Thomas Henry Huxley and Matthew Arnold on Classics

May 26, 2006 12:25 PM

In 1875, Josiah Mason gave a gift to establish a college which was called the Mason Science College (now a part of the University of Birmingham). Within the terms of the gift to the institutuion, one of the stipulations was that classics not be taught. Of course at such an institution, the Founder Day's address was logically given by Thomas Henry Huxley on the place of Science in Education. Huxley preached the virtues of science and derisively dismissed all value in studying classics, and he wondered whether any rational person would choose to study classics over science. His conclusion was that the only people who would choose a study of classics are those like "that Levite of culture" Matthew Arnold. Arnold took the opportunity to respond to his friend. In his reply, Arnold acknowledged that nobody would expect him to engage Huxley in a debate about science, and though he wouldn't presume to take on Huxley in such a debate, he did want to mention something that struck him as he thumbed through a book of Huxley's friend. Arnold noted that he was struck by the idea that "our ancestor was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits." Arnold acknowledged that he isn't a scientist and therefore doesn't dispute such a claim, but he did want to point out that even if that were true, with regards to this good fellow, there must have been a necessity in him that inclined him to Greek. And would always incline him to Greek. After all, we got there, didn't we?
posted by dios (27 comments total)

I should point out that the link for the Arnold response doesn't go to his actual response---which as best as I can tell, is not available on the web---but to a later and more extensive treatment of the same topic. The argument is the same in both.
posted by dios at 12:27 PM on May 26, 2006

may i make the suggestion of [more inside] for your next fpp?
posted by slater at 12:32 PM on May 26, 2006

I don't know, I really liked it. Great post, dios.
posted by jmgorman at 12:35 PM on May 26, 2006

Good post. Plus, I really hate Matthew Arnold.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:03 PM on May 26, 2006

Why in the world do you hate Matthew Arnold Mean Mr. Bucket?

Is this just Friday flippancy?
posted by Jody Tresidder at 1:20 PM on May 26, 2006

very nice dios. thank you.
posted by Stynxno at 1:29 PM on May 26, 2006

It is a hate of a thousand pin pricks. His second rate Victorian poetry, his mind numbing ramblings of his delicate legacy, his mutton chops. It's all there, and it just gnaws at my insides.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:34 PM on May 26, 2006 [1 favorite]

our ancestor was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits.

Zoboomafoo!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:37 PM on May 26, 2006

but he did want to point out that even if that were true, with regards to this good fellow, there must have been a necessity in him that inclined him to Greek. And would always incline him to Greek. After all, we got there, didn't we?

The assumption of an a priori drive towards X whether by an individual or community is seated firmly upon an ignorance of the subtle ways in which the environment affects us. Greek was an accumulation of a mind-wilting number of accidents. It might have been 'fated' to be in the sense that the universe might be a deterministic mechanism, but to suggest that there was some innate force which drove the chimpanzees to develop a particular language or create the pyramids is mystical dualist garbage through and through.

There is nothing sadder than to glimpse for a moment the degree to which the presuppositions of modern Western thought are still based upon the semi-conscious fears and superstitions of men living in caves pissing themselves over thunder and lightning.
posted by Ryvar at 1:41 PM on May 26, 2006

Ryvar totally wins.
posted by Embryo at 1:50 PM on May 26, 2006

Yeah Ryvar, but spiders are still pretty scary, especially the ones that totally jump on your face when you're opening a door or something.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:59 PM on May 26, 2006

Yea! Ryvar!
posted by Balisong at 2:00 PM on May 26, 2006

Mean Mr. Bucket, then I bet you also hate Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", where a Matthew Arnold poem is used in the story, illegally read aloud by the protagonist to his vapid wife's twittery friends, as a shining example of the power of poetry to move and unsettle an apathetic entertainment-obsessed society...
posted by Asparagirl at 2:11 PM on May 26, 2006

I need to read it.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 2:29 PM on May 26, 2006

Mean Mr Bucket

To follow on from Asparagirl's comment, you would probably also really hate Ian McKewan's recent book "Saturday" where a powerful Matthew Arnold poem is used in the novel: the poem - read out - distracts a sadistic thug from allowing the rape of the daughter of a poetry-hating surgeon.

(Point being the power of old words to move and unsettle etc)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 2:49 PM on May 26, 2006

I've read Atonement and Amsterdam, not sure if I can slog through another. Althhough Amsterdam was a bit peppier, the whole thing hinged on a "gotcha" revelation, which was sort of pretentious.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 3:14 PM on May 26, 2006

Good post and yay ryvar. No science/culture banter would be complete without mention of the two (this is a duality after all) key texts.
posted by lalochezia at 3:30 PM on May 26, 2006

Ryvar, I hope you don't think that Arnold was denying evolution or the importance of studying science (I get the impression that some people didn't read it and took the idea that Arnold was denying Darwin) He was most certainly not. He was just emphasizing the importance of studying classics as well for the sake of completeness.

The point is that science, alone, is not enough to make an educated man. Arnold is making an argument saying that classics have value and importance too(and Prof. Daniel Robinson explains it well):

If the focus of enlightened education is to understand what the nature of man is, Arnold would argue that you just don't look at the parts that make up a man. The scientific method would tell you that you can understand man by looking at where man came from and of what kind of biological parts he is made. But that doesn't explain the nature of man.

Just like if you have a radio, and want to know what a radio is, you don't just smash it up in pieces. If someone came in and just saw the pieces, they wouldn't know what it is. Once you break down the radio, you don't have a radio anymore. You just have pieces and parts. But if you just turn the thing on, and you hear the music, you understand what the radio is: something that transmits music.

Want to find out what humanity is? Take a look at what it achieves under favoring conditions. Take a look at what it achieves when it takes itself most seriously and recognizes within itself an addiction based on the proposition that I am not complete ever and that the point of life is the perfecting of life. And I begin to perfect the life that I live by perfecting the exemplar that I am prepared to follow in that life. And these exemplars are in the form of statesmen, statues, the Acropolis, poetry, drama, the deep dark mystery of things as achieved in the writings of Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus

Something in us inclined us to Greek because we got there. We didn't get there for pay; we didn't get there on the wings of science. We got there out of some deep mysterious need that will not be satisfied until we were there.
posted by dios at 3:52 PM on May 26, 2006

"I've read Atonement and Amsterdam, not sure if I can slog through another."

To be scrupulously fair, I couldn't recommend "Saturday". Even his fans agree the hero is very, very hard to take. And the ending is diabolical even though it's fabulously written in parts.(I just had to mention it because of the Arnold poem, obviously).
posted by Jody Tresidder at 3:55 PM on May 26, 2006

As the new hurricane season approaches, I wonder how many New Orleanians would join me in thinking the "men living in caves pissing themselves over thunder and lightning" (by which must be meant history's hermits, outcasts, and holy men, of course, since anthropologists and archaeologists now assure us, as they have for decades, that human beings have never passed through a cave-dwelling stage) might have had a little more insight into the human condition than you give them credit for, Ryvar.

Am I imagining things, or does Arnold, by slight emphasis on Darwin's preference for "domestic affections" essentially accuse him of Milton's Adam's sin, uxoriousness, the excessive and carnal love of his wife, and by implication not likely to be lost on a Victorian audience even in these hinterlands, a kind of brutish sexual perversity?
posted by jamjam at 4:22 PM on May 26, 2006

Ryvar, I hope you don't think that Arnold was denying evolution or the importance of studying science (I get the impression that some people didn't read it and took the idea that Arnold was denying Darwin) He was most certainly not. He was just emphasizing the importance of studying classics as well for the sake of completeness.

No, that's not what I think at all - I understood what you wrote perfectly. What I said had nothing to do with what degree of respect Arnold held science in, and everything to do with his flawed epistemology.
posted by Ryvar at 5:02 PM on May 26, 2006

might have had a little more insight into the human condition than you give them credit for, Ryvar.

What I said had nothing to do with the human condition either, jamjam. Nothing at all. Like dios, you need to reread it.
posted by Ryvar at 5:11 PM on May 26, 2006

Am I imagining things, or does Arnold, by slight emphasis on Darwin's preference for "domestic affections" essentially accuse him of Milton's Adam's sin, uxoriousness, the excessive and carnal love of his wife, and by implication not likely to be lost on a Victorian audience even in these hinterlands, a kind of brutish sexual perversity?

How so? Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers generally use "domestic affections" as a catch-all for the emotions related to family life, especially for the love between parents and children. E.g., George Combe, Felicia Hemans, Mary Shelley (examples from Frankenstein), Adam Smith... Arnold seems to be using "domestic affections" in its standard sense.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:21 PM on May 26, 2006

I accept your assurances, thomas j wise, thank you.

I've reread both our posts, Ryvar. I didn't find anything more I could agree with in yours (though I'm glad you made it), but the sharp tone of mine is completely out of place in this discussion.

I'm sorry.
posted by jamjam at 5:57 PM on May 26, 2006

It's cool. I was a bit snippy too. Sorry.
posted by Ryvar at 7:39 PM on May 26, 2006

Hugs!
posted by cortex at 8:50 PM on May 26, 2006

The descendants of chimpanzees did not go on to build pyramids.
posted by econous at 5:51 PM on May 27, 2006