238 WHAT IS LIFE? 



These laws are patent, self-evident they are not the 

 creations of man. 



And so also is the progress of the kingdom of 

 knowledge. The brain must be sufficiently altered and 

 improved for it to understand the truth. This is the 

 development which is being forced upon us. The 

 progress of knowledge is like the parable of the sower 

 who went forth to sow ; and as he sowed some seeds fell 

 by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them : 

 and others fell upon rocky places, where they had not 

 much earth : and straightway they sprang up because 

 they had no deepness of earth : and when the sun was 

 risen, they were scorched ; and because they had no root 

 they withered away. And others fell upon the thorns ; 

 and the thorns grew up, and choked them : and others 

 fell upon good ground, and yielded fruit, some a 

 hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Yes, the 

 kingdom of knowledge is the appreciation of truth ; 

 the appreciation of truth is the seed sown by the sower, 



only, that makes intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute 

 force. 



" The whole of modern thought is steeped in science ; it has made 

 its way into the works of our best poets, and even the mere man of 

 letters, who 'affects to ignore and despise science, is unconsciously 

 impregnated with her spirit, and indebted for his best products to 

 her methods. I believe that the greatest intellectual revolution man- 

 kind has yet seen is now slowly taking place by her agency. She is 

 teaching the world that the ultimate court of appeal is observation 

 and experiment, and not authority ; she is teaching it to estimate the 

 value of evidence ; she is creating a firm and living faith in the 

 existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect obedience to 

 which is the highest possible aim of an intelligent being." ("Lay 

 Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," T. H. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S., 

 1893, p. 101.) 



