LORD AVEBURY ON HUXLEY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 61

LORD AVEBURY ON HUXLEY

The crowded and brilliant audience which assembled to hear Lord Avebury’s lecture oil ‘‘Huxley, the Man and His Work,” says a London paper, was a striking tribute to the respectful regard felt for the late scientific leader. The touching phrases in.which men who knew him well—Lord Avebury, Sir John Evans, and Sir Henry Ho worth—spoke of him were eloquent of the personal affection he inspired. The audience included politicians like Sir Henry Howarth and Mr Leonard Courtney; clergymen, among whom the Bishop of Hereford was conspicuous ; scientists and members of the Royal Society, like Sir John Evans, Dr J. Beddoe. Professor Meldola, Professor Howes; and statisticians iike Mr E. W. Brabrook and Mr G. L. Gomme. The lecture was the first of the annual discourses to be given under the Anthropological Institute. It took place in the theatre of the Geological Museum in Jermyn street-. London, which was thoroughly crowded. The personal friendship which existed for years between Huxley and the

lecturer enabled Lord Avebury to give many anecdotes and incidents connected with Huxley's life and work not generally known. The change which has come OA-er the attitude or the educated AA r orld AA'itli regard to the theory of eA’olution Avas shown by the account of the great debate on the subject at Oxford in 1860, when Huxley. Sir Joseph Hooker and Lubbock stood almost alone in defending a doctrine now v'ery generally adopted. The courage AA'hich Huxley always displayed in advanced scientific theories AA’hich he had tested and found to be true was shown by many incidents in his career. In 1887 Lord Avebury Avrote some letters to the “Times,” afterwards published in book form, with reference to the argument in favour cf Home Rule, based upo nthe statement that the- Irish Avere a “nation.’ He pointed out that the real ethnological conditions of the United Kingdom Avere not between England, Scotland and Ireland, that the Scots Avere an Irish tribe, and did not enter Scotland at a.ll till the seA*enth century, and that the east of Scotland, of England, and of Ireland, were mainly Teutonic and the West Celtic. Huxley strongly supported this position. He maintained that tbe same elements had entered into the composition of the population in England, Scotland and Ireland, and that the ethnic differences between the three lay simply in the general and local proportions of these elements. The population of Cornwall and DeA’on, he claimed, had as much claim to separate treatment on the ground of Celtic origin as that of Tipperary.

Some of the controversies which took place between Huxley and valiant Churchmen on questions of leiiion were recalled by Lord Avebury, aaKo, however, maintains that Huxley was no enemy of true religion or of the Church. Huxley, he says, considers that it Avas a fault and not a virtue to believe that which was not supported by sufficient evidence,” and that if a fact or theory Avas proved there Avas no merit in believing it. Although he coined the odium which followed, he was always a keen and reA-erential inquirer after truth. Lord Avebury doubts whether the services Avhich science has referred to religion are properly recognised. The conflict, he says, lias not been between science and religion, but between science and superstition. A disbelief, for instance. in the goodness of God led to all the horrors of the Inquisition, and right down to the beginning of the last century, as Mr Lecky had so vividly shown, a belief in witchcraft hung like a black pall oA~er Christianity. In the remoA'al of superstitions Huxley had played a great part, and the writings he had left behind shoAved that there was little to divide him from men like ,’ Stanley and Kingsley and Frederick ' Denison Maurice. The lecture was enthusiastically received throughout, and at its conclusion a. silver medal struck in commemoration of the occasion Avas presented; to Lord Aveburv by the Society.

Incidentally Lord Avebury in the course of his lecture expressed an interesting: personal view as to the population of our isiand in prehistoric times. Huxley thought there was no cindence leading to the conclusion that the Lapps and our oaaui ancestors had at one time occupied the same area. Lord A\ Tebury holds a contrary opinion, and he points out- that their animals formerly existed in Britain, and our early implements v'ere identical Avith. those used by the Lapps. . Lord AA r ebury has arrived at the conclusion that England was peopled long before its separation from the Continent. After the channel was formed successful hordes of invaders came across the strait, mostly without their women, and, having exterminated the men, married the women in the conquered land. To this fact, Lord Avebury thinks, we may attribute the wide differences which exist - between ourselves and the inhabitants of the Continent.