SOME HUXLEYANA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2170, 26 September 1895, Page 45

SOME HUXLEYANA.

Collated by Tjsbury.

THOMAS lIKKUY HUXLEY'S BURIAL.

On the afternoon of Thursday, July 4, the remains o£ Thomas Henry Huxley ware resigned to the earth in the M*rylebone Cemetery, East Finchley. Over 200 representatives of science and literature gathered around the grave, and many were the beautiful wreaths in token of sorrow and remembrance. After the last sad office these, by the way, were comrnendably returned to London to brighten the wards in St. Thomas's Hospital, wherein Huxley had worked. Beneath tho shade of a stately oak tree acd ite drooping sister willow the Key. J. Llewellyn Davics, of Westmoreland— old friend and neighbour of Huxloy — pronounced tho fotmula of the Church of England over the coffin of him whose mighty bloffs on the bulwarks of supernatural tradition will reverberate wbilo the method of agnosticism shall be remembered. Tho soil that shields his great repose enshrines the deposits of dateless years, as if in appropriate recognition of the tlteper'e eratwhilo contest for millions r-f^inst the penurious thousands of the Mosaic theory. There was infinite aud historic pathos in the features of those assembled. The commanding figure of Lecky, the historian of Rationalism, sad and may be somewhat stern of face as tbe ritual was recited ; Leslie Stephen, his fine brow stamped with intellect; the sons of Darwin, the ambassador of Herbert Spencer, Mrs Humphry Waid, author of " Robert Eli-msie " and connected through marriage with the dead leader ; the wiffe of that William Kingdon Clifford who opposed superstition with passionate Bincority even when Huxley's antagonism was more discreet and veiled in scientific construction, — these, and more than these, of the leaders of liberal thought were coMPp!cuous oven in the brilliant ranks in mourning fora fallen prince in tbe Israel of science. Yea, there was pathos in it all I — the ritual, the remembrance of the iconoclast;, the little etone with the legend so humanly revealing — " Noel, son, behold thy father brings thee hither sorrowing." Few perhaps of those who reverently paused to read knew before of that lament for tbe firstborn. Mr W. Stewart Ross, editor of the Agnostic Journal ; Mr Frederick Millar, editor of the Liberty Rsview ; Mr Edward Truelove, tbe Rationalist publisher, and Mr Amos Wntera were among the pilgrims. PJiOFESSOB HUXLEY'S GBNEUOSITY. Mr F. G. Montagu Powell, writing from St. Luko's Vicarage, Southampton, records a touching Instance of Professor Huxley's generosity, and of his dc&iro to befriend real talent. "Some time ago," Mr Powell says, " I received a letter from an unknown correspondent, asking me for an account of a parishioner of mine, a caoual labourer in a large dockyard. I found out tho man, and gathered that he was socially of the labouring class, politically a socialist, and theologically a freothinker ; but that all his spare time was devoted to original research, aided Iby a sixpenny magnifying glass. So I reported accordingly, and in a few days reoeived a letter from Professor Haxley thatking me for my exhaustive report, and saying that this man had sect him a paper containing a most vivid and rcientifically accurate description of the multiplication by fession of a lowly organism observed by him in an infusion of his own preparation. The professor's object in writing was to ask me how best such a man could be helped, I bekg at his special request the intermediary. So I suggested in the meanwhile a microscope and a few scientific books. In the course of a few days I' received a splendid achromatic compound microscope and come books, which I duly hauded over to my friend, telling him they were from an unknown hand. 4 Ah!' he said, 'I know who that must be ; it can be no other than the greatest of living scientists— it is just like him to help a tyro.' I need hardly say how well and truly my friend bas profited by the professor's generosity ; still more by the thought of his interest and sympathy. It was Professor Huxley's wish, I know, to find him a post in a marine laboratory, or some similarly congenial occupation. But this plan, I fear, will never now be carried out. Still, tho fact remainß of true genius, though ouscure, having been discovered and fostered by him whose death has caused so great a blank in the roll of great English savants." HUXLEY'S COLLECTED E3SAYS. No better models of popular scientific exposition— delicious compounds of information, logic, and humour— can be found than the six lectures to working men (18G3) represented In the second volume of Huxley'fl collected essays, entitled " Darwinlana." The lectures turn oa"Qur Knowledge of. the

Causes of the Phonomenaof Organic Nature." " The first address builds up the oonoeption of a unity of plan in the construction of animals," and even hints that " the whole of the organic world is reducible to one primitive condition of form " — i c, the nitrogenous cell. The second gives a rapid review of the geological record. " That record," remarks Haxley with characteristic and quaint suddenness*, "is composed of mud," aud he goes on to describe strata and the occurrence of fossils. The third presents interesting details of experiments in the development of infusoria, and winds up with an account of Pasteur's demonstration of the omnipresence in the atmosphere of organic " germ dust." The fourth deals with reproduction and modification, with illustrations from plant life, and examples of heredity, variations, monstrosities, and atavism. I subjoin the curious case of Seth Wright's sheep : — " In that part of Massachusetts where Seth Wright was living the fields were separated by fence?, and the sheep which were very aotive and robust would roam abroad, and without muoh difficulty jump over these fences into other people's farms. As a matter of course, this exuberant activity on the part of the sheep constantly gave rise to all sorta of quarrels, bickerioge, and contentions among the farmers of the neighbourhood ; so it ocourred to Seth Wright, who was, like his successor?, more or less cute, that if he could get a stock of sheep like those with the bandy legs, they would not be able to jump over the fences so readily ; and heaoted upon that idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon »b the young one arrived at maturity be bred altogether from him. This ram had a very long to3y and very short, bowed legs, and was kuown as an Ancon. The offspring were either pure Ancons or pure ordinary sheep ; and in no case was there any mixing of the Ancons with the others. In consequenca of thla, in the course of a very few year*, the f aimer was able to get a very considerable fl.ck of this variety. . . . This is what is called selection, and it is by exactly the same proces3 as that by which Seth Wright bred his Aucon sheep that our breeds of cattle, dogs, and fowls are obtained." The fifth arrays examples of natural eelec- ] tion and the struggle for existence; and in case any reader imagines natural selection to be some magical potency working for teleologlcal profit, we borrow from Huxloy a very simple illustration of the meaning of the term :—": — " In the woods of Florida there are a great many pigs, and it is a very curious thing that they are all black, every one of them. Profeusor Wyman was there Eome yeara ago, and on noticing no p'ga but these black ones he asked some of the people how it was that they bad no white pig*, and the reply was that in the woods of Florida there was a root which they called the paint root, nnd that if the white pi<?s wore to eat any of it it had tho effect of making their hoofs crack, and they died ; but if the black pigs ate any of it it did not hurt them at all. Here was a very simple case of natural selection. A skilful breeder could not more carefully develop the black breed of pigs, and weed out all the white pigs, than the paint root doea." The sixth pxaminas the main positions of Darwin's " Origin of Species. The professor openly acknowledges that human artifice has not yet succeeded In producing from a common stcck two varieties absolutely infertile with one another, thus forming definite species. But-, on the other hand, he adds, " I do not know that there is a single fact which can justify anyone in asserting that such sterility cannot be produced by proper experimentation." These six lectures are grouped together as section XI of this volume. The other 10 sections are essays on the subjects of the " Origin," with several obituary notlcss of that great naturalist whose name has given renown to the remote hamlet of Down. Huxley played no laggard's part in his defence of Darwin's unorthodox work. In 1859 the " Origin " appeared, and in 1859 Huxley faced the world as a champion of the new book of Genesis. Even then he displayed his delight in cornering the conventional apologist, and, like Job's warhorso, he gcentod the theologlau from afar. Speaking of the investigator who tries to follow Nature's method along the tracks marked out by sedate theologians, he asks : " Has not his Patey told that the seemingly useless organ, the spleen, is beautifully adjusted as so much packing between the other organs. And yet, at the outsst of his studies, he finds ' that no adaptive reason whatsoever can be given for one-half of the peculiarities of vegetable structure. He also discovers rudimentary teeth, which are never used, in the gums of the young calf and in those of the footal whale ; inseota which never bite have rudimentary jaws, and others which never fly have rudimental wiags ; naturally blind creatures have rudimental eyes; and the halt have rudimentary limbs." j One of the finest essays is the obituary notice of Darwin, reproduced from the " Proceedings " of the Royal Society. Whether Professor Huxley bas over-measured the facts of the case or not we are unable to say. But oce cannot help amazement at the small amount of educational preparation Charles Darwin received for the work of his life. Schools assisted him little, and colleges were blind guides. Even when he went out in the Beagle he possessed, practically, no technical qualifications for the business of naturalist. But genius, a keen eye, and the grand panorama unrolled by a voyage round tbe world did between them what the blunt tools of scholastic routine hopelessly failed to achieve. The Church may ..... the day on which the Beagle set sail with Darwin on board. It carried a man who rendered this 242-ton British vessel more fatal and epochmaking than many a phantasmal Flying Dutchman, or the most massive Eea-monsters that are shaped in tbe docks of Portsmouth.

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