Project Gutenberg's Critiques and Addresses, by Thomas Henry HuxleyThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.netTitle: Critiques and AddressesAuthor: Thomas Henry HuxleyRelease Date: June 3, 2004 [EBook #12506]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES ***Produced by Bill Hershey and PG Distributed Proofreaders=CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.=BYTHOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S.1873.PREFACE.The "Critiques and Addresses" gathered together in this volume, like the "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews,"published three years ago, deal chiefly with educational, scientific, and philosophical subjects; and, in fact, indicate thehigh-water mark of the various tides of occupation by which I have been carried along since the beginning of the year1870.In the end of that year, a confidence in my powers of work, which, unfortunately, has not been justified by events, led me toallow myself to be brought forward as a candidate for a seat on the London School Board. Thanks to the energy of mysupporters I was elected, and took my share in the work of that body during the critical first year of its existence. Then myhealth gave way, and I was obliged to resign my place among colleagues whose large practical knowledge of thebusiness of ...
Project Gutenberg's Critiques and Addresses, by Thomas Henry Huxley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.net
Title: Critiques and Addresses
Author: Thomas Henry Huxley
Release Date: June 3, 2004 [EBook #12506]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES ***
Produced by Bill Hershey and PG Distributed Proofreaders
=CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.=
BY
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S.
1873.PREFACE.
The "Critiques and Addresses" gathered together in this volume, like the "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews,"
published three years ago, deal chiefly with educational, scientific, and philosophical subjects; and, in fact, indicate the
high-water mark of the various tides of occupation by which I have been carried along since the beginning of the year
1870.
In the end of that year, a confidence in my powers of work, which, unfortunately, has not been justified by events, led me to
allow myself to be brought forward as a candidate for a seat on the London School Board. Thanks to the energy of my
supporters I was elected, and took my share in the work of that body during the critical first year of its existence. Then my
health gave way, and I was obliged to resign my place among colleagues whose large practical knowledge of the
business of primary education, and whose self-sacrificing zeal in the discharge of the onerous and thankless duties
thrown upon them by the Legislature, made it a pleasure to work with them, even though my position was usually that of a
member of the minority.
I mention these circumstances in order to account for (I had almost said to apologize for) the existence of the two papers
which head the present series, and which are more or less political, both in the lower and in the higher senses of that
word.
The question of the expediency of any form of State Education is, in fact, a question of those higher politics which lie
above the region in which Tories, Whigs, and Radicals "delight to bark and bite." In discussing it in my address on
"Administrative Nihilism," I found myself, to my profound regret, led to diverge very widely (though even more perhaps in
seeming than in reality) from the opinions of a man of genius to whom I am bound by the twofold tie of the respect due to
a profound philosopher and the affection given to a very old friend. But had I no other means of knowing the fact, the
kindly geniality of Mr. Herbert Spencer's reply[1] assures me that the tie to which I refer will bear a much heavier strain
than I have put, or ever intend to put, upon it, and I rather rejoice that I have been the means of calling forth so vigorous a
piece of argumentative writing. Nor is this disinterested joy at an attack upon myself diminished by the circumstance,
that, in all humility, but in all sincerity, I think it may be repulsed.
[Footnote 1: "Specialized Administration;" Fortnightly Review,
December 1871.]
Mr. Spencer complains that I have first misinterpreted, and then miscalled, the doctrine of which he is so able an
expositor. It would grieve me very much if I were really open to this charge. But what are the facts? I define this doctrine
as follows:—
"Those who hold these views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce them deductively by
arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects from
aggression. The State is simply a policeman, and its duty, neither more nor less than to prevent robbery and
murder and enforce contracts. It is not to promote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by the
enforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon purse or
person. And, according to this view, the proper form of government is neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, nor
a democracy, but an astynomocracy, or police government. On the other hand, these views are supported à
posteriori by an induction from observation, which professes to show that whatever is done by a Government
beyond these negative limits, is not only sure to be done badly, but to be done much worse than private
enterprise would have done the same thing."
I was filled with surprised regret when I learned from the conclusion of the article on "Specialized Administration," that this
statement is held by Mr. Spencer to be a, misinterpretation of his views. Perhaps I ought to be still more sorry to be
obliged to declare myself, even now, unable to discover where my misinterpretation lies, or in what respect my
presentation of Mr. Spencer's views differs from his own most recent version of them. As the passage cited above
shows. I have carefully defined the sense in which I use the terms which I employ, and, therefore, I am not greatly
concerned to defend the abstract appropriateness of the terms themselves. And when Mr. Spencer maintains the only
proper functions of Government to be those which are comprehensible under the description of "Negatively regulative
control," I may suggest that the difference between such "Negative Administration" and "Administrative Nihilism," in the
sense defined by me, is not easily discernible.
Having, as I hope, relieved myself from the suspicion of having misunderstood or misrepresented Mr. Spencer's views, I
might, if I could forget that I am writing a preface, proceed to the discussion of the parallel which he elaborates, with much
knowledge and power, between the physiological and the social organisms. But this is not the place for a controversy
involving so many technicalities, and I content myself with one remark, namely, that the whole course of modern
physiological discovery tends to show, with more and more clearness, that the vascular system, or apparatus for
distributing commodities in the animal organism, is eminently under the control of the cerebro-spinal nervous centres—a
fact which, unless I am again mistaken, is contrary to one of Mr. Spencer's fundamental assumptions. In the animal
organism, Government does meddle with trade, and even goes so far as to tamper a good deal with the currency.
In the same number of the Fortnightly Review as that which contains Mr. Spencer's essay, Miss Helen Taylor assails me
—though, I am bound to admit, more in sorrow than in anger—for what she terms, my "New Attack on Toleration." It is I,this time, who may complain of misinterpretation, if the greater part of Miss Taylor's article (with which I entirely
sympathise) is supposed to be applicable to my "intolerance." Let us have full-toleration, by all means, upon all questions
in which there is room for doubt, or which cannot be distinctly proved to affect the welfare of mankind. But when Miss
Taylor has shown what basis exists for criminal legislation, except