47 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



AGNOSTICISM AS DEVELOPED IN HUXLEY'S 



HUME.* 



By JAMES McCOSH, LL. D., 



PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE. 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY is a man of strong intellectual tastes and 

 tendencies. He is evidently an enthusiast in his biological studies. 

 It is not so generally known that he is also a metaphysician. This he 

 has shown in his published address on Descartes and in other papers. 

 He has now come forward to defend the study. (See " Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly," May, 1879.) Kant has made the remark that we can 

 not do without metaphysics, and others have noticed that those who 

 affect to discard them will commonly be found proceeding, without 

 their being aware of it, upon a very wretched metaphysic. The Pro- 

 fessor now tells us, " In truth, to attempt to nourish the human intellect 

 upon a diet which contains no metaphysics is about as hopeful as that 

 of certain Eastern sages to nourish their bodies without destroying life." 

 He adds : " By way of escape from the metaphysical will-o'-the-wisps 

 generated in the marshes of literature and theology, the serious student 

 is sometimes bidden to betake himself to the solid ground of physical 

 science. But the fish of immortal memory who threw himself out of 

 the frying-pan into the fire was not more ill advised than the man who 

 seeks sanctuary from philosophical persecution within the walls of the 

 observatory or of the laboratory." He shows that such conceptions as 

 " atoms," and " forces," and as " energy," " vacuum," and " plenum," all 

 carry us, whether we will or no, beyond a physical to a metaphysical 

 sphere. 



I rather think that the Professor's metaphysics were derived pri- 

 marily from David Hartley, but especially from James Mill, reckoned 

 an age or two ago, in England, the chief philosophical authorities by 

 those not trained at the two English universities. Hartley connected 

 metaphysics with physiology ; and James Mill, after abandoning the 

 trade of a preacher, adopted the fundamental principles of David Hume, 

 and transmitted them to his son John Stuart Mill, who modified and 

 improved them by independent thought and a larger acquaintance with 

 other systems. Professor Huxley has now, in this work on Hume, 

 given his own philosophy, which is substantially that of Hume and 

 James Mill, with some not very valuable suggestions from Bain, and 

 a criticism now and then derived from Descartes and Kant, of whose 

 profounder principles he has in the mean while no appreciation. It is 

 expounded in the form of an epitome of the system of the Scottish 

 scepter with constantly interspersed criticisms of his own. His style 



* " Hume," by Professor Huxley. 



