April 8, 2006

Thomas Huxley’s major academic contributions to science include the Anatomy of Medusae, The Theory of Vertebrate Skulls, Physiography, Man’s Place in Nature, Lay Sermons, The Advance of Science, The Crayfish, Discoveries — Biological and Geological, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Evolution and Ethics, besides essays on various scientific subjects.

Born in Ealing, west of London in 1825, Huxley entered a semi-public school at the age of eight, left it at ten, and never had another bit of regular schooling. He was a self-made man. His formal introduction to learning had left him with nothing but bitter memories.

“The society I fell into at school was the worst I had ever known... The people who were set over us care as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they were baby farmers,” he said. It was here that he received his first idea of the struggle of existence.

“Bullying was the least of the ill practices among us.” Only the fittest survived.

Huxley’s father had been a senior master of the Ealing school. But when the enterprise encountered financial difficulties, he was relieved of his post. The senior Huxley took his family to Coventry and secured a position in a local saving bank. Encumbered by his financial worries he allowed Tom’s mental faculties to “just naturally grow without benefit of classes”. As a result, young Huxley’s educational curriculum consisted largely of reading.

Every morning before dawn, he lit his candle, pinned a blanket round his shoulders, and sat up in his bed devouring all sorts of books on every conceivable subject. He had a picturesque mind and he worked extremely hard when it pleased him. When it did not, which was a frequent case, he was extremely idle.

Despite having no background of mathematics, Huxley’s earliest dream was to become a civil engineer. The idea of building bridges was fascinating for him. But as he grew older he changed his interest of building bridges into healing of bodies. He had a large number of close relatives in medicine. Not to be outdone, Tom Huxley joined the family of medical doctors.

For two years he studied medicine and then he hired himself out as an assistant practitioner to Dr Chandler, who was an acquaintance. In due course he received a free scholarship to the Charing Cross Hospital, where he did Honours in anatomy and physiology.

He tried to enter the college of surgeons but was too young — not quite 20. After aimlessly drifting for some time, Huxley was appointed assistant surgeon in the Hasler Naval Hospital. However, he was bored there, because he was hoping to be taken along on an expedition to the distant seas. His dream finally came true when he was asked to accompany Sir John Richard — who had taken a fabulous expedition to the Strait of Magellan and Arctic regions.

Huxley immediately agreed, and spent much of his time in his cabin reading books, studying through the microscope whatever strange specimen of life they discovered on the expedition, making sketches, taking notes — in short, his vistas to new visions, new islands, new facts.

The trip bore great fruit for Huxley. He charted mountain rangers that had never been recorded. He helped save a shipwrecked white woman who had been captured by natives and struck up a friendship with the chieftain who claimed him as the spirit of his dead brother. And most importantly, it was here that he found his better half.

He wrote to his mother from Sydney about his engagement. Henrietta had been to school in Germany for two years, spoke German and was interested in German literature. Apparently, these accomplishments “put her right” in the eyes of a fond mother whose husband once taught in the school.

But the wedding did not happen until Huxley got established. He left Henrietta in Sydney and returned home to his influential friends. They suggested that he attend the meeting of the British Association and make his presence felt in some way. In order to succeed, they told him, a man must do a “little trumpeting now and then”.

And so, Huxley delivered his first lecture on oceanic hydrozoa, which received little notice. But his second lecture on anatomy of jellyfish brought him recognition. The report earned him the Royal Medal and an election to the Royal Society. As he wrote enthusiastically to Henrietta, “If only I had four hundred pounds a year!”

Huxley was not only a populariser of scientific knowledge, but a crusader for scientific causes. He saw to it that unrecognised pioneers won recognition. He was also willing to enter into arguments over theories with an intellectual insight.

At that point in time there was an unusually spirited fight raging around Darwin’s theory of evolution. If offended the dignity of many people to acknowledge their descent from the lower animals. For 25 years the battle for evolution went on with unabated fury and Huxley always stayed in the forefront.

The newspapers headlined the issue. He collected his arguments in favour of Darwin’s theory of evolution and published it in the form of a report, Man’s Place in Nature.

It did not matter to him that people called him a heretic, an infidel, and other such harsh names. His religion was candid scepticism — a constructive rather than a destructive doubt. His attitude towards life was that of the scientist-poet. Truth is wisdom plus beauty.

“Teach a child what is wise — that is morality; teach a child what is wise and beautiful — that is religion” was the paramount object of Huxley's life. In 1870 the British Parliament passed an act to make education free for the needy children and Huxley was elected a member of the new school board.

He used to take frequent trips to the Mediterranean to breath into the fresh sea air that he loved so much. But just as often as he returned to his professional duties, he found his gastric attacks recurring. His friend Hooker suggested the use of nicotine which did not help much.

At 59 Huxley had all his teeth extracted. He feared that this was a grave forewarning as he had noted that the decay of an animal’s teeth was often a premonition of its death. In his 60th year his health faded rapidly.

He was forced to give up work on dissection since it entailed too great a demand on his ebbing strength. He resigned from his professorship and his inspectorship at the department of fisheries. And finally with a heavy heart, he gave up the greatest of his honours — the presidency of the Royal Society.

In a touchingly simple speech Huxley explained to the members that in view of their kindness he could not consider holding the office any longer as he felt unable to carry out the charge. Then when he had finished, he turned to his friends and said in a low voice, “I have just announced my official death.”

Huxley was exalted into a saint. He received the honorary degree of doctorate of laws from the citadel of British orthodoxy, the University of Cambridge. And finally he was knighted.

As Huxley grew older he withdrew more and more from society into the solitude of his garden. He passed through a severe winter in his 70th year, yet he had never felt more cheerful. As the spring approached, he wrote to his friend Hooker and told him not to pay any attention to the alarming reports that were being published in the newspapers about his health. Three days later he was no more.

The writer is a former chief scientific officer of the PCSIR Laboratories, Karachi