Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
Of the other two discourses referred to, one is the opening address
which he delivered as Principal at the South London Working Men's
College on January 4, "A Liberal Education, and Where to Find It." This
is not a brief for science to the exclusion of other teaching; no essay
has insisted more strenuously on the evils of a one-sided education,
whether it be classical or scientific; but it urged the necessity for a
strong tincture of science and her method, if the modern conception of
the world, created by the spread of natural knowledge, is to be fairly
understood. If culture is the "criticism of life," it is fallacious if
deprived of knowledge of the most important factor which has transformed
the medieval into the modern spirit.
Two of his most striking passages are to be found in this address; one
the simile of the force behind nature as the hidden chess player; the
other the noble description of the end of a true education.
Well known as it is, I venture to quote the latter as an instance of his
style:--]
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 mouth-piece, her conscious
self, her minister and interpreter.
[The third of these discourses is the address "On the Physical Basis of
Life," of which he writes to Haeckel on January 20, 1869:--]
You will be amused to hear that I went to the holy city, Edinburgh
itself, the other day, for the purpose of giving the first of a series
of Sunday lectures. I came back without being stoned; but Murchison (who
is a Scotchman you know), told me he thought it was the boldest act of
my life. The lecture will be published in February, and I shall send it
to you, as it contains a criticism of materialism which I should like
you to consider.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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