52 Selections from Huxley 



player on the other side is hidden from us. We know 

 that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also 

 we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, 

 or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the 

 5 man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that 

 sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong 

 shows delight in strength. Anokone who plays ill is check- 

 mated without haste, but without remorse. 



My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous 



10 picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at 

 chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking 

 fiend in that picture, a calm, strong angel who is playing 

 for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win and 

 I should accept it as an image of human life. 



Well, what I mean by education is learning the rules 

 of this mighty game, hi other words, education is :the 

 instruction of the intellect" in thg jaws of Nature, under 

 wrnch~TTame I include not merely things and their forces, 

 but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affec- 

 jEjonsjancT of trie willTlnto an earnest and loving desire 

 to move in harmonv"with trioseTaw's. For me education 

 means neither more nor less than this. Anything which 

 professes to call itself education must be tried by this 

 standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call 

 it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of 

 numbers, upon the other side. 



It is important to remember that, in strictness, there 

 is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme 

 case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of 



30 his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as 

 Adam is said to have been, and then left to do a$ he best 

 might. How long would he be left uneducated ? Not five 

 minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the 

 eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain 



