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Page 31
3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with
more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues
had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"
and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity which was
merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the
Messiah.
4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies,
but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They
hung together for all purposes; the mob hated them as it
now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more
frugal, more industrious, and led better lives than their
neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.
If these things are true--and I appeal to your knowledge of
history that they are so--what has the success of Christianity
to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?
Furthermore, behind all the theological developments of the Church
lies the whole question of Theism, and "the philosophical difficulties
of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever
since Theism was invented."
XIV
LIFE AND FRIENDSHIPS
"To live laborious days" was, for Huxley, at all times a necessity as
well as a creed. The lover of knowledge and truth, he firmly believed,
must devote his uttermost powers to their service; he held as strongly
that every man's first duty to society was to support himself. But
science provided more fame than pence, and with wife and family to
support he was spurred to redoubled efforts. In the early years of
married life especially, while he was still struggling to make
his way, he often felt the pinch. He added to his modest income by
reviewing and translating scientific books and by lecturing. On
one occasion, when he was a candidate for a certain scientific
lectureship, one of the committee of election, a wealthy man,
expressed astonishment at his application--"what can he want with a
hundred a year?" "I dare say," commented Huxley, "he pays his cook
that." In early days, visioning the future, he and his wife had fondly
planned to marry on �400 a year, while he pursued science, unknown
if need be, for the sake of science. The reality pressed hardly upon
them; those were dark evenings when he would come home fagged out by
a second lecture at the end of a full day's work and lay himself down
wearily on one couch, while she, so long a semi-invalid, lay uselessly
on another. And, later, the upbringing of a large family, though its
advent made life the more worth living, involved a heavy strain. At
the same time, a man who was ever ready to take up responsibilities
for the furtherance of every branch of science with which he was
concerned had endless responsibilities committed to him. Besides
his researches in pure science, whether anatomy, paleontology, or
anthropology, his regular teaching work and other courses of lectures,
his long work as examiner at the London University, the production of
scientific memoirs and text-books and more general essays, he took
a leading share in editing the _Natural History Review_ for two and
a-half years; he was an active supporter of the chief scientific
societies to which he belonged, and took a prominent part in their
administration as member of council, secretary, or president, the
most laborious period of which was during the nine years of his
secretaryship of the Royal Society, soon to be followed by the
presidency. Add to these his service on the School Board and no less
than eight Royal Commissions, and it is easy to see that the longest
working days he could contrive were always filled and over-filled.
When very tired he would occasionally dash off for a week or two's
walking with a friend in Wales, or some corner of France; two summer
holidays in Switzerland with John Tyndall resulted in a joint paper on
the "Structure of Glacier Ice"; later, the family holidays by the
sea regularly saw a good deal of time devoted to writing, while his
exercise consisted of long walks.
Unlike Darwin, who at last found nothing save science engrossing
enough to make him oblivious of his constant ill-health, Huxley
never lost his keen delight in literature and art. He was a rapid and
omnivorous reader, devouring everything from a fairy tale to a blue
book, and tearing the heart out of a book at express speed. With this
went a love of great and beautiful poetry and of prose expression that
is at once exact and artistically balanced. "I have a great love and
respect for my native tongue," he wrote, "and take great pains to use
it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can
get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious
as I grow older." Indeed, even after much re-writing, his corrections
in proof must have appalled his publishers. "Science and literature,"
he declared, "are not two things, but two sides of one thing." "Have
something to say, and say it," was the great Duke's theory of
style. "Say it in such language," added Huxley, "that you can stand
cross-examination on every word. Be clear, though you may be convicted
of error. If you are clearly wrong, you will run up against a fact
some time 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."
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