2 62 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



Last Catastrophe, that we are helped in facing the 

 fact " by the words of Spinoza : ' The free man 

 thinks of nothing so little as of death, and his wis- 

 dom is a meditation not of death but of life.' " " Our 

 interest," Clifford adds, " lies with so much of the 

 past as may serve to guide our actions in the present, 

 and to intensify our pious allegiance to the fathers 

 who have gone before us and the brethren who are 

 with us; and our interest lies with so much of the 

 future as we may hope will be appreciably affected 

 by our good actions now. Do I seem to say, ' Let 

 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?' Far from 

 it ; on the contrary I say, ' Let us take hands and 

 help, for this day we are alive together.' " 



Evolution and Ethics was Huxley's last impor- 

 tant deliverance, since the completion of his reply to 

 Mr. Balfour's " quaintly entitled " Foundations of 

 Belief was arrested by his death on the 3Oth of June, 

 1895. 



In looking through the Collected Essays, which 

 represent his non-technical contributions to knowl- 

 edge, there may be regret that throughout his life 

 circumstances were against his doing any piece of 

 long-sustained work, such as that which, for exam- 

 ple, the affluence and patience of Darwin permitted 

 him to do. But until Huxley's later years, and, in- 

 deed, through broken health to the end, his work 

 outside official demands had to be done fitfully and 

 piecemeal, or not at all. Notwithstanding this, it has 

 the unity which is inspired by a central idea. The 



