704 THK LESSON OF THE LIFE OF HUXLEY. 



omnipotent Aladdin's lamps, so that they may have telegraphs to Saturn, 

 and seethe other side of the moon, and thank (rod they are ])etter than 

 their benighted ancestors, 1, for one, says Huxley, should not greatly 

 care to toil in the service of natural knowledge. I think I would just 

 as soon be (juietly chipping my own flint ax. after the manner of my 

 forefathers a few thousand years l)ack, says he, as be troubled with 

 the endless malady of thought which now infests us all for such a 

 reward. But 1 venture to say that such views are contrary alike to 

 reason and to fact. 



The improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direction it has 

 taken, and however low the aims of those who have conmienced it, has 

 not only conferred practical l)enetits on men, but in so doing has 

 efl'ected a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of them- 

 selves, and has profoundly moditied their modes of thinking and their 

 views of right and wrong. Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy 

 natural want^, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual crav- 

 insrs — in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort has been driven to 

 discover those of conduct and to lay the foundations of a new moralit3\ 



He who is endowed with the spirit of modern science absolutely 

 refuses to acknowledge authoritj' as such. For him, scepticism is the 

 highest of duties; l)lind faith, the one unpardonable sin. And it can 

 not be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has 

 involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the 

 keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the s})irit of blind faith, and 

 the most ardent votary of science holds his tii'mest convictions not 

 because the men he most venerates hold them, not because their verity 

 is testified by portents and wonders, but because his experience teaches 

 him that whene\er he chooses to test these convictions l)y appealing to 

 experiment and observation he may expect them to be confirmed. The 

 man of science has learned to believe in justification not by faith, but 

 by verification. 



If these ideas are destined to be more and more flrmly established 

 as the world grows older, if the scientific spirit ])e fated to extend 

 itself into all departments of human thought and to become coexten- 

 sive with the range of human knowledge, if as our race approaches 

 maturity it discovers that there is but one kind of knowledge and but 

 one method of acquiring it, then we, who are still children, may justly 

 feel it our highest duty to recognize the advisableness of improving 

 natural knowledge, and so to aid ourselves and our successors in our 

 course toward the noble goal which lies before mankind. 



It is because of this conviction that Huxley assures us truth is bet- 

 ter than much profit; because of it that he turned aside from his sci- 

 entific researches in order to do his part in keeping pure and undefiled 

 the springs of natural knowledge. 



No one — Huxley least of all — would dream of attributing the "New 

 Reformation " to any one man, and he speaks of himself as a " full private 



