THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 7 8i 



tific brethren, at least his biologic brethren, the ways of science, 

 and he had to teach the world the works of science. It was this 

 feeling which, on the one hand, led him to devote so much labor 

 to the organization of biologic science in order that his younger 

 brethren might be helped to walk in the straight path and to do 

 their work well. It was this feeling, on the other hand, which 

 made him urgent in the spread of the teaching of science. It was 

 this, and no vain love of being known, which led him to the plat- 

 form and the press. The zeal with which he defended the theory 

 of natural selection came from his seeing the large issues in- 

 volved ; to him the theory was a great example of the scientific 

 method applied successfully to a problem of more than biologic 

 moment ; while the fierceness of his advocacy was a natural ex- 

 pression of resentment on the part of one who saw a scientific con- 

 clusion, gained with unstinted pains and large reasoning, judged 

 contemptuously by men who knew nothing of science according 

 to methods in which science had no part. 



Science, under this aspect, is a part of what is sometimes called 

 philosophy ; and though Huxley felt, in common with others, and 

 felt deeply the pleasures of the intellectual wrestler, struggling 

 with problems which, seemingly solved and thrown to the ground, 

 spring up again at once in unsolved strength, it was not these 

 pleasures alone which led him, especially in his later years, to de- 

 vote so much time and labor to technical philosophic studies. He 

 hoped out of the depths of philosophy to call witnesses to the 

 value of the scientific method. Indeed, nearly all the work of 

 the latter part of his life, including the last imperfect fragment, 

 written when the hand of disease which was to be the hand of 

 death was already laid upon him, and bearing marks of that hand, 

 was wrought with one desire namely, to show that the only pos- 

 sible solutions of the problems of the universe were such as the 

 scientific method could bring. This was at the bottom of that 

 antagonism to theology which he never attempted to conceal, and 

 the real existence of which no one who wishes to form a true 

 judgment of the man can ignore. He recognized that the only- 

 two consistent conceptions of man and the universe were the 

 distinctly theologic one and the scientific one : he put aside as 

 unworthy of serious attention all between. He was convinced 

 that the theologic conception was based on error, and much of his 

 old age was spent in the study of theologic writings whereby he 

 gathered for himself increasing proof that there was no flaw in 

 the judgment which had guided his way from his youth upward. 

 Not only so, but he was no less convinced that, owing to what he 

 believed to be the essential antagonism of the theologic and the 

 scientific methods, the dominance of the former was an obstacle 

 to the progress of the latter. This conviction he freely confessed 



