70fi THE LESSON OF THE LIFE OF HUXLEY. 



The a priori philosophers tell us we may arrive at truth by deducing 

 it from propositions which are incapable of proof, because they are 

 self-evident to the normal man; and the}- talk about the normal man 

 as if he were a prominent citizen, the personal acquaintance of all who 

 have any claim to be considered men of intellect, and a familiar face 

 even to the common herd. 



The publication of the Origin of Species has made it clear to the 

 man of science that he knows no such person; that all men are indi- 

 vidual men, and the normal man a fictitious character, a statistical 

 average, and a mere abstraction, which does not exist in nature outside 

 the minds of the a priori philosophers. 



Nothing can ))e deduced from self-evident propositions by one to 

 whom they ar(> not self-evident, and as natural selection has come to 

 be Ix'tter understood it has made it less and less possil)le for the man 

 who puts his faith in scientitic mi^thods of discovering truth, and is 

 accustomed to hav«' that faith justitied ))y daily experience, to be con- 

 sciously false to his ])rinoiples in any matter. 



To what nobler end could life he dcMotcnl than the attempt to show 

 us how \vc may "'leai'n to distinguish ti'uth from falsehood, in order 

 that we may be sure about our actions, and walk surefootedly in this 

 lifeT* No memorial to Huxley could l)e more appropriate than the 

 speedy establishment of that ''intellectual liberty which is not intel- 

 lectual license" on a basis so lirm that the stiniggle to obtain it shall 

 l)ecome a forgotten antiquity. If, as the end of his lifelong labor, 

 intellectual freedom is established on a basis so firm that we are no 

 longer willing to accept either authority or deduction from so-called 

 self-evident truths as a substitute for discover}' and verification, this 

 is his best monument, even if the man should quickly be forgotten in 

 the accomplishment of his ends, and even if he was sometimes unsuc- 

 cessful in his attempts to walk by verification. 



In 1868 he tells us that it is necessary to be possessed of oidy two 

 beliefs in order that we may successfully perform our plain duty and 

 make the little corner we can influence a little less ignorant and a little 

 less miserable than we found it. The first of these beliefs, he tells us, 

 is that the order of nature is discoverable by our faculties to an extent 

 which is practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts 

 for something as a condition of the course of events. Each of these 

 beliefs ma}' be verified, he assures us, as often as we like to try; and 

 common folks, no doubt, agree with him. 



The progress of science, especially the progress of biological science, 

 during the next twenty -five years, convinced Huxley, as it has con- 

 vinced all thoughtful men, that we ourselves may prove to be part and 

 parcel of that order of nature which, in unbroken continuity, composes 

 the sum of all that is, and has been, and shall be, and this seems to him 

 to show that our volition has no more to do with our conduct than 



