Ever yours faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

CHAPTER 2.5.

1874.

[My father’s health continued fairly good in 1874, and while careful to avoid excessive strain he was able to undertake nearly as much as before his illness outside his regular work at South Kensington, the Royal Society, and on the Royal Commission.  To this year belong three important essays, educational and philosophical.  From February 25 to March 3 he was at Aberdeen, staying first with Professor Bain, afterwards with Mr. Webster, in fulfilment of his first duty as Lord Rector to deliver an address to the students. (It may be noted that between 1860 and 1890 he and Professor Bain were the only Lord Rectors of Aberdeen University elected on non-political grounds.) Taking as his subject “Universities, Actual and Ideal,” he then proceeded to vindicate, historically and philosophically, the claims of natural science to take the place from which it had so long been ousted in the universal culture which a University professes to give.  More especially he demanded an improved system of education in the medical school, a point to which he gave practical effect in the Council of the University.]

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained.  In such a University the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge.  And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. [("Collected Essays” 3 189 sqq.)

As for the “so-called ‘conflict of studies,’” he exclaims:—­]

One might as well inquire which of the terms of a Rule of Three sum one ought to know in order to get a trustworthy result.  Practical life is such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your capacity and divided by your circumstances gives you the fourth term in the proportion, which is your deserts, with great accuracy.

[The knowledge on which medical practice should be based is] “the sort of practical, familiar, finger-end knowledge which a watchmaker has of a watch,” [the knowledge gained in the dissecting-room and laboratory.]

Until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physiology has become an organic part of your minds—­until you would know them if you were roused and questioned in the middle of the night, as a man knows the geography of his native place and the daily life of his home.  That is the sort of knowledge which, once obtained, is a lifelong possession.  Other occupations may fill your minds—­it may grow dim and seem to be forgotten—­but there it is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which comes out when you warm it.