I am quite willing to sacrifice my friend for a principle, but not for somebody else’s friend, and I mean to vote for Clark; though I am not going to try to force my notion down any one else’s throat.

Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[On the same subject he writes to Sir M. Foster:—­]

Obedience be hanged.  It would not lie in my mouth, as the lawyers say, to object to anybody’s getting his own way if he can.

If Clark had not been a personal friend of mine I should not have hesitated a moment about deciding in his favour.  Under the circumstances it was quite clear what I should do if I were forced to decide, and I thought it would have been kindly and courteous to the President if he had been let off the necessity of making a decision which was obviously disagreeable to him.

If, on the other hand, it was wished to fix the responsibility of what happened on him, I am glad that he had the opportunity of accepting it.  I never was more clear as to what was the right thing to do.

[So also at other times; he writes in September to Sir M. Foster, the Secretary, with reference to evening gatherings at which smoking should be permitted.]

Bournemouth, September 17, 1885.

I am not at all sure that I can give my blessing to the “Tabagie.”  When I heard of it I had great doubts as to its being a wise move.  It is not the question of “smoke” so much, as the principle of having meetings in the Society’s rooms, which are not practically (whatever they may be theoretically), open to all the fellows, and which will certainly be regarded as the quasi-private parties of one of the officers.  You will have all sorts of jealousies roused, and talk of a clique, etc.

When I was Secretary the one thing I was most careful to avoid was the appearance of desiring to exert any special influence.  But there was a jealousy of the x Club, and only the other day, to my great amusement, I was talking to an influential member of the Royal Society Club about the possibility of fusing it with the Phil.  Club, and he said, forgetting I was a member of the latter:  “Oh! we don’t want any of those wire-pullers!” Poor dear innocent dull-as-ditchwater Phil.  Club!

[Mention has already been made of the unveiling of the Darwin statue at South Kensington on June 9, when, as President of the Royal Society, Huxley delivered an address in the name of the Memorial Committee, on handing over the statue of Darwin to H.R.H.  The Prince of Wales, as representative of the Trustees of the British Museum.  The concluding words of the speech deserve quotation:—­]

We do not make this request [i.e. to accept the statue] for the mere sake of perpetuating a memory; for so long as men occupy themselves with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Copernicus, or that of Harvey.

Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its cynosural position in this entrance hall of our National Museum of Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin’s views have received your official sanction; for science does not recognise such sanctions, and commits suicide when it adopts a creed.