Did Lady Brewster faint?

Eric Korn

Huxley: Evolution’s High Priest by Adrian Desmond
Joseph, 372 pp, £20.00, March 1997, ISBN 0 7181 3882 1

In 1883, a Mr Wendell Phillips Garrison of New York published a travel narrative called What Mr Darwin Saw on his Voyage around the World, a narrative that follows pretty closely Darwin’s own line and Darwin’s own words, or at least the less intellectually taxing of Darwin’s own words. In a remarkable preface Garrison suggests that the text contains all a child needs at every stage of its education: a well-conducted parent could match the level of difficulty with the child’s evolving ability, telling the story in simple numbers for the babe in arms or on the knee, in greater detail for the toddler and schoolchild, until the grown student gets the undiluted works. Darwin’s text would teach not only reading, but mathematics, science, geography, history and physiography. Darwin in nursery rhymes to Darwin in Alcaics.

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Vol. 19 No. 8 · 24 April 1997 » Eric Korn » Did Lady Brewster faint? (print version)
pages 17-18 | 3014 words

Letters

From Nicolas Walter

Eric Korn’s review of the second volume of Adrian Desmond’s biography of T.H. Huxley (LRB, 24 April), noting that Huxley ‘constructed a respectable, almost a pious agnosticism’, misleadingly states that he did this ‘while distancing himself from the political atheists Bradlaugh, Watts, Holyoake’, and even more misleadingly adds that ‘when the Agnostic Annual pirated a piece of his, Huxley was furious.’ Huxley did distance himself from Charles Bradlaugh, who was indeed a ‘political atheist’, though Desmond exaggerates the militancy of his methods. But Huxley didn’t distance himself from G.J. Holyoake, who adopted secularism in 1851 precisely to avoid atheism and was as much of a snob as Huxley; the two were in friendly contact for several decades. There were actually two freethinkers called Charles Watts, though Desmond confuses them, and neither of them called himself an atheist; Charles Watts preferred secularism and his son Charles Albert preferred agnosticism, both later adopted rationalism, and Charles Albert formed the ultra-respectable Rationalist Press Association. When he prepared the first issue of the Agnostic Annual, in 1883, he approached several leading agnostics for statements to be included in it. When it was published Huxley complained that his letter had been a private communication, but when Watts published their correspondence it was clear that he was wrong. They soon made up their quarrel, were in touch for several years, and in 1891 Huxley contributed an article on miracles to the Agnostic Annual. In this case, too, Desmond exaggerates the militancy of Watts and his associates.

Nicolas Walter
London N1