During his own tenure of the Presidency Huxley had carefully abstained from any official connection with societies are public movements on which the feeling of the Royal Society was divided, lest as a body it might seem committed by the person and name of its President.  He thought it a mistake that his successor should even be President of the Victoria Institute.

Thus there is a good deal in his correspondence bearing on this matter.  He writes on November 6 to Sir J. Hooker:—­]

I am extremely exercised in my mind about Stokes’ going into Parliament (as a strong party man, moreover) while still P.R.S.  I do not know what you may think about it, but to my mind it is utterly wrong—­and degrading to the Society—­by introducing politics into its affairs.

[And on the same day to Sir M. Foster:—­]

I think it is extremely improper for the President of the Royal Society to accept a position as a party politician.  As a Unionist I should vote for him if I had a vote for Cambridge University, but for all that I think it is most lamentable that the President of the Society should be dragged into party mud.

When I was President I refused to take the Presidency of the Sunday League, because of the division of opinion on the subject.  Now we are being connected with the Victoria Institute, and sucked into the slough of politics.

[These considerations weighed heavily with several both of the older and the younger members of the Society; but the majority were indifferent to the dangers of the precedent.  The Council could not discuss the matter; they waited in vain for an official announcement of his election from the President, while he, as it turned out, expected them to broach the subject.

Various proposals were discussed; but it seemed best that, as a preliminary to further action, an editorial article written by Huxley should be inserted in “Nature,” indicating what was felt by a section of the Society, and suggesting that resignation of one of the two offices was the right solution of the difficulty.

Finally, it seemed that perhaps, after all, a] “masterly inactivity” [was the best line of action.  Without risk of an authoritative decision of the Society] “the wrong way,” [out of personal regard for the President, the question would be solved for him by actual experience of work in the House of Commons, where he would doubtless discover that he must] “renounce either science, or politics, or existence.”

This campaign, however, against a principle, was carried on without any personal feeling.  The perfect simplicity of the President’s attitude would have disarmed the hottest opponent, and indeed Huxley took occasion to write him the following letter, in reference to which he writes to Dr. Foster:—­] “I hate doing things in the dark and could not stand it any longer.”

December 1, 1887.

My dear Stokes,