PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE WAR-PATH. 779 



apostle of the Christian Church. And so of ourselves. If we do 

 not consider ourselves bound to hold that an actual serpent was 

 selected as the most persuasive advocate of evil if we are dis- 

 posed to think that there is all the air, and all the most obvi- 

 ous characteristics, of allegory in such words as the " tree of the 

 knowledge of good and evil " if we do not accept it as a literal 

 fact that the rotation of the earth was suspended to keep the 

 valley of Ajalon above the horizon for a longer time than was 

 due to the season of the year, then we are equally bound to dis- 

 trust the truth of the migration of Abraham, and of the sojourn 

 in Egypt, and of the conquest of Palestine, and of the Babylonish 

 captivity, and of the stream of prophecy pointing to some great 

 Deliverer not for the Jews only but for all peoples and of the 

 life and death and teaching of our Lord. The whole argument, I 

 confess, appears to me to be not only illogical, but irrational. 



This is a subject, however, of vast extent on which we have no 

 right or reason to expect any special light or guidance from Prof. 

 Huxley. Even if he approached it in the careful and cautious 

 spirit in which he has generally dealt with his own noble science 

 of biology, it would not follow that he could deal with it as well. 

 We know the confession which Darwin has made of the effect 

 upon his own powerful mind of exclusive devotion to one class 

 of ideas and to one purely physical pursuit, in rendering him 

 comparatively insensible to the whole class of conceptions which 

 are the warp and woof of the higher branches of philosophy. 

 Even in this article, Prof. Huxley tells us that when he tries to 

 follow those who walk delicately among " types " he soon " looses 

 his way." * This is a strange confession to make when even in 

 his own special science " type " is one of the most familiar of all 

 words, and when the suggestions connected with it for example, 

 on the general development of the vertebrate skeleton are con- 

 fessedly of the most profound and far-reaching interest. It is still 

 more strange when he himself walking so delicately as to be 

 most difficult to follow has tried his hand at the definition of a 

 " type." It is, he says, a " plan of modification of animal form." \ 

 He tells us he has " a passion for clearness." Is the above defini- 

 tion perfectly pellucid ? All animal form is in itself a " plan." 

 Each modification, we now hear, is another " plan." Is this what 

 he means ? And if so, what does he mean by a " plan " ? Does 

 he mean what all other men mean by the word some mental con- 

 ception with a view to the future ? Or does he mean only some 

 accidental pattern such as a drop of water may leave when it 

 splashes on a window-pane ? Then, what does he mean by a 

 " modification " ? Does he mean some wonderful adaptation to 



* Page 20. t Comparative Anatomy, p. 7. 



