THE HUXLEY CENTENARY

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1639, 9 May 1925, Page 2

THE HUXLEY CENTENARY

OCCURRED THIS MONTH.

“It is a tremendously impressive face,” observes Mr Horace Hutchinson, that looks • down on you, in marble, as you enter the Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Road. On the pedestal of the figure you will read ‘Thomas Henry Huxley; born May 4th, 1825; died June 29th, 1895” —a bald but sufficient inscription, such as the great scientist himself would have approved. A photograph lies before us as we write. There can be no question about the impressiveness of the countenance. The lines are stern, even hard, indicating a man had “voyaged through great seas of thought” and weathered many intellectual struggles and controversial storms. For Huxley could have said, with Browning, “I was ever a fighter.” At the same time the traces of geniality and humorous toleration are not lacking. “There are faces which are as masks, hiding the character of the man behind them. This face is of quite another kind. It seems as if it must tell the true story of the man; and it does.” It is the story, moreover, of one of the most remarkable men of the Victorian age.

Professor Huxley was a man of many parts and infinitely varied interests. He was pre-eminently a biologist, but even on the scientific side his knowledge and capacity were astonishingly extensive. It is safe to say that no one in his time was more completely master of the whole range of scientific purview. Leaving this primary aspect of his career aside for the moment, we may note that he was best known to the general public in his day as an all-round controversialist. Religion, politics, soicology, education, all engaged his alert attention, and his heart was always in the game of argumentative warfare. With utmost ' frankness he “drank delight of battle with his peers,” and his fitness for the fray was enhanced by the possession of a wonderfully trenchant and pellucid literary style. Perhaps no scientific writer has ever beforei displayed such attractive qualities. Whether in arms against militant ecclesiastics such as Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Archbishop Magee, or against Mr Gladstone, most strenuous of lay theologians, or against representatives of the race of heretical Socialists, as he regarded them, he was always a most formidable antagonist. No doubt he could be very bitter at times, and it is said that his heterodoxy was more acrimoniously expressed in his casual talk than in his published, strictures. “Some/ of Huxley’s conversation is positively evil" was the.recorded remark of a not prejudiced critic. Apologists pointed out that Huxley had suffered severely in early days from intolerant and. narrow-minded censure. The iron had entered into his soul, and' when he had established his reputation he was disinclined to spare his opponents. Certainly, his treatment of Bishop Wilberforce, in the evolution controversy, was almost terrifically mordant, though not entirely unprovoked, for Wilberforce knew little about the subject which he handled with such astounding confidence. Frederic Harrison also felt the sting of that masterful invective. It might almost seem that the gospel of Positivism would have appealed to Huxley in some of its features. But no; it was “a half-breed between science and religion, endowed, like most halfbreeds, with the vices of both parents and the virtues of neither.” Still, though the caustic touch was never lost, the great professor mellowed noticeably with the advancing years. There is a pleasant note in the allusion to Archbishop Magee attached to one of hig latest essays. Some people thought that the distinguished and witty prelate did not come off second best in his final controversy. Anyhow, he was a foeman worthy of Huxley’s steel, and Huxley wrote afterwards: “I met him for the last time on the steps of the Athenaeum. He held out his hand and. asked, ‘ls it peace or war,’ ‘A little of both,’ I replied; but it was always peace till the too speedy end.” Huxley at his sunset after a rather tempestuous career! We have lingered over Professor Huxley’s more popular aspects, but of course his chief importance attaches to his scientific distinction and achievements. He was an earnest, but not slavish, disciple of Darwin. A slightly modified version of the Darwinian theory of evolution commanded his persistent advocacy. The embers of the once fierce controversy are cool. The pulpit accepts evolutionary doctrines that were denounced in Vears gone by with anathematic vehemence. Huxley expounded and illustrated evolution with infinite resourcefulness. He was convinced of the substantial foundation of the theory, but he was such a thorough sceptic that he even suspected his own convictions. He used to say, we are told, that he was rightly named “Thomas,” after the doubting apostle. He also said on one occasion, “I have opposed dogmatism on the religious side; I wish to be careful not to dogmatise on the scientific side.” He knew that evolu-

tion did not spell the solution of the secret of the universe. It has been justly said that, apart from his reservations to the Darwinian faith, he ‘saw quite clearly that there must always remain one puzzle which evolution is perfectly inadequate to solve —itself.” Thus he was an Agnostic, and indeed he was the inventor of the now familiar term. Independent of speculative activities, he was a scientist who made most valuable contributions to the store of knowledge and clarified systems of investigations.— Otago Daily Times.