Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1902-01-13
WILL HUxLEYs WORKS LIVE?
His Writings Considered as contribu.
tons to Literature.


The Century contains the prize es-
say, poem, and story submitted in
competition by college graduates of
the year 1900. James E. Routh, Jr, Of
a paper on Huxley as Literary Man
Will Huxley's works live in litera-
ture? he asks. If so what place there
in will they occupy? In regard to the
first we can safely say that the larger
number of his essays will not endure.
These were written for the deciding of
questions of the day, and will vanish
with the passing of the day. To this
class belong most Of his cOntrOver
sial papers with Mr.. Gladstone, DR..
WAGE, and others, and many of those
relating to education in science.
Again, of the remainder of his work
the larger portion will survive as spe,
cialized technical discussions, and not
as literature proper. Thus much Of
his Darwiniana, together with his DO
logical and geological essays, may con
tinue, as at present, popular adapta-
lions of scientific questions, while the
essay On Hume has already become
an enduring possession of philosophy.
Still again, gems of thought in the
midst of dry discussions are not litera-
ture; nor are newspaper articles, scat
tered notes, or other such disconnect-
ed matter. Thus, much as we may re-
gret it, all such works Of Huxley
and they are numerOus-will pass
away, and this will still further dimin-
ish the mass of his permanent artistic
achievements. To find, then, his true
claims upon the literary world, we
must look into the few but priceless
essays that remain, These are not col
lected in one book, but are scattered
promiscuCusly throughout the nine
volumes of the last arrangement Of
his works. Such are the essays of
which The Method of Zadig, Evolution
and Ethics, and the biographical and
critical sketch of Joseph Priestley are
examples. These will endure as hu-
name literatAlre because they possess
those qualities of style and humanitar-
ianism which are the necessary and
sufficient conditions of such
1t is displeasing to speak Of classify
ing literary production; one may as
we'll speak of measuring a mans soul
with a yardstick, or of classifying Beet
hoven's sonatas. Nevertheless, ut
erary essays may be roughly divided
into the purely artistic, which serve
principally to create artistic atmos-
pheres and display the authors per
sonality, and the semi-artistic, which
are written with a purpose, to prove a
principle or state a fact, but which
are C2st into artistic form and so be,
come part of literature. The first
class is we'll exemplified by Thoreau
and Hawthorne; the second by RuskiI
and Huxley
What, then, shall we consider as
HuXley's mission to the literary world ?
1t was not the propounding of new doc
trines; for, with very few exceptions,
his doctrines are not new Nor was it
the pOpularizing of science, the mere
recasting Of other peoples ideas; for
his works not only embody the spirit
as well as the grosser materials of the
scientist, but are everywhere instinc'
with something of his own, more vital
more significant. His most striking
characteristics in doctrine and in char
acter were unOriginal. Yet the diver
sified elements in each were COM
bined into such new and startling
whOles as to produce upon the one
hand philosophy of life, and upon the
other a character, each distinctly
novel and of profound significance.
Here were two powerful and original
forces. Then personality welded doc
trine, and the result was Huxley as a
literary man, a factor in the literary
world which combined De Quincey's
literature of knowledge and literature
of power. For rarely has knowledge
been used with such power as in the
hands OF Huxley. 1t was in this con
struction out Of loose truths of work
able theories of life and ethics that be
excelled The philosopher finds be-
fore him mass of unassorted facts,
and from them builds a scheme of the
universe. So Huxley examined the
unassorted materials of generations of
philosophic and scientific observers of
mankind, and adding to these his own
copious experiences, deduced there,
from a code of morals, practical phi,
losophy, and workable basis of &C
ton for that part of life upon which
science touches. In his autobiography
he sums up his chief objects, which
were ''to promote the increase of nat
ural knowledge, and to forward the
application of scientific methods of in
vestigatiOn to all the problems of life
He is the exponent of such portion of
the theory of how we ought to live as
is derivable in this manner.
Clubbed Grant.
In his hiOor9DhV unfinished undGr