THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



believe materialism to involve grave philosophical 

 error. "^ Again : "The phaenomena of life are depend- 

 ent neither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital 

 forces, yet they result in all sorts of physical and 

 chemical changes."^ And, in fact, no criticism arouses 

 Huxley and Spencer to greater wrath than to couple 

 their ideas with Comte's Positive Philosophy. As for 

 his belief in God, it is asserted freely: "I take it that 

 all will admit there is definite Government of this 

 universe — that its pleasures and pains are not scat- 

 tered at random, but are distributed in accordance 

 with orderly and fixed laws."^° You may believe in 

 God, but you must affirm none of His qualities except 

 that He instituted Nature and Natural Law. 



Huxley, in spite of his agnosticism, accepts the ex- 

 istence of God and the reality of an inorganic world 

 of matter governed by vital forces. How can we rec- 

 oncile these beliefs with his other statement that we 

 know only the facts and laws of the physical world"? 

 Can he mean that the facts of the spiritual world — of 

 thought, of virtue, etc. — are not as certain as the 

 facts of the physical world*? If they are not, through 

 what medium do we know the facts of the physical 

 world, except by thought and the spirit*? To Des- 

 cartes, whom Huxley eulogizes, thought was the one 

 fact in the universe. Those who believe in the ob- 

 jective reality of matter tell us that each person who 



8 Method and Results, p. 155. 



9 Science and Education, p. 64. 



10 Ibid., p. 62. 



c 260 n 



