From Thomas Archer Hirst1

Thus you see what a little world of science we move in. When I look back upon my past life, and recollect how miserably slow time dragged on, how often morning after morning would dawn upon me, unlit by one single ray of hope, or of purpose to be achieved; and then compare it with the present, when every moment is, comparatively, occupied and the day seems far too short for the work to be done; – I feel thankful for the change. Distant as you are too, every such retrospect adds another link to the chain of friendship between us, for honesty and my own heart give you the praise. I know John Tyndall far too well, to be afraid that he will think this flattery, or consider it hypocrisy when I say further that I spend hours in looking forward to the day, when we shall renew our old intimacy, and when I shall be better able to appreciate its advantages. Still; uneasy mortal that I am; doubt and fear creep in yet. I have in my mind’s eye many men, able men too, that have devoted their energies to study and science, have pursued the same track in which I am following,2 yet their state is far from enviable, at least to my view. They are so many calculating, classifying machines; they always suggest to me some such reasoning as the following – ‘To what end is all this study of phenomena? Granted that I shall be able to tell the composition of that rock and assign its proper place in that great hill – that I shall be able to analyse the soil I tread on – Is it for this I was sent into this world? If not what is it for? If its effect will be to reduce me to the pitiful machines that assuredly do exist – if it makes me like an Augustus Comte,3 who, unless hearsay lies, believes neither God, Devil, nor Religion: I’ll have none of it’. Such clouds however, Thank God are only transient. A little more examination shews me, that the evil lies in the Man not in the Study, in his spectacles, not in the things he looks at. Yet I shudder sometimes for fear that I too, may be looking too much on the surface of things: My old want! I wish somebody to tell me how far the visible may be followed and not lose sight of the invisible, the spiritual. At such moments I take up Carlyle or Emerson and the medicine is generally efficacious. They tell me that one grand end that nature subserves to man is ‘Language’, that ‘Nature is the symbol of spirit’,4 and a short reading of Nature’s book with such a dictionary, restores me at once to confidence. But it is time I closed this strain – I have just been studying Carlyle’s Chartism:5 a work that just ‘clenched’ (to use a Yorkshire term) some vague opinions I possessed: No doubt you recollect the time when I was a strenuous advocate of Universal Suffrage and Ballot Boxes. It was a plaster that I thought would heal the sore, a little further experience shook my confidence in the remedy and a vague suspicion arose that the disease was more internal. Carlyle came and told me what I suspected. The only man that I ever read, who has looked any deeper than the surface – the [Pikes and Monster] Petitions of the malady. Your ‘sketch for the Preston Chronicle’6 appeared the week following, it was very interesting and as a wholesale manner of letting your friends know your whereabouts, and the company you kept, it was a good idea. This letter has been often interrupted and will consequently be fragmentary. I must leave it again now, so will add the conclusion just before we post it. Meanwhile I remain – my dear Tyndall

Yours very affectionately | T.A. Hirst

Jimmy7 having filled his folio shoot8 and pronounced it ready for the post I must just conclude this. We intend to go to the last of Richardson’s course of lectures this evening on Pneumatics. I met Mrs Wright today I forgot to tell her I was writing, though she enquired very kindly about you. Poor woman, she is far from being the sprightly body she was when I first knew her. She always refers to the old time when she had you, Tidmarsh and Hall as lodgers. ‘Three such lodgers’ says she ‘as I shall never find again’. I often see little Ada Piercie,9 she grows a fine girl but looks very delicate, her sisters I never see.

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/27

LT Transcript Only

[27 May] 1849: Louisa Tyndall annotation: ‘Fragment of Hirst’s letter enclosed to Carlyle; probably written May 27’. The letter to Carlyle is letter 0376.

track in which I am following: Hirst, at Tyndall’s urging, was working to improve his education. He had enrolled in courses at the Halifax Mechanics’ Institute and was reading a number of books on literature and the sciences.

Augustus Comte: Comte (1798-1857) was a French philosopher and the founder of the modern positivist movement. Comtean positivism argues that only scientific inquiry, not theology or metaphysics, can produce certain knowledge.

‘Language’, that ‘Nature is the symbol of spirit’: ‘Language’ is a chapter from Emerson’s 1836 essay ‘Nature’, and ‘Nature is the symbol of spirit’ is a quote from the first page of that chapter. R. W. Emerson, Nature, New Edition (Boston: James Munroe & Company, 1849), p. 23.

Carlyle’s Chartism: T. Carlyle, Chartism (London: James Fraser, 1840).

‘sketch for the Preston Chronicle’: Tyndall occasionally sent his hometown paper news or stories about his life in Germany. This specific item in the Preston Chronicle has not been identified.

Jimmy: James Craven.

folio shoot: not identified.

Ada Piercie: Ada Peircy.

Please cite as “Tyndall0375,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0375