Thoughts and Doings

7/28/2019 Thoughts and Doings

1/22

The Smoker

Copy of Ostade's "The Smoker"

drawn by THH 1839

Huxley Archives

THOUGHTS AND DOINGS:

1840-45

by

T.H. Huxley

[Edited by Steven Cann]


2/22

[HP 31]

[Cover, P.1]

THOUGHTS & DOINGS

--------from-------

Sept. 291840

[Inside front cover, P.2]

Philosophy can bake no

bread; but it can procurefor us God[,] freedom &

immortality.

Which now is more practical[,]

Philosophy or Economy [?]

Novalis. Schriften Herausgegeben von

L. Tieck und F. SchlegalVol. 2 Page 126.


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[3] September 29.

Remember to make

a galvanic battery with lead or ironon the first opportunity.

Also to try the experiment of a simple

galvanic currenthaving syrupinstead of sulphate

of copper & dilute sulfuric acid

to act on the zinc. Might not

crystalized carbon beobtained thus?

October 1.

Went to Hinckley.

Began speculatingon the cause of coloursat sunset. Has any explanation

of them ever

been attempted?

(Copy from old book) There is no necessityfor supposing the atmosphere

to be liquified if it has an

internal reflecting angleas it must have[,] it is sufficient.

[4] Does not the colour of the

sky at sunrise and sunsetarise from the reflexion of the

rays of light from some

liquid? perhaps liquified

air in the upper cold regions.

In this case colours would

appear in this order fromthe sun[:]

red, orange, yellow, green [and] blue.

Red is seen nearest the sun becausebeing refracted least, it strikes

on the reflecting surface at

the greatest angle and reachesthe eye of the spectator first.

Of course all their effects


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may be much modified

by the passage of the rays

through transparent clouds suchas those mentioned by [Humboldt.]

Through masses of vapour also

and by equal heating of theatmosphere[.]

[5]

God help you goose!1845

[6] October 19

Saw an aurora borealisbetween 7 & 8 p.m. It appearedas a mass of milk with the light

in the horizon (Northwest) from

whence extended 5 or 6 streamersto the zenith. It passedto the north as I watched.

And when I last saw it the

streamers passed throughUrsa Major. A brilliant

shooting star around one of

the streamers. There had beena very high wind all day.--25

th.

at Hinckley. Read

Dr. S. Smith on the DivineGovernment. Agree with him

partly. I should say

that a general belief in his

doctrines would have a veryinjurious effect on morals.

[7] November 1st

Tried an electrolyte experiment.Had a long talk with

my mother and father about the

right to make Dissenterspay church ratesand whether

there ought to be any establish-


5/22

ment. I maintained

that there ought not to be in

both cases. I wonder what willbe my opinions ten years hence?

I think now that it is against

all laws of justice to forcemen to support a churchwith whose opinions they cannot

conscientiously agree. The

argument that the rate isso small is very fallacious.

It is as much a sacrifice of

principle to do a little wrong as

to do a great one.

[8] 5th

.

Tried proposition No.2 (Sept. 29th

.).

Carbon is deposited on the copperplate but [is] not crystalized.

Perhaps this arises from the

shortness of the time. The experiment

has taken.Perhaps with a thicker division

of plaster I might obtain different

results.22

nd. Sunday

HinckleyHad a long

argument with Mr. May on the

nature of the soul and the differencebetween it and matter.

I maintained that it could

not be proved that matteris essentiallyas to its base

different from soul.

Mr. M. wittily said, ["]soul

was the perspiration ofmatter.["]

[Reverse of 8] We cannot find the absolute basis

[9] of matter[:] we only know it by

its properties[;] neither know wethe soul in any other way.

Cogito, ergo sumis the only

thing we certainly Know[.]


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[10] Why may not the soul and

matter be of the same

substance (i.e. basis whereonto fix the qualities [,] for we cannot

suppose a quality to exist

per seit must have asomething to qualify)but with different qualities.

Let us suppose then an Eon

a something with no qualitybut that of existencethis

Eon endowed with all the intelligence,

mental qualities, and that in the highest

degree is God. Thiscombination of intelligence with

existence we may suppose to

have existed from eternity.At the creation we may suppose

that a portion of the Eon was

separated from the intelligence

and it was ordainedit became a

[11] natural lawthat it should

have the properties of gravitation&c., that it should

give to man the ideas of those

properties. The Eon in thisstate is matter in the abstract.

Matter[,] then[,] is Eon in the simplest

form in which it possesses qualities

appreciable by the senses.Out of this matter[,] by the

superimposition of fresh

qualities[,] was made all things

that are.

[12]

1840 ? 1841 see later

January 7. Came to Rotherhithe.

June 20.


7/22

What have I done

in the way of acquiring knowledge

since January?Projects Begun

1. German} to be learnt

2. Italian1. To read Mller's Physiology

2. To prepare for the Matriculation Examination at London University which requires a

knowledge of:

1. AlgebraGeometry

}

Did not begin to

read for this till

April 9.

2. Natural Philosophy

3. Chemistry

1. GreekLatin

2. English History down to end of 17t

century

1. Ancient History

2. English Grammar

1. To make copious notes of all things I read

[13]

Well do I remember how in that

narrow little surgery I used towork morning after morning

and evening after eveningat that insufferable dry andprofitless book, Humes History.

How I worked against hope

through the series of the series of thefts,robberies and throat-

cutting in those three first volumes,

and how at length I gave up

the task in utter despair.Mackintoshs History, on the

other hand, I remember reading

with great pleasure, and alsoGuizots Civilization in Europe.

The scientific theoretical form of

the latter especially pleased me,

but the want of sufficient knowledgeto test his conclusions was a great

drawback.


8/22

_________________ 1845

[14]

Projects completed

1. partly2. not at all2.

5.} stuck to these pretty closely

4.

e. read as far as Henry III in Humea. Evolution & involution

b. refraction of lightspolarisation partly

c. laws of combinationmust read them over again

d. nothingf. nothing

g. nothing

[14] I must get on faster thanthis. I must adopt a

fixed plan of studies, for unless

this is done I find time slips

away without knowingitand let me remember

thisthat it is better to

read a little and thoroughly, than

cram a crude and undigested massinto my head, though it be great

in quantity.

(This is about the only resolution I have stuck to1845)

[15]WeekJune 20 to 27.

Tuesday ThursdayPhysiology

MondayWednesdayFriday

Chronological abstract of reign ofHenry III. Edward 1

st. And IInd and IIIrd.

Evenings1st

14 theorems and arithmetical properties.

SaturdayRead over atomic theory

and laws of combination and electricity.Turner and Manuel.

An hour every afternoon for German.


9/22

Truths

"I hate all people who want toform sects. It is not error but

sectarian error. Nay, and even

sectarian truth, which causes theunhappiness of mankind."Lessing.

"It is only necessary to grow oldto become more indulgent. I

see no fault committed that I

have not committed Myself."Goethe

"One solitary philosopher may be

great, virtuous and happy in themidst of poverty, but not a whole

nation."Isaac Iselin

[Top of page cut away]

[16] Week June 27 to July 4.

Mondayout Wednesday

Friday

}Chronological abstract and read Edward III

Reviewin part

Tuesday

(ill) Thursday} Physiology +

Evenings10 theorems & reviewGeom. propositions & reviewGerman

What with going out and beingunwell have been very idle

this week


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Week July 4 to 11.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

}Chronological abstract of Richard II +(History) Henry IV & Henry 5

TuesdayThursday

} (Physiology) Abstract pages 231 to 244 +read to End of Cap. III +

Geometry

Algebra}

12 theoremsand reviews+

additionsubtractionmultiplication

and division with reasons for the rules. +

German. Lobenlearn conjugations of

Translate

Week August 2 to 9

History(every morning)

{ Henry IV, V and VI.Read and abstract.

German

(afternoons){ Translate 'Die Ideal'

Mathematics(evenings)

{

First part of Infinite

seriesEquations of one

and two unknowns.

Is nothing worth mentioning

in the latter part of July except

Guizot

out from 15 to 19th.19th to 28thengage in making an electromagnet.21

st. to 31

st.read Guizots "History

of Civilization". An excellent

workvery tough reading though.

[18] September 27th

1841toOctober 4

Laid out for this week

1. History Guizot on feudalismRobertson on samefinish Hume vol.III. 3

1.Mathematics Review 20 theoremsBegin the geometry of circles and go throughpropositions and progressing (Manuel)

1. German Get up in German adjectives.


11/22

Monday

a. Read Robertson 7 with 8

review Guizot. Edward iv. Richard III.b. Theorems X.

c. German adjectives.

MiscellaneousBecame acquainted with

constitution of the French chambre des

dputs and their parties.

Tuesday

Henry vii. Guizot

PropositionsGerman adjectives

[19]

[Drawn vertically]

Knowledge

Subjective

|

Metaphysics

|

Objective

|

|

|

| | | | | | | | |

Metaphysics

proper

Mathematics Logic Theology Morality History Physiology Physics

[20] 1842January 30th


12/22

Sunday Evening

I have for some time pastbeen pondering over a

"Classification of Knowledge".

My scheme is to divideall knowledge in the first place

into two grand divisions.

1. Objectivethat for whicha man is indebted to the

external world [;] and,

2. Subjectivethat which he

has acquired or may acquireby inward contemplation.

Metaphysics comes immediately[,]

of course[,] under the first (2) headthat is to say[,] the relations of

mind to itself --- of thisMathematics and Logic[,] together

with Theology[,] are branches.

[21] I am in doubt under

which head to put morality[,]

for I cannot determine

exactly in my own mindwhether morality can exist

independent of otherswhetherthe idea of morality could everhave arisen in the mind

of an isolated being or not.

I am rather inclined to theopinion that it is objective.

Under the head of objective

knowledge comes firstlyPhysicsincluding the whole

body of the relations of inanimate

unorganized bodies[;]

2 [secondly] Physiologyincluding the

structure and functions ofanimal bodies[,] including

Language and Psychology[;]

[22] thirdly comes History.


13/22

The object for which I have

attempted to form an

arrangement of knowledgeis that I may test the

amount of my own achievement.

I shall form an extensivelist of subjects on this plan[,]and as I acquire any of them

I shall strike it out of the

list. May the listsoon get black! Though at the

present I shall hardly be able[,]

I am afraid[,] to spot

the paper.

(A Prophecy! A Prophecy!)

1845

[23] April 1842

Carlyles Miscellaneous Writings

"Characteristics"(Edinburgh Review 1831)

"In the mind as in the body

the sign of health is unconsciousness."

"Of our thinking it is but the uppersurface that we shape into

articulate thoughtunderneaththe region of argument and conscious

discourse, lies the region of meditation."

"Genius is ever a secret to itself."


14/22

"The healthy understandingwe should say, is neither the

argumentative nor the logical,but the intuitive, for the

end of understanding is not to

prove and find reasons butto know and believe."

"The ages of heroism arenot the ages of Moral Philosophy.

Virtue when it is philosophized of[24] has become aware of itself[,]

is sickly and beginning to decline."

"Goodness which was a rule to itself,

must now appeal to precept[,] and seek strength

from sanctions[;]the Free will no longer reignsunquestioned and by Devine

Right, but like a mere earthly

sovereign, by expediency, byrewards and punishments; or

rather[,] let us say[,] the free-will[,]

so far as may be, has abdicatedand withdrawn into the dark[,]and a spectral nightmare of

a necessity usurps its throne[;]

for now that mysterious self [] impulseof the whole man[,]

heaven [] inspired[,] and in all

senses partaking of the Infinite[,]

being captiously questionedin a finite dialect[,] and

answering, as it needs must

[25] by silenceis conceived as non-extant,and only the outward mechanism

of remains acknowledged;

of Volition, except as the synonym

of Desire, we hear nothing ofMotives without any Mover,

more than enough."


15/22

Man with relation to society

"The duties of man to what

is the highest in himself, make butthe first Table of the Law: to the

First Table is now superadded a

Second [,] with the duties of Manto his Neighbour; whereby also

the significance of the First

now assumes its true importance.

Man has joined himself to man;soul acts and reacts to soul; a

mystic miraculous unfathomable

Union establishes itselfLife,

with all its elements [,] hasbecome intensated--consecrated.

[26] "The lightning--spark of thought

generated or say rather heavenkindled[,]

in the solitary mind awakes.Its express likeness in another

mind, in a thousand minds[,]

and all blaze together in

combined fire; reverberatedfrom mind to mind, [fed also with

fresh fuel in each,] it acquiresincalculable new light as thought[,]Incalculable new heat as converted into Action.

By and by, a common store of

thought can accumulate, andbe transmitted as an everlasting

possession: Literature, whether [as]

preserved in the memory of [the] Bards,

in the Runes and Hieroglyphs[engraved on the stone,] or in Books

[of written or printed paper] comes into

existence and

begins to play wondrous part.Politics are formed[:]

the weak submitting to the

strong with a willing


16/22

[27] "loyalty, giving obediencethat may receive guidance:

or say rather[,] in honour of ournature, the ignorance submitting

to the wise [;] for so it is all

even the rudest communities,man never yields himselfwholly to brute force, but always

to Moral Greatness..."

"Last, as the crown and all

supporting keystone of the fabric,

Religion arisesthe devoutmeditation of the isolated

man, which flitted through his soul [,]

like a transient tone of love

and awe from the unknown lands [,]acquire certainty [,] continuance [,]

when it is shared by hisfellow menWhere twoor three are gathered together

in the name of the Highest [,]

then first does the Highest [,]

as it is written, appear

[28] "among them to bless them [;]then first does an alter and

act of united worship

open a way

from Earth to Heaven;where on, were it but a simple

Jacobs Ladder, the heavenly

messengers will travel [,] withglad tidings and unspeakable

gifts of men."

Every Society, every Polity, has a

spiritual principle; [it] is the embodiment,

tentative [and] more or less complete of an

Idea [...]"[...] this idea, be it of devotion to a man

or a class of men [,] to

a creed, to the institution, oreven [,] as in [a] more ancient

times, to a piece of land [,] is

ever true loyalty [;]


17/22

has it something of a religious [,]

paramount, quite infinite

[29] character; it is properly the Soulof State, its Life; mysterious

as other forms of life, and like

these workings secretly, and in adepth beyond that of consciousness."

[30] June 1842

I observe that on the

experiment in the figure[,] the

galvanom[eter] needle is deflected.This may arise from one

of three causes; First[,] the

circuit being completed partially

through p. p.through this isextemely improbable. Before[,]

from an induction similarto that of electricity.

Third, from an induction

similar to that of a wire

through which a currentis passing upon another wire.


18/22

[31] The first supposition cannot betrue because 1

stthe secondary current

would be in that case stronger when [the] connexionis broken at Awhereas in that case

all effects ceases.

Second [,] because the recordingcurrent is in an opposite directionto the primary.

["No answer at all." written over the sentence

possibly Oct. 1845](2) The second view appears to me

the most probableto wit: that

the liquid (Acid and I[ron] copper) acts as

a sort of dielectric (?) preciselysimilar to a plate of air

through which induction ordinary

is going on. For if a piece of copper be placedlike d. e.[,] the extremity d.

becomes covered with copper and

extremity e. dissolves off. Here

there is polarizationprecisely similar to that of a

[32] plate of metal insulated

and placed between aninducteous and inductive body.

In the case of the experiment itself

I imagine that though platinum

plates are in preciselythe same state that two

metal plates connected by a wire

would be if placed [between two] above.Would not in this case

one of them become subject

positive and the other entirely

negative [?]I would suppose then

that -particles [...]

[33] Try whether connecting the

zinc with the plate in its cell

through the gal[vanometer] will have anyeffect.


19/22

[34] October 1845

I have found the singular pleasurehaving accidently raked this

b_chlein from a corner of my

deskin looking over these scrapsof notices of my past existence.

An illustration of J. Pauls

saying that a man has but towrite down his yesterdays doings

and forthwith they appear surrounded

with a poetic

[Bottom of page cut away]

[35]

halo.But after all these are

but the skimmings of

these five years living.I hardly care to lookback into the seething

depths of the working and

boiling mass that laybeneath all this froth[,]

and indeed I hardly know

whether I could givemyself any clear accountof it. Remembrances

of physical and mental

painof


20/22

[Top of page cut away]

[36]

absence of sympathy[,]

and thence a choking upof such few ideas

as I did form clearly within

my own mind.Grief tooyet at the

misfortunes of othersfor I have had few properly

my ownso much the worsefor in that case I

might have said or done

somewhat [,] but here was

powerless.

[Only this portion of the page remains.]

[37]

[...] oh Tom[,]

trouble not thyself aboutsympathythou hast

[38] stout legs and young[,]

wherefore need a staff?Furthermore[,] it is twenty

minutes past twoand

time to go to bed.B_chlein[,] it will

be long before my

secretiveness remains so

quiet againmake themost of what thou hast got.


21/22

[39] Modern Poets of whomI know too little

Robert BrowningAuthor of Paracelsus

Sordello [,] etc.,

P.J. BaileyAuthor of FestusMonckton Milnes

Hartley Coleridge

Horne

[Inside of back cover]

[40]

Saturday Mag.

No. 278-9Meteorology433-443Navigation

Penny Cyclopedia

No? 784&5Insects

733&4Heart313Brain

Carlyles Essay on Characteristics

Edinburgh Review 1831

[Outside back cover, upside down]

[41]

German

Chemistry

Robertson

McIntoshGuizot

Gil BlasLatin (Gregory and...?)


22/22

Nat

Philosophy{

Mechanics

Hydrostatics

Acoustics

Optics

Mathematics {

Optics

Algebra

Arithmetic -------------------

Euclid Bk. I.

Arithmetics & Algebra

GeometryPlane & Spherical Trig.

Conic Sections

Elements of Statics &

DynamicsElements of Hydrostatics

Elements of Optics

Languages {

French

GermanLatin

Greek

(Italian?)

Chemistry

History {

English History (Hume) (McIntosh)

Ancient History (Rollin Mitford

Gibbon)Guizot[,] Hist Civilization

Robertson 1 vol: Charles V.

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Thoughts and Doings