protrude and retract themselves, but their +motions were hardly more extensive, or more varied, than those of the +leaves of the sensitive plant; and therefore they could not be held to +militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested by their form and +their grouping upon the branches of a tree-like structure. + +Twenty years later, a pupil of Marsigli, the young Marseilles physician, +Peyssonel, conceived the desire to study these singular sea-plants, and +was sent by the French Government on a mission to the Mediterranean for +that purpose. The pupil undertook the investigation full of confidence +in the ideas of his master, but being able to see and think for himself, +he soon discovered that those ideas by no means altogether corresponded +with reality. In an essay entitled "Traite du Corail," which was +communicated to the French Academy of Science, but which has never been +published, Peyssonel writes:-- + +"Je fis fleurir le corail dans des vases pleins d'eau de mer, et +j'observai que ce que nous croyons etre la fleur de cette pretendue +plante n'etait au vrai, qu'un insecte semblable a une petite Ortie ou +Poulpe. J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, ou pieds, de cette +Ortie, et ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail etait a une douce +chaleur aupres du feu, tous les petits insectes s'epanouirent.--L'Ortie +sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions +pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur +est le corps meme de l'animal avance et sorti hors de la cellule."*[114] + + * This extract from Peyssonel's manuscript is given by M. + Lacaze Duthiers in his valuable Histoire Naturelle du Corail + (1866). + +The comparison of the flowers of the coral to a "petite ortie," or +"little nettle," is perfectly just, but needs explanation. "Ortie de +mer," or "sea-nettle," is, in fact, the French appellation for our +"sea-anemone," a creature with which everybody, since the great aquarium +mania, must have become familiar, even to the limits of boredom. In +1710, the great naturalist, Reaumur,[115] had written a memoir for the +express purpose of demonstrating that these "orties" are animals; and +with this important paper Peyssonel must necessarily have been familiar. +Therefore, when he declared the "flowers" of the red coral to be little +"orties," it was the same thing as saying that they were animals of the +same general nature as sea-anemones. But to Peyssonel's contemporaries +this was an extremely startling announcement. It was hard to imagine the +existence of such a thing as an association of animals into a structure +with stem and branches altogether like a plant, and fixed to the soil +as a plant is fixed; and the naturalists of that day preferred not to +imagine it. Even Reaumur could not bring himself to accept the notion, +and France being blessed with Academicians, whose great function (as the +late Bishop Wilson [116] and an eminent modern writer [117] have so well +shown) is to cause sweetness and light to prevail, and to prevent such +unmannerly fellows as Peyssonel from blurting out unedifying truths, +they suppressed him; and, as aforesaid, his great work remained in +manuscript, and may at this day be consulted by the curious in that +state, in the Bibliotheque du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. Peyssonel, +who evidently was a person of savage and untameable disposition, so far +from appreciating the kindness of the Academicians in giving him time to +reflect upon the unreasonableness, not to say rudeness, of making public +statements in opposition to the views of some of the most distinguished +of their body, seems bitterly to have resented the treatment he met +with. For he sent all further communications to the Royal Society of +London, which never had, and it is to be hoped never will have, +anything of an academic constitution; and finally he took himself off to +Guadaloupe, and became lost to science altogether. + +Fifteen or sixteen years after the date of Peyssonel's suppressed paper, +the Abbe Trembley [118] published his wonderful researches upon the +fresh-water Hydra. Bernard de Jussieu [119] and Guettard [120] followed +them up by like inquiries upon the marine sea-anemones and corallines; +Reaumur, convinced against his will of the entire justice of Peyssonel's +views, adopted them, and made him a half-and-half apology in the preface +to the next published volume of the "Memoires pour servir l'Histoire des +Insectes;" and, from this time forth, Peyssonel's doctrine that +corals are the work of animal organisms has been part of the body of +established scientific truth. + +Peyssonel, in the extract from his memoir already cited, compares the +flower-like animal of the coral to a "poulpe," which is the French +form of the name "polypus,"--"the many-footed,"--which the ancient +naturalists gave to the soft-bodied cuttlefishes, which, like the coral +animal, have eight arms, or tentacles, disposed around a central mouth. +Reaumur, admitting the analogy indicated by Peyssonel, gave the name +of polypes, not only to the sea-anemone, the coral animal, and the +fresh-water Hydra, but to what are now known as the Polyzoa, and he +termed the skeleton which they fabricate a "polypier," or "polypidom." + +The progress of discovery, since Reaumur's time, has made us very +completely acquainted with the structure and habits of all these +polypes. We know that, among the sea-anemones and coral-forming animals, +each poylpe has a mouth leading to a stomach, which is open at its inner +end, and thus communicates freely with the general cavity of the body; +that the tentacles placed round the mouth are hollow, and that they +perform the part of arms in seizing and capturing prey. It is known that +many of these creatures are capable of being multiplied by artificial +division, the divided halves growing, after a time, into complete and +separate animals; and that many are able to perform a very similar +process naturally, in such a manner that one polype may, by repeated +incomplete divisions, give rise to a sort of sheet, or turf, formed by +innumerable connected, and yet independent, descendants. Or, what is +still more common, a polype may throw out buds, which are converted into +polypes, or branches bearing polypes, until a tree-like mass, sometimes +of very considerable size, is formed. + +This is what happens in the case of the red coral of commerce. A minute +polype, fixed to the rocky bottom of the deep sea, grows up into a +branched trunk. The end of every branch and twig is terminated by +a polype; and all the polypes are connected together by a fleshy +substance, traversed by innumerable canals which place each polype in +communication with every other, and carry nourishment to the substance +of the supporting stem. It is a sort of natural cooperative store, +every polype helping the whole, at the same time as it helps itself. The +interior of the stem, like that of the branches, is solidified by the +deposition of carbonate of lime in its tissue, somewhat in the same +fashion as our own bones are formed of animal matter impregnated with +lime salts; and it is this dense skeleton (usually turned red by a +peculiar colouring matter) cleared of the soft animal investment, as +the hard wood of a tree might be stripped of its bark, which is the red +coral. + +In the case of the red coral, the hard skeleton belongs to the interior +of the stem and branches only; but in the commoner white corals, each +polype has a complete skeleton of its own. These polypes are sometimes +solitary, in which case the whole skeleton is represented by a single +cup, with partitions radiating from its centre to its circumference. +When the polypes formed by budding or division remain associated, the +polypidom is sometimes made up of nothing but an aggregation of these +cups, while at other times the cups are at once separated and held +together, by an intermediate substance, which represents the branches +of the red coral. The red coral polype again is a comparatively rare +animal, inhabiting a limited area, the skeleton of which has but a very +insignificant mass; while the white corals are very common, occur +in almost all seas, and form skeletons which are sometimes extremely +massive. + +With a very few exceptions, both the red and the white coral polypes +are, in their adult state, firmly adherent to the sea-bottom; nor do +their buds naturally become detached and locomotive. But, in addition to +budding and division, these creatures possess the more ordinary methods +of multiplication; and, at particular seasons, they give rise to +numerous eggs of minute size. Within these eggs the young are formed, +and they leave the egg in a condition which has no sort of resemblance +to the perfect animal. It is, in fact, a minute oval body, many hundred +times smaller than the full grown creature, and it swims about with +great activity by the help of multitudes of little hair-like filaments, +called cilia, with which its body is covered. These cilia all lash the +water in one direction, and so drive the little body along as if it were +propelled by thousands of extremely minute paddles. After enjoying its +freedom for a longer or shorter time, and being carried either by the +force of its own cilia, or by currents which bear it along, the embryo +coral settles down to the bottom, loses its cilia, and becomes fixed to +the rock, gradually assuming the polype form and growing up to the size +of its parent. As the infant polypes of the coral may retain this free +and active condition for many hours, or even days, and as a tidal or +other current in the sea may easily flow at the speed of two or even +more miles in an hour, it is clear that the embryo must often be +transported to very considerable distances from the parent. And it is +easily understood how a single polype, which may give rise to hundreds, +or perhaps thousands, of embryos, may, by this process of partly +active and partly passive migration, cover an immense surface with its +offspring. + +The masses of coral which may be formed by the assemblages of polypes +which spring by budding, or by dividing, from a single polype, +occasionally attain very considerable dimensions. Such skeletons are +sometimes great plates, many feet long and several feet in thickness; or +they may form huge half globes, like the brainstone corals, or may reach +the magnitude of stout shrubs or even small trees. There is reason to +believe that such masses as these take a long time to form, and +hence that the age a polype tree, or polype turf, may attain, may be +considerable. But, sooner or later, the coral polypes, like all other +things, die; the soft flesh decays, while the skeleton is left as a +stony mass at the bottom of the sea, where it retains its integrity for +a longer or a shorter time, according as its position affords more or +less protection from the wear and tear of the waves. + +The polypes which give rise to the white coral are found, as has been +said, in the seas of all parts of the world; but in the temperate and +cold oceans they are scattered and comparatively small in size, so that +the skeletons of those which die do not accumulate in any considerable +quantity. But it is otherwise in the greater part of the ocean which +lies in the warmer parts of the world, comprised within a distance of +about eighteen hundred miles on each side of the equator. Within the +zone thus bounded, by far the greater part of the ocean is inhabited by +coral polypes, which not only form very strong and large skeletons, but +associate together into great masses, like the thickets and the meadow +turf, or, better still, the accumulations of peat, to which plants give +rise on dry land. These masses of stony matter, heaped up beneath the +waters of the ocean, become as dangerous to mariners as so much ordinary +rock, and to these, as to the common rock ridges, the seaman gives the +name of "reefs." + +Such coral reefs cover many thousand square miles in the Pacific and in +the Indian Oceans. There is one reef, or rather great series of reefs, +called the Barrier Reef, which stretches, almost continuously, for more +than eleven hundred miles off the east coast of Australia. Multitudes +of the islands in the Pacific are either reefs themselves, or are +surrounded by reefs. The Red Sea is in many parts almost a maze of such +reefs, and they abound no less in the West Indies, along the coast of +Florida, and even as far north as the Bahama Islands. But it is a very +remarkable circumstance that, within the area of what we may call the +"coral zone," there are no coral reefs upon the west coast of America, +nor upon the west coast of Africa; and it is a general fact that the +reefs are interrupted, or absent, opposite the mouths of great rivers. +The causes of this apparent caprice in the distribution of coral reefs +are not far to seek. The polypes which fabricate them require for their +vigorous growth a temperature which must not fall below 68 degrees +Fahrenheit all the year round, and this temperature is only to be +found within the distance on each side of the equator which has been +mentioned, or thereabouts. But even within the coral zone this degree of +warmth is not everywhere to be had. On the west coast of America, and on +the corresponding coast of Africa, the currents of cold water from the +icy regions which surround the South Pole set northward, and it appears +to be due to their cooling influence that the sea in these regions is +free from the reef builders. Again, the coral polypes cannot live in +water which is rendered brackish by floods from the land, or which is +perturbed by mud from the same source, and hence it is that they cease +to exist opposite the mouths of rivers, which damage them in both these +ways. + +Such is the general distribution of the reef-building corals, but there +are some very interesting and singular circumstances to be observed in +the conformation of the reefs, when we consider them individually. The +reefs, in fact, are of three different kinds; some of them stretch out +from the shore, almost like a prolongation of the beach, covered only +by shallow water, and in the case of an island, surrounding it like a +fringe of no considerable breadth. These are termed "fringing reefs." +Others are separated by a channel which may attain a width of many +miles, and a depth of twenty or thirty fathoms or more, from the nearest +land; and when this land is an island, the reef surrounds it like a low +wall, and the sea between the reef and the land is, as it were, a moat +inside this wall. Such reefs as these are called "encircling" when they +surround an island; and "barrier" reefs, when they stretch parallel with +the coast of a continent. In both these cases there is ordinary dry land +inside the reef, and separated from it only by a narrower or a wider, +a shallower or a deeper, space of sea, which is called a "lagoon," +or "inner passage." But there is a third kind of reef, of very common +occurrence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which goes by the name +of "atoll." This is, to all intents and purposes, an encircling reef, +without anything to encircle; or, in other words, without an island +in the middle of its lagoon. The atoll has exactly the appearance of a +vast, irregularly oval, or circular, breakwater, enclosing smooth water +in its midst. The depth of the water in the lagoon rarely exceeds twenty +or thirty fathoms, but, outside the reef, it deepens with great rapidity +to two hundred or three hundred fathoms. The depth immediately outside +the barrier, or encircling, reefs, may also be very considerable; but, +at the outer edge of a fringing reef, it does not amount usually to more +than twenty or twenty-five fathoms; in other words, from one hundred and +twenty to one hundred and fifty feet. + +Thus, if the water of the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we +should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, +and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides +would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the +encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like +Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, +finally, the island with a fringing reef would have the appearance of an +ordinary hill, or mountain, girded by a vast parapet, within which would +lie a shallow moat. And the dry bed of the Pacific might afford grounds +for an inhabitant of the moon to speculate upon the extraordinary +subterranean activity to which these vast and numerous "craters" bore +witness! + +When the structure of a fringing reef is investigated, the bottom of the +lagoon is found to be covered with fine whitish mud, which results from +the breaking up of the dead corals. Upon this muddy floor there lie, +here and there, growing corals, or occasionally great blocks of dead +coral, which have been torn by storms from the outer edge of the reef, +and washed into the lagoon. Shellfish and worms of various kinds abound; +and fish, some of which prey upon the coral, sport in the deeper pools. +But the corals which are to be seen growing in the shallow waters of the +lagoon are of a different kind from those which abound on the outer edge +of the reef, and of which the reef is built up. Close to the seaward +edge of the reef, over which, even in calm weather, a surf almost always +breaks, the coral rock is encrusted with a thick coat of a singular +vegetable organism, which contains a great deal of lime--the so-called +Nullipora. Beyond this, in the part of the edge of the reef which is +always covered by the breaking waves, the living, true, reef-polypes +make their appearance; and, in different forms, coat the steep seaward +face of the reef to a depth of one hundred or even one hundred and fifty +feet. Beyond this depth the sounding-lead rests, not upon the wall-like +face of the reef, but on the ordinary shelving sea-bottom. And the +distance to which a fringing reef extends from the land corresponds with +that at which the sea has a depth of twenty or five-and-twenty fathoms. + +If, as we have supposed, the sea could be suddenly withdrawn from around +an island provided with a fringing reef, such as the Mauritius,[122] +the reef would present the aspect of a terrace, its seaward face, one +hundred feet or more high, blooming with the animal flowers of the +coral, while its surface would be hollowed out into a shallow and +irregular moat-like excavation. + +The coral mud, which occupies the bottom of the lagoon, and with which +all the interstices of the coral skeletons which accumulate to form +the reef are filled up, does not proceed from the washing action of the +waves alone; innumerable fishes, and other creatures which prey upon the +coral, add a very important contribution of finely-triturated calcareous +matter; and the corals and mud becoming incorporated together, gradually +harden and give rise to a sort of limestone rock, which may vary a good +deal in texture. Sometimes it remains friable and chalky, but, more +often, the infiltration of water, charged with carbonic acid, dissolves +some of the calcareous matter, and deposits it elsewhere in the +interstices of the nascent rock, thus glueing and cementing the +particles together into a hard mass; or it may even dissolve the +carbonate of lime more extensively, and re-deposit it in a crystalline +form. On the beach of the lagoon, where the coral sand is washed into +layers by the action of the waves, its grains become thus fused together +into strata of a limestone, so hard that they ring when struck with a +hammer, and inclined at a gentle angle, corresponding with that of the +surface of the beach. The hard parts of the many animals which live upon +the reef become imbedded in this coral limestone, so that a block may +be full of shells of bivalves and univalves, or of sea urchins; and even +sometimes encloses the eggs of turtles in a state of petrification. +The active and vigorous growth of the reef goes on only at the seaward +margins, where the polypes are exposed to the wash of the surf, and +are thereby provided with an abundant supply of air and of food. +The interior portion of the reef may be regarded as almost wholly an +accumulation of dead skeletons. Where a river comes down from the land +there is a break in the reef, for the reasons which have been already +mentioned. + +The origin and mode of formation of a fringing reef, such as that just +described, are plain enough. The embryos of the coral polypes have fixed +themselves upon the submerged shore of the island, as far out as they +could live, namely, to a depth of twenty or twenty-five fathoms. One +generation has succeeded another, building itself up upon the dead +skeletons of its predecessor. The mass has been consolidated by +the infiltration of coral mud, and hardened by partial solution and +redeposition, until a great rampart of coral rock one hundred or one +hundred and fifty feet high on its seaward face has been formed all +round the island, with only such gaps as result from the outflow of +rivers, in the place of sally-ports. + +The structure of the rocky accumulation in the encircling reefs and +in the atolls is essentially the same as in the fringing reef. But, in +addition to the differences of depth inside and out, they present some +other peculiarities. These reefs, and especially the atolls, are usually +interrupted at one part of their circumference, and this part is always +situated on the leeward side of the reef, or that which is the more +sheltered side. Now, as all these reefs are situated within the region +in which the tradewinds prevail, it follows that, on the north side of +the equator, where the trade-wind is a northeasterly wind, the opening +of the reef is on the southwest side: while in the southern hemisphere, +where the trade-winds blow from the southeast, the opening lies to the +northwest. The curious practical result follows from this structure, +that the lagoons to these reefs really form admirable harbours, if +a ship can only get inside them. But the main difference between the +encircling reefs and the atolls, on the one hand, and the fringing reefs +on the other, lies in the fact of the much greater depth of water on the +seaward faces of the former. As a consequence of this fact, the whole +of this face is not, as it is in the case of the fringing reef, covered +with living coral polypes. For, as we have seen, these polypes cannot +live at a greater depth than about twenty-five fathoms; and actual +observation has shown that while, down to this depth, the sounding-lead +will bring up branches of live coral from the outer wall of such a reef, +at a greater depth it fetches to the surface nothing but dead coral and +coral sand. We must, therefore, picture to ourselves an atoll, or an +encircling reef, as fringed for one hundred feet, or more, from its +summit, with coral polypes busily engaged in fabricating coral; while, +below this comparatively narrow belt, its surface is a bare and smooth +expanse of coral sand, supported upon and within a core of coral +limestone. Thus, if the bed of the Pacific were suddenly laid bare, as +was just now supposed, the appearance of the reef-mountains would be +exactly the reverse of that presented by many high mountains on land. +For these are white with snow at the top, while their bases are clothed +with an abundant and gaudily-coloured vegetation. But the coral cones +would look grey and barren below, while their summits would be gay with +a richly-coloured parterre of flowerlike coral polypes. + +The practical difficulties of sounding upon, and of bringing up portions +of, the seaward face of an atoll or of an encircling reef, are so great, +in consequence of the constant and dangerous swell which sets towards +it, that no exact information concerning the depth to which the reefs +are composed of coral has yet been obtained. There is no reason to +doubt, however, that the reef-cone has the same structure from its +summit to its base, and that its sea-wall is throughout mainly composed +of dead coral. + +And now arises a serious difficulty. If the coral polypes cannot live at +a greater depth than one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet, how can +they have built up the base of the reef-cone, which may be two thousand +feet, or more, below the surface of the sea? + +In order to get over this objection, it was at one time supposed that +the reef-building polypes had settled upon the summits of a chain of +submarine mountains. But what is there in physical geography to justify +the assumption of the existence of a chain of mountains stretching for +one thousand miles or more, and so nearly of the same height, that none +should rise above the level of the sea, nor fall one hundred and fifty +feet below that level? + +How, again, on this hypothesis, are atolls to be accounted for, unless, +as some have done, we take refuge in the wild supposition that every +atoll corresponds with the crater of a submarine volcano? And what +explanation does it afford of the fact that, in some parts of the ocean, +only atolls and encircling reefs occur, while others present none but +fringing reefs? + +These and other puzzling facts remained insoluble until the publication, +in the year 1840, of Mr. Darwin's famous work on coral reefs;[123] in +which a key was given to all the difficult problems connected with the +subject, and every difficulty was shown to be capable of solution by +deductive reasoning from a happy combination of certain well-established +geological and biological truths. Mr. Darwin, in fact, showed that, +so long as the level of the sea remains unaltered in any area in which +coral reefs are being formed, or if the level of the sea relatively +to that of the land is falling, the only reefs which can be formed +are fringing reefs. While if, on the contrary, the level of the sea is +rising relatively to that of the land, at a rate not faster than that +at which the upward growth of the coral can keep pace with it, the reef +will gradually pass from the condition of a fringing, into that of an +encircling or barrier reef. And, finally, that if the relative level of +the sea rise so much that the encircled land is completely submerged, +the reef must necessarily pass into the condition of an atoll. + +For, suppose the relative level of the sea to remain stationary, after a +fringing reef has reached that distance from the land at which the depth +of water amounts to one hundred and fifty feet. Then the reef cannot +extend seaward by the migration of coral germs, because these coral +germs would find the bottom of the sea to be too deep for them to live +in. And the only manner in which the reef could extend outwards, would +be by the gradual accumulation, at the foot of its seaward face, of a +talus of coral fragments torn off by the violence of the waves, which +talus might, in course of time, become high enough to bring its upper +surface within the limits of coral growth, and in that manner provide a +sort of factitious sea-bottom upon which the coral embryos might perch. +If, on the other hand, the level of the sea were slowly and gradually +lowered, it is clear that the parts of its bottom originally beyond the +limit of coral growth would gradually be brought within the required +distance of the surface, and thus the reef might be indefinitely +extended. But this process would give rise neither to an encircling reef +nor to an atoll, but to a broad belt of upheaved coral rock, increasing +the dimensions of the dry land, and continuous seawards with the fresh +fringing reef. + +Suppose, however, that the sea-level rose instead of falling, at the +same slow and gradual rate at which we know it to be rising in some +parts of the world,--not more, in fact, than a few inches, or, at most, +a foot or two, in a hundred years. Then, while the reef would be unable +to extend itself seaward, the sea-bottom outside it being gradually more +and more removed from the depth at which the life of the coral polypes +is possible, it would be able to grow upwards as fast as the sea +rose. But the growth would take place almost exclusively around the +circumference of the reef, this being the only region in which the coral +polypes would find the conditions favourable for their existence. The +bottom of the lagoon would be raised, in the main, only by the +coral debris and coral mud, formed in the manner already described; +consequently, the margins of the reef would rise faster than the bottom, +or, in other words, the lagoon would constantly become deeper. And, at +the same time, it would gradually increase in breadth; as the rising +sea, covering more of the land, would occupy a wider space between the +edge of the reef and what remained of the land. Thus the rising sea +would eventually convert a large island with a fringing reef into a +small island surrounded by an encircling reef. And it will be obvious +that when the rising of the sea has gone so far as completely to cover +the highest points of the island, the reef will have passed into the +condition of an atoll. + +But how is it possible that the relative level of the land and sea +should be altered to this extent? Clearly, only in one of two ways: +either the sea must have risen over those areas which are now covered by +atolls and encircling reefs; or, the land upon which the sea rests must +have been depressed to a corresponding extent. + +If the sea has risen, its rise must have taken place over the whole +world simultaneously, and it must have risen to the same height over all +parts of the coral zone. Grounds have been shown for the belief that the +general level of the sea may have been different at different times; it +has been suggested, for example, that the accumulation of ice about the +poles during one of the cold periods of the earth's history necessarily +implies a diminution in the volume of the sea proportioned to the amount +of its water thus permanently locked up in the Arctic and Antarctic +ice-cellars; while, in the warm periods, the greater or less +disappearance of the polar ice-cap implies a corresponding addition of +water to the ocean. And no doubt this reasoning must be admitted to be +sound in principle; though it is very hard to say what practical effect +the additions and subtractions thus made have had on the level of the +ocean; inasmuch as such additions and subtractions might be either +intensified or nullified, by contemporaneous changes in the level of the +land. And no one has yet shown that any such great melting of polar ice, +and consequent raising of the level of the water of the ocean, has taken +place since the existing atolls began to be formed. + +In the absence of any evidence that the sea has ever risen to the extent +required to give rise to the encircling reefs and the atolls, Mr. Darwin +adopted the opposite hypothesis, viz., that the land has undergone +extensive and slow depression in those localities in which these +structures exist. + +It seems, at first, a startling paradox, to suppose that the land +is less fixed than the sea; but that such is the case is the uniform +testimony of geology. Beds of sandstone or limestone, thousands of feet +thick, and all full of marine remains, occur in various parts of the +earth's surface, and prove, beyond a doubt, that when these beds +were formed, that portion of the sea-bottom which they then occupied +underwent a slow and gradual depression to a distance which cannot have +been less than the thickness of those beds, and may have been very much +greater. In supposing, therefore, that the great areas of the Pacific +and of the Indian Ocean, over which atolls and encircling reefs are +found scattered, have undergone a depression of some hundreds, or, +it may be, thousands of feet, Mr. Darwin made a supposition which had +nothing forced or improbable, but was entirely in accordance with what +we know to have taken place over similarly extensive areas, in other +periods of the world's history. But Mr. Darwin subjected his hypothesis +to an ingenious indirect test. If his view be correct, it is clear that +neither atolls, nor encircling reefs, should be found in those portions +of the ocean in which we have reason to believe, on independent grounds, +that the sea-bottom has long been either stationary, or slowly rising. +Now it is known that, as a general rule, the level of the land is either +stationary, or is undergoing a slow upheaval, in the neighborhood of +active volcanoes; and, therefore, neither atolls nor encircling reefs +ought to be found in regions in which volcanoes are numerous and active. +And this turns out to be the case. Appended to Mr. Darwin's great work +on coral reefs, there is a map on which atolls and encircling reefs are +indicated by one colour, fringing reefs by another, and active volcanoes +by a third. And it is at once obvious that the lines of active volcanoes +lie around the margins of the areas occupied by the atolls and the +encircling reefs. It is exactly as if the upheaving volcanic agencies +had lifted up the edges of these great areas, while their centres had +undergone a corresponding depression. An atoll area may, in short, be +pictured as a kind of basin, the margins of which have been pushed up by +the subterranean forces, to which the craters of the volcanoes have, at +intervals, given vent. + +Thus we must imagine the area of the Pacific now covered by the +Polynesian Archipelago, as having been, at some former time, occupied +by large islands, or, may be, by a great continent, with the ordinarily +diversified surface of plain, and hill, and mountain chain. The shores +of this great land were doubtless fringed by coral reefs; and, as it +slowly underwent depression, the hilly regions, converted into islands, +became, at first, surrounded by fringing reefs, and then, as depression +went on, these became converted into encircling reefs, and these, +finally, into atolls, until a maze of reefs and coral-girdled islets +took the place of the original land masses. + +Thus the atolls and the encircling reefs furnish us with clear, though +indirect, evidence of changes in the physical geography of large parts +of the earth's surface; and even, as my lamented friend, the late +Professor Jukes,[124] has suggested, give us indications of the manner +in which some of the most puzzling facts connected with the distribution +of animals have been brought about. For example, Australia and New +Guinea are separated by Torres Straits, a broad belt of sea one hundred +or one hundred and twenty miles wide. Nevertheless, there is in many +respects a curious resemblance between the land animals which inhabit +New Guinea and the land animals which inhabit Australia. But, at the +same time, the marine shellfish which are found in the shallow waters +of the shores of New Guinea are quite different from those which are +met with upon the coasts of Australia. Now, the eastern end of Torres +Straits is full of atolls, which, in fact, form the northern termination +of the Great Barrier Reef which skirts the eastern coast of Australia. +It follows, therefore, that the eastern end of Torres Straits is an +area of depression, and it is very possible, and on many grounds highly +probable, that, in former times, Australia and New Guinea were directly +connected together, and that Torres Straits did not exist. If this were +the case, the existence of cassowaries and of marsupial quadrupeds, +both in New Guinea and in Australia, becomes intelligible; while the +difference between the littoral molluscs of the north and the south +shores of Torres Straits is readily explained by the great probability +that, when the depression in question took place, and what was, at +first, an arm of the sea became converted into a strait separating +Australia from New Guinea, the northern shore of this new sea became +tenanted with marine animals from the north, while the southern shore +was peopled by immigrants from the already existing marine Australian +fauna. + +Inasmuch as the growth of the reef depends upon that of successive +generations of coral polypes, and as each generation takes a certain +time to grow to its full size, and can only separate its calcareous +skeleton from the water in which it lives at a certain rate, it is clear +that the reefs are records not only of changes in physical geography, +but of the lapse of time. It is by no means easy, however, to estimate +the exact value of reef chronology, and the attempts which have been +made to determine the rate at which a reef grows vertically have yielded +anything but precise results. A cautious writer, Mr. Dana,[125] whose +extensive study of corals and coral reefs makes him an eminently +competent judge, states his conclusion in the following terms:-- + +"The rate of growth of the common branching madrepore is not over one +and a half inches a year. As the branches are open, this would not be +equivalent to more than half an inch in height of solid coral for the +whole surface covered by the madrepore; and, as they are also porous, +to not over three-eighths of an inch of solid limestone. But a coral +plantation has large bare patches without corals, and the coral sands +are widely distributed by currents, part of them to depths over one +hundred feet where there are no living corals; not more than one-sixth +of the surface of a reef region is, in fact, covered with growing +species. This reduces the three-eighths to ONE-SIXTEENTH. Shells and +other organic relics may contribute one-fourth as much as corals. At the +outside, the average upward increase of the whole reef-ground per year +would not exceed ONE-EIGHTH of an inch. + +"Now some reefs are at least two thousand feet thick, which at +one-eighth of an inch a year, corresponds to one hundred and ninety-two +thousand years."* + + * Dana, Manual of Geology, p. 591. + +Halve, or quarter, this estimate if you will, in order to be certain of +erring upon the right side, and still there remains a prodigious +period during which the ancestors of existing coral polypes have +been undisturbedly at work; and during which, therefore, the climatal +conditions over the coral area must have been much what they are now. + +And all this lapse of time has occurred within the most recent period of +the history of the earth. The remains of reefs formed by coral polypes +of different kinds from those which exist now, enter largely into the +composition of the limestones of the Jurassic period;[126] and still +more widely different coral polypes have contributed their quota to the +vast thickness of the carboniferous and Devonian strata. Then as regards +the latter group of rocks in America, the high authority already quoted +tells us:-- + +"The Upper Helderberg period is eminently the coral reef period of the +palaeozoic ages. Many of the rocks abound in coral, and are as truly +coral reefs as the modern reefs of the Pacific. The corals are sometimes +standing on the rocks in the position they had when growing: others are +lying in fragments, as they were broken and heaped by the waves; and +others were reduced to a compact limestone by the finer trituration +before consolidation into rock. This compact variety is the most common +kind among the coral reef rocks of the present seas; and it often +contains but few distinct fossils, although formed in water that +abounded in life. At the fall of the Ohio, near Louisville, there is a +magnificent display of the old reef. Hemispherical Favosites, five or +six feet in diameter, lie there nearly as perfect as when they were +covered by their flowerlike polypes; and besides these, there are +various branching corals, and a profusion of Cyathophyllia, or +cup-corals."* + + * Dana, Manual of Geology, p. 272. + +Thus, in all the great periods of the earth's history of which we know +anything, a part of the then living matter has had the form of polypes, +competent to separate from the water of the sea the carbonate of lime +necessary for their own skeletons. Grain by grain, and particle by +particle, they have built up vast masses of rock, the thickness of which +is measured by hundreds of feet, and their area by thousands of square +miles. The slow oscillations of the crust of the earth, producing great +changes in the distribution of land and water, have often obliged +the living matter of the coral-builders to shift the locality of its +operations; and, by variation and adaptation to these modifications of +condition, its forms have as often changed. The work it has done in the +past is, for the most part, swept away, but fragments remain, and, if +there were no other evidence, suffice to prove the general constancy +of the operations of Nature in this world, through periods of almost +inconceivable duration. + + + + +NOTES + + + + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +[Footnote 1: Autobiography: Huxley's account of this sketch, written in +1889, is as follows: "A man who is bringing out a series of portraits of +celebrities, with a sketch of their career attached, has bothered me +out of my life for something to go with my portrait, and to escape the +abominable bad taste of some of the notices, I have done that."] + +[Footnote 2: pre-Boswellian epoch: the time before Boswell. James +Boswell (1740-1795) wrote the famous Life of Samuel Johnson. Mr. Leslie +Stephen declares that this book "became the first specimen of a new +literary type." "It is a full-length portrait of a man's domestic life +with enough picturesque detail to enable us to see him through the eyes +of private friendship. . . ." A number of biographers since Boswell have +imitated his method; and Leslie Stephen believes that "we owe it in some +degree to his example that we have such delightful books as Lockhart's +Life of Scott or Mr. Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay."] + +[Footnote 3: "Bene qui latuit, bene vixit": from Ovid. He who has kept +himself well hidden, has lived well.] + +[Footnote 4: Prince George of Cambridge: the grandson of King George +III, second Duke of Cambridge, and Commander-in-chief of the British +Army.] + +[Footnote 5: Mr. Herbert Spencer (1820--1903): a celebrated English +philosopher and powerful advocate of the doctrine of evolution. Spencer +is regarded as one of the most profound thinkers of modern times. He was +one of Huxley's closest friends.] + +[Footnote 6: in partibus infidelium: in the domain of the unbelievers.] + +[Footnote 7: "sweet south upon a bed of violets." Cf. Twelfth Night, Act +I, sc. I, l. 5. + + O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odour. + +For the reading "sweet south" instead of "sweet sound," see Rolfe's +edition of Twelfth Night.] + +[Footnote 8: "Lehrjahre": apprenticeship. + +Charing Cross School of Medicine: a school connected with the Charing +Cross Hospital in the Strand, London.] + +[Footnote 9: Nelson: Horatio Nelson, a celebrated English Admiral born +in Norfolk, England, 1758, and died on board the Victory at Trafalgar, +1805. It was before the battle off Cape Trafalgar that Nelson hoisted +his famous signal, "England expects every man will do his duty." Cf. +Tennyson's Ode to the Duke of Wellington, stanza VI, for a famous +tribute to Nelson.] + +[Footnote 10: middies: abbreviated form for midshipmen.] + +[Footnote 11: Suites a Buffon: sequels to Buffon. Buffon (1707-1781) was +a French naturalist who wrote many volumes on science.] + +[Footnote 12: Linnean Society: a scientific society formed in 1788 under +the auspices of several fellows of the Royal Society.] + +[Footnote 13: Royal Society: The Royal Society for Improving Natural +Knowledge; the oldest scientific society in Great Britain, and one of +the oldest in Europe. It was founded by Charles II, in 1660, its nucleus +being an association of learned men already in existence. It is supposed +to be identical with the Invisible College which Boyle mentions in 1646. +It was incorporated under the name of The Royal Society in 1661. The +publications of the Royal Society are called Philosophical Transactions. +The society has close connection with the government, and has assisted +the government in various important scientific undertakings among +which may be mentioned Parry's North Pole expedition. The society also +distributes $20,000 yearly for the promotion of scientific research.] + +[Footnote 14: Rastignac: a character in Le Pere Goriot. At the close of +the story Rastignac says, "A nous deux, maintenant":--Henceforth there +is war between us.] + +[Footnote 15: Pere Goriot: a novel of Balzac's with a plot similar to +King Lear.] + +[Footnote 16: Professor Tyndall (1820-1893): a distinguished British +physicist and member of the Royal Society. He explored with Huxley the +glaciers of Switzerland. His work in electricity, radiant heat, light +and acoustics gave him a foremost place in science.] + +[Footnote 17: Ecclesiastical spirit: the spirit manifested by the clergy +of England in Huxley's time against the truths of science. The clergy +considered scientific truth to be disastrous to religious truth. +Huxley's attitude toward the teaching of religious truth is illuminated +by this quotation, which he uses to explain his own position: "I have +the fullest confidence that in the reading and 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, and that no +effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds, theological +dogmas which their tender age prevents them from understanding." +Huxley defines his idea of a church as a place in which, "week by +week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract +propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an +ideal of true, just and pure living; a place in which those who are +weary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the +contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though +attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business +should have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he +covets compared with peace and charity."] + +[Footnote 18: New Reformation: Huxley writes: "We are in the midst of +a gigantic movement greater than that which preceded and produced the +Reformation, and really only the continuation of that movement. . . . +But this organization will be the work of generations of men, and those +who further it most will be those who teach men to rest in no lie, and +to rest in no verbal delusion."] + + + + +ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE (1866) + + +[Footnote 19: On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge: +from Method and Results: also published in Lay Sermons, Addresses and +Reviews.] + +For the history of the times mentioned in this essay, see Green's Short +History of the English People.] + +[Footnote 20: The very spot: St. Martin's Borough Hall and Public +Library, on Charing Cross Road, near Trafalgar Square.] + +[Footnote 21: Defoe (1661-1731): an English novelist and political +writer. On account of his political writings Defoe was sentenced +to stand in the pillory, and to be "imprisoned during the Queen's +pleasure." During this imprisonment he wrote many articles. Later in +life he wrote Robinson Crusoe, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll +Flanders, Journal of the Plague Year, and other books less well known.] + +[Footnote 22: unholy cursing and crackling wit of the Rochesters and +Sedleys: John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, and Sir Charles +Sedley, were both friends of Charles II, and were noted for biting wit +and profligacy. Green, in his Short History of the English People, thus +describes them: "Lord Rochester was a fashionable poet, and the titles +of some of his poems are such as no pen of our day could copy. Sir +Charles Sedley was a fashionable wit, and the foulness of his words made +even the porters in the Covent Garden belt him from the balcony when he +ventured to address them."] + +[Footnote 23: Laud: Archbishop of Canterbury. Laud was born in 1573, and +beheaded at London in 1645. He was throughout the reign of Charles I a +staunch supporter of the King. He was impeached by the Long Parliament +in 1640 and executed on Tower Hill, in 1645.] + +[Footnote 24: selenography: the scientific study of the moon with +special reference to its physical condition.] + +[Footnote 25: Torricellian experiment: a reference to the discovery of +the principle of the barometer by the Italian, Torricelli, in 1643.] + +[Footnote 26: Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Bacon endeavored to teach +that civilization cannot be brought to a high point except as man +applies himself to the study of the secrets of nature, and uses +these discoveries for inventions which will give him power over his +environment. The chief value of the work was that it called attention +to the uses of induction and to the experimental study of facts. See +Roger's A Student's History of Philosophy, page 243.] + +[Footnote 27: The learned Dr. Wallis (1616-1703): Dr. Wallis is regarded +as the greatest of Newton's predecessors in mathematical history. His +works are numerous and are on a great variety of subjects. He was one of +the first members of the Royal Society.] + +[Footnote 28: "New Philosophy": Bacon's ideas on science and philosophy +as set forth in his works.] + +[Footnote 29: Royal Society: see note, page 11.] + +[Footnote 30: Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1721): a distinguished natural +philosopher of England. Newton was elected a member of the Royal +Society in 1672. His most important scientific accomplishment was the +establishing of the law of universal gravitation. The story of the +fall of the apple was first related by Voltaire to whom it was given by +Newton's niece.] + +[Footnote 31: "Philosophical Transactions": the publications of the +Royal Society.] + +[Footnote 32: Galileo (1564-1642): a famous Italian astronomer. His most +noted work was the construction of the thermometer and a telescope. He +discovered the satellites of Jupiter in 1610. In 1610, also, he observed +the sun's spots. His views were condemned by the Pope in 1616 and in +1633 he was forced by the Inquisition to abjure the Copernican theory.] + +[Footnote 33: Vesalius (1514-1564): a noted Belgian anatomist.] + +[Footnote 34: Harvey (1578-1657): an English physiologist and anatomist. +He is noted especially for his discovery of the circulation of the +blood.] + +[Footnote 35: Subtle speculations: Selby gives examples from questions +discussed by Thomas Aquinas. Whether all angels belong to the same +genus, whether demons are evil by nature, or by will, whether they can +change one substance into another, . . . whether an angel can move from +one point to another without passing through intermediate space.] + +[Footnote 36: Schoolmen: a term used to designate the followers of +scholasticism, a philosophy of dogmatic religion which assumed a certain +subject-matter as absolute and unquestionable. The duty of the Schoolman +was to explain church doctrine; these explanations were characterized +by fine distinctions and by an absence of real content. See Roger's A +Student's History of Philosophy; also Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy +and Psychology.] + +[Footnote 37: "writ in water": an allusion to Keats' request that the +words "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" be his epitaph. The +words are inscribed on his tomb in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome.] + +[Footnote 38: Lord Brouncker: The first president of the Royal Society +after its incorporation in 1662 was Lord Brouneker.] + +[Footnote 39: revenant: ghost.] + +[Footnote 40: Boyle: Robert Boyle (1627-1691): a British chemist and +natural philosopher who was noted especially for his discovery of +Boyle's law of the elasticity of air.] + +[Footnote 41: Evelyn (1620-1706): an English author and member of the +Royal Society. His most important work is the Diary, valuable for the +full account which it gives of the manners and customs of the time.] + +[Footnote 42: The Restoration: In English history the re-establishing +of the English monarchy with the return of King Charles II in 1660; +by extension the whole reign of Charles II: as, the dramatists of the +Restoration. Century Dictionary.] + +[Footnote 43: Aladdin's lamps: a reference to the story of the Wonderful +Lamp in the Arabian Nights. The magic lamp brought marvelous good +fortune to the poor widow's son who possessed it. Cf. also Lowell's +Aladdin:-- + + When I was a beggarly boy, + And lived in a cellar damp, + I had not a friend or a toy, + But I had Aladdin's lamp; + When I could not sleep for the cold, + I had fire enough in my brain, + And builded, with roofs of gold, + My beautiful castles in Spain!] + +[Footnote 44: "When in heaven the stars": from Tennyson's Specimens of a +Translation of the Iliad in Blank Verse.] + +[Footnote 45: "increasing God's honour and bettering man's estate": +Bacon's statement of his purpose in writing the Advancement of +Learning.] + +[Footnote 46: For example, etc.: could the sentence beginning thus be +written in better form?] + +[Footnote 47: Rumford (1738-1814): Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an +eminent scientist. Rumford was born in America and educated at Harvard. +Suspected of loyalty to the King at the time of the revolution, he was +imprisoned. Acquitted, he went to England where he became prominent in +politics and science. Invested with the title of Count by the Holy Roman +Empire, he chose Rumford for his title after the name of the little +New Hampshire town where he had taught. He gave a large sum of money to +Harvard College to found the Rumford professorship of science.] + +[Footnote 48: eccentric: out of the centre.] + + + + +A LIBERAL EDUCATION (1868) + + +[Footnote 49: A Liberal Education: from Science and Education; also +published in Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews.] + +[Footnote 50: Ichabod: cf. 1 Sam. iv, 21.] + +[Footnote 51: senior wranglership: in Cambridge University, England, +one who has attained the first class in the elementary division of the +public examination for honors in pure and mixed mathematics, commonly +called the mathematical tripos, those who compose the second rank of +honors being designated senior optimes, and those of the third order +junior optimes. The student taking absolutely the first place in the +mathematical tripos used to be called senior wrangler, those following +next in the same division being respectively termed second, third, +fourth, etc., wranglers. Century Dictionary.] + +[Footnote 52: double-first: any candidate for the degree of Bachelor of +Arts in Oxford University who takes first-class honors in both classics +and mathematics is said to have won a double-first.] + +[Footnote 53: Retzsch (1779-1857): a well-known German painter and +engraver.] + +[Footnote 54: Test-Act: an English statute of 1673. It compelled all +persons holding office under the crown to take the oaths of supremacy +and of allegiance, to receive the sacrament according to the usage +of the Church of England, and to subscribe to the Declaration against +Transubstantiation.] + +[Footnote 55: Poll: an abbreviation and transliteration of [Footnote +Greek words], "the mob"; university slang for the whole body of students +taking merely the degree of Bachelor of Arts, at Cambridge.] + +[Footnote 56: pluck: the rejection of a student, after examinations, who +does not come up to the standard.] + + + + +ON A PIECE OF CHALK + + +[Footnote 57: On a Piece of Chalk: a lecture to working-men from Lay +Sermons, Addresses and Reviews.] + +[Footnote 58: Needles of the Isle of Wight: the needles are three +white, pointed rocks of chalk, resting on dark-colored bases, and +rising abruptly from the sea to a height of 100 feet. Baedeker's Great +Britain.] + +[Footnote 59: Lulworth in Dorset, to Flamborough Head: Lulworth is on +the southern coast of England, west of the Isle of Wight: Flamborough +Head is on the northeastern coast of England and extends into the German +Ocean.] + +[Footnote 60: Weald: a name given to an oval-shaped chalk area in +England, beginning near the Straits of Dover, and extending into the +counties of Kent, Surrey, Hants, and Sussex.] + +[Footnote 61: Lieut. Brooke: Brooke devised an apparatus for deep-sea +sounding from which the weight necessary to sink the instrument rapidly, +was detached when it reached the bottom. The object was to relieve the +strain on the rope caused by rapid soundings. Improved apparatuses have +been invented since the time of Brooke.] + +[Footnote 62: Ehrenberg (1795-1876): a German naturalist noted for his +studies of Infusoria.] + +[Footnote 63: Bailey of West Point (1811-1857): an American naturalist +noted for his researches in microscopy.] + +[Footnote 64: enterprise of laying down the telegraph-cable: the first +Atlantic telegraph-cable between England and America was laid in 1858 by +Cyrus W. Field of New York. Messages were sent over it for a few weeks; +then it ceased to act. A permanent cable was laid by Mr. Field in 1866.] + +[Footnote 65: Dr. Wallich (1786-1854): a Danish botanist and member of +the Royal Society.] + +[Footnote 66: Mr. Sorby: President of the Geological Society of +England, and author of many papers on subjects connected with physical +geography.] + +[Footnote 67: Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): a British geologist, and +one of the first to uphold Darwin's Origin of Species.] + +[Footnote 68: Echinus: the sea-urchin; an animal which dwells in a +spheroidal shell built up from polygonal plates, and covered with sharp +spines.] + +[Footnote 69: Somme: a river of northern France which flows into the +English Channel northeast of Dieppe.] + +[Footnote 70: the chipped flints of Hoxne and Amiens: the rude +instruments which were made by primitive man were of chipped flint. +Numerous discoveries of large flint implements have been made in the +north of France, near Amiens, and in England. The first noted flint +implements were discovered in Hoxne, Suffolk, England, 1797. Cf. Evans' +Ancient Stone Implements and Lyell's Antiquity of Man.] + +[Footnote 71: Rev. Mr. Gunn (1800-1881): an English naturalist. Mr. +Gunn sent from Tasmania a large number of plants and animals now in the +British Museum.] + +[Footnote 72: "the whirligig of time": cf. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, +Act V, se. I, l. 395.] + +[Footnote 73: Euphrates and Hiddekel: cf. Genesis ii, 14.] + +[Footnote 74: the great river, the river of Babylon: cf. Genesis xv, 18] + +[Footnote 75: Without haste, but without rest: from Goethe's Zahme +Xenien. In a letter to his sister, Huxley says: "And then perhaps by the +following of my favorite motto,-- + + "'Wie das Gestirn, + Ohne Hast, + Ohne Rast'-- + + something may be done, and some of Sister Lizzie's fond + imaginations turn out not altogether untrue." The quotation entire + is as follows:-- + + Wie das Gestirn, + Ohne Hast, + Aber ohne Rast, + Drehe sich jeder + Um die eigne Last.] + + + + +THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION (1882) + + +[Footnote 76: The Principal Subjects of Education: an extract from the +essay, Science and Art in Relation to Education.] + +[Footnote 77: this discussion: "this" refers to the last sentence in the +preceding paragraph, in which Huxley says that it will be impossible to +determine the amount of time to be given to the principal subjects +of education until it is determined "what the principal subjects of +education ought to be."] + +[Footnote 78: Francis Bacon: cf. note [Footnote 26].] + +[Footnote 79: the best chance of being happy: In connection with +Huxley's work on the London School Board, his biographer says that +Huxley did not regard "intellectual training only from the utilitarian +point of view; he insisted, e. g., on the value of reading for amusement +as one of the most valuable uses to hardworked people."] + +[Footnote 80: "Harmony in grey": cf. with l. 34 in Browning's Andrea del +Sarto.] + +[Footnote 81: Hobbes (1588-1679): noted for his views of human nature +and of politics. According to Minto, "The merits ascribed to his style +are brevity, simplicity and precision."] + +[Footnote 82: Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753): an Irish prelate noted for +his philosophical writings and especially for his theory of vision which +was the foundation for modern investigations of the subject. "His style +has always been esteemed admirable; simple, felicitous and sweetly +melodious. His dialogues are sustained with great skill." Minto's Manual +of English Prose Literature.] + +[Footnote 83: We have been recently furnished with in prose: The Iliad +of Homer translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers, the first edition of +which appeared in 1882, is probably the one to which Huxley refers. The +Odyssey, translated by Butcher and Lang, appeared in 1879. Among the +best of the more recent translations of Homer are the Odyssey by George +Herbert Palmer; the Iliad by Arthur S. Way, and the Odyssey by the same +author.] + +[Footnote 84: Locke (1632-1704): an English philosopher of great +influence. His chief work is An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.] + +[Footnote 85: Franciscus Bacon sic cogitavit: thus Francis Bacon +thought.] + + + + +THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION (1863) + + +[Footnote 86: The Method of Scientific Investigation is an extract +from the third of six lectures given to workingmen on The Causes of the +Phenomena of Organic Nature in Darwiniana.] + +[Footnote 87: these terrible apparatus: apparatus is the form for both +the singular and plural; apparatuses is another form for the plural.] + +[Footnote 88: Incident in one of Moliere's plays: the allusion is to the +hero, M. Jourdain in the play, "La Bourgeois Gentilbomme."] + +[Footnote 89: these kind: modern writers regard kind as singular. +Shakespeare treated it as a plural noun, as "These kind of knaves I +knew."] + +[Footnote 90: Newton: cf. [Footnote 30].] + +[Footnote 91: Laplace (1749-1827): a celebrated French astronomer and +mathematician. He is best known for his theory of the formation of the +planetary systems, the so-called "nebular hypothesis." Until recently +this hypothesis has generally been accepted in its main outlines. It +is now being supplanted by the "Spiral Nebular Hypothesis" developed +by Professors Moulton and Chamberlin of the University of Chicago. See +Moulton's Introduction to Astronomy, p. 463.] + + + + +ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE (1868) + + +[Footnote 92: On the Physical Basis of Life: from Methods and Results; +also published in Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews. "The substance of +this paper was contained in a discourse which was delivered in Edinburgh +on the evening of Sunday, the 8th of November, 1868--being the first +of a series of Sunday evening addresses upon non-theological topics, +instituted by the Rev. J. Cranbrook. Some phrases, which could possess +only a transitory and local interest, have been omitted; instead of +the newspaper report of the Archbishop of York's address, his Grace's +subsequently published pamphlet On the Limits of Philosophical inquiry +is quoted, and I have, here and there, endeavoured to express my meaning +more fully and clearly than I seem to have done in speaking--if I may +judge by sundry criticisms upon what I am supposed to have said, which +have appeared. But in substance, and, so far as my recollection +serves, in form, what is here written corresponds with what was there +said."--Huxley.] + +[Footnote 93: Finner whale: a name given to a whale which has a dorsal +fin. A Finner whale commonly measures from 60 to 90 feet in length.] + +[Footnote 94: A fortiori: with stronger reason: still more +conclusively.] + +[Footnote 95: well-known epigram: from Goethe's Venetianische Epigramme. +The following is a translation of the passage: Why do the people push +each other and shout? They want to work for their living, bring forth +children; and feed them as well as they possibly can. . . . No man can +attain to more, however much he may pretend to the contrary.] + +[Footnote 96: Maelstroms: a celebrated whirlpool or violent current in +the Arctic Ocean, near the western coast of Norway, between the islands +of Moskenaso and Mosken, formerly supposed to suck in and destroy +everything that approached it at any time, but now known not to be +dangerous except under certain conditions. Century Dictionary. Cf. also +Poe's Descent into the Maelstrom.] + +[Footnote 97: Milne-Edwards (1800-1885): a French naturalist. His +Elements de Zoologie won him a great reputation.] + +[Footnote 98: with such qualifications as arises: a typographical +error.] + +[Footnote 99: De Bary (1831-1888): a German botanist noted especially +for his researches in cryptogamic botany.] + +[Footnote 100: No Man's Land: Huxley probably intends no specific +geographical reference. The expression is common as a designation of +some remote and unfrequented locality.] + +[Footnote 101: Kuhne (1837-1900): a German physiologist and professor of +science at Amsterdam and Heidelberg.] + +[Footnote 102: Debemur morti nos nostraque: Horace--Ars Poetica, line +63. + + As forests change their foliage year by year, + Leaves, that come first, first fall and disappear; + So antique words die out, and in their room, + Others spring up, of vigorous growth and bloom; + Ourselves and all that's ours, to death are due, + And why should words not be mortal too? + +Martin's translation.] + +[Footnote 103: peau de chagrin: skin of a wild ass.] + +[Footnote 104: Balzac (1799-1850): a celebrated French novelist of the +realistic school of fiction.] + +[Footnote 105: Barmecide feast: the allusion is to a story in the +Arabian Nights in which a member of the Barmecide family places a +succession of empty dishes before a beggar, pretending that they contain +a rich repast.] + +[Footnote 106: modus operandi: method of working.] + +[Footnote 107: Martinus Scriblerus: a reference to Memoirs of Martinus +Scriblerus written principally by John Arbuthnot, and published in +1741. The purpose of the papers is given by Warburton and Spence in +the following extracts quoted from the Preface to the Memoirs of the +Extraordinary Life, Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus in +Elwin and Courthope's edition of Pope's works, vol. x, p. 273:-- "Mr. +Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, and Dr. Swift, in conjunction, formed the project +of a satire on the abuses of human learning; and to make it better +received, proposed to execute it in the manner of Cervantes (the +original author of this species of satire) under a continued narrative +of feigned adventures. They had observed that those abuses still kept +their ground against all that the ablest and gravest authors could say +to discredit them; they concluded, therefore, the force of ridicule was +wanting to quicken their disgrace; and ridicule was here in its place, +when the abuses had been already detected by sober reasoning; and +truth in no danger to suffer by the premature use of so powerful an +instrument."] + +"The design of this work, as stated by Pope himself, is to ridicule all +the false tastes in learning under the character of a man of capacity +enough, that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously +in each. It was begun by a club of some of the greatest wits of the +age--Lord Oxford, the Bishop of Rochester, Pope, Congreve, Swift, +Arbuthnot, and others. Gay often held the pen; and Addison liked it very +well, and was not disinclined to come into it."] + +[Footnote 108: accounted for the operation of the meat-jack: from the +paper "To the learned inquisitor into nature, Martinus Scriblerus: the +society of free thinkers greeting." Elwin and Courthope, Pope's works, +vol. ?, p. 332.] + +[Footnote 109: The remainder of the essay endeavors to meet the charge +of materialism. The following is the conclusion:--"In itself it is of +little moment whether we express the phaenomena of matter in terms of +spirit; or the phaenomena of spirit in terms of matter: matter may be +regarded as a form of thought, thought may be regarded as a property of +matter--each statement has a certain relative truth. But with a view to +the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in every way +to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other phaenomena of +the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature of those physical +conditions, or concomitants of thought, which are more or less +accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us +to exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought, as +we already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, the +alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, and leads +to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas. + +"Thus there can be little doubt, that the further science advances, the +more extensively and consistently will all the phaenomena of Nature +be represented by materialistic formulae and symbols. But the man of +science, who, forgetting the limits of philosophical inquiry, slides +from these formulae and symbols into what is commonly understood +by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with the +mathematician, who should mistake the x's and y's with which he works +his problems, for real entities--and with this further disadvantage, as +compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of +no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may +paralyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a life."] + + + + +ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS (1870) + + +[Footnote 110: On Coral and Coral Reefs: from Critiques and Addresses. +The essay was published in 1870.] + +[Footnote 111: Sic et curalium: Thus also the coral, as soon as it +touches the air turns hard. It was a soft plant under the water.] + +[Footnote 112: Boccone (1633-1704): a noted Sicilian naturalist.] + +[Footnote 113: Marsigli (1658-1730): an Italian soldier and naturalist. +He wrote A Physical History of the Sea.] + +[Footnote 114: "Traite du Corail": "I made the coral bloom in vases full +of sea-water, and I noticed that what we believe to be the flower of +this so-called plant was in reality only an insect similar to a little +nettle or polype. I had the pleasure to see the paws or feet of this +nettle move, and having placed the vase full of water in which the coral +was, near the fire, at a moderate heat, all the little insects expanded, +the nettle stretched out its feet and formed what M. de Marsigli and +I had taken for the petals of the flower. The calyx of this so-called +flower is the very body of the animal issued from its cell."] + +[Footnote 115: Reaumur (1683-1757): a French physiologist and +naturalist, best known as the inventor of the Reaumur thermometer. He +was a member of the French Academy of Science.] + +[Footnote 116: Bishop Wilson: Thomas Wilson (1663-1755), bishop of the +Isle of Man. Details of his life are given in the folio edition of his +works (1782). An appreciation of his religious writings is given by +Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy. Bishop Wilson's words, "To make +reason and the will of God prevail," are the theme of Arnold's essay, +Sweetness and Light.] + +[Footnote 117: An eminent modern writer: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), +eldest son of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby; a distinguished critic +and poet, and professor of poetry at Oxford. The allusion is to Arnold's +essay, Sweetness and Light. The phrase, "sweetness and light," is +one which Aesop uses in Swift's Battle of the Books to sum up the +superiority of the ancients over the moderns. "As for us, the ancients, +we are content, with the bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond +our wings and our voice, that is to say, our flights and our language; +for the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor and +search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is, +that instead of dirt and poison we have rather chose to fill our hives +with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest things, +which are sweetness and light." Arnold's purpose in the essay is +to define the cultured man as one who endeavors to make beauty and +intelligence prevail everywhere.] + +[Footnote 118: Abbe Trembley (1700-1784): a Swiss naturalist. He wrote +"Memoires pour servir a l'histoire d'un genre de polypes d'eau douce, a +bras en forme de cornes."] + +[Footnote 119: Bernard de Jussieu (1699-1776): a French botanist; +founder of the natural classification of plants. He was superintendent +of the Trianon Gardens.] + +[Footnote 120: Guettard (1715-1786): a French naturalist.] + +[Footnote 121: Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma: Monte Nuovo, +a mountain west of Naples; Somma, a mountain north of Vesuvius which +with its lofty, semicircular cliff encircles the active cone of +Vesuvius.] + +[Footnote 122: Mauritius: an island in the Indian Ocean; Huxley visited +the island when on the voyage with the Rattlesnake. He wrote to his +mother of his visit: "This island is, you know, the scene of Saint +Pierre's beautiful story of Paul and Virginia, over which I suppose most +people have sentimentalized at one time or another of their lives. +Until we reached here I did not know that the tale was like the lady's +improver--a fiction founded on fact, and that Paul and Virginia were at +one time flesh and blood, and that their veritable dust was buried at +Pamplemousses in a spot considered as one of the lions of the place, and +visited as classic ground."] + +[Footnote 123: Mr. Darwin's coral reefs: The Structure and Distribution +of Coral Reefs, published in 1848.] + +[Footnote 124: Professor Jukes (1811-1869): an English geologist.] + +[Footnote 125: Mr. Dana (1813-1895): a well-known American geologist and +mineralogist; a professor at Yale from 1845. He wrote a number of books +among which is Coral and Coral Reefs.] + +[Footnote 126: Jurassic period: that part of the geological series which +is older than the Cretaceous and newer than the Triassic; so called from +the predominance of rocks of this age in the Jura Mountains. The three +great divisions of fossiliferous rocks are called the Triassic, the +Jurassic, and the Cretaceous.] + + + + +REFERENCE BOOKS + + +The following reference books are suggested for a more complete +treatment of various points in the text:--Andrews' History of England. +Green's Short History of the English People. Traill's Social England. +Roger's A Student's History of Philosophy. Royce's The Spirit of +Modern Philosophy. Huxley's Life and Letters. Smalley's Mr. Huxley, in +Scribner's Magazine for October, 1905. Darwin's Life and Letters. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography and Selected Essays, by +Thomas Henry Huxley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1315 *** |