THE LESSON OF THE LIFE OF HUXLEY. 707 



the whistle of the locomotive engine has to do with the movement of 

 the train; l.ecause he believes that proof that we never do anvthincr 

 whicli exhaustive knowledge of our bodily machinerv might not Inul one 

 to expect would show that our conduct is "predestined" and inevitable 

 and necessary. So, he asks us, in 1892, to change his words, and in 

 place of the famdiar conviction, which may be verified as often as we 

 like to try, that our volition counts, read that it is not volition but 

 the physical state of which volition is the expression which counts for 

 something as a condition of the course of events— counting, I take it, 

 as a rock may be expected to count as a condition of the course of the 

 stream. 



I fail to see why anyone should object to this amendment, considering 

 it in itself, even if one see reason to ask whether it can be accepted as 

 a sul)stitute for the original statement. The assertion tliat the phys- 

 ical state of which volition is tho sign does count as a condition of the 

 course of events might no doubt be verified experimentally as often as 

 one has the opportunity, for it may })e that it is included in the decla- 

 ration that the order of nature is discoverable by our faculties. What 

 I do fail to discover is any antagonism between it and the original 

 statement that our volition counts; and Huxley is unable to abide 

 firmly and consistent]}" by the declaration that it does not count. In 

 1894, only a short time before his death, he tells us that, if our convic- 

 tion that there lies within us a fund of energy operating intelligcMitly, 

 and so far akin to that which pervades the universe that it is compe- 

 tent to influence and modify the cosmic process, is logically absurd, 

 because our conduct is part and parcel of the cosmic process, he is 

 sorr}' for logic, because the facts are so. 



Huxley reminds us, and does well to remind us, that logical conse- 

 quences are the beacon of wise men and the bugbear of fools, and while 

 deductive philosophy may be expected to land its disciples in contra- 

 dictions which no mere human wisdom can reconcile, it is a hard thing 

 for one who tries to walk hy verification to rest willingly in incon- 



sistenc3\ 



Our well-founded conviction that there is no interference with 

 nature, no interruption in the cosmic process, is a conviction that 

 nature is orderlv, l)ut not that it is inevitable or predetermined or 

 necessary, for order is a matter of fact and not an agent or a cause of 



things. . , 



Huxley declares that all things are working out their ' predestmed 

 courses of evolution, but he also reminds us that evolution is not an 

 explanation of the cosmic process, but merely a generalized stut.Mi.cnt 

 of the methods and results of that process. Is it not clear that no 

 statement can predestine anything, and that no amount ot k.u.u ledge 

 of a process and no amount of discovery as to what is going on run t.dl 

 us who or what is carrying it on, or whether the activity ot whuh the 



