SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY 389 



why the discovery of this biological path proved so difficult or 

 uncongenial a task to so eminent and astute a scientific thinker 

 as Huxley, who otherwise protested that the only freedom he 

 cared about was the freedom to do right, and confessed that the 

 possibilities of wrong are infinite. Perhaps the personal 

 equation was to be blamed for his inability on that score, as a 

 brief consideration will show. With reference to his con- 

 temptuous references to Rousseau it is to be remembered that 

 he also said: "It is not to be forgotten that what we call 

 rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational 

 attempts to justify our instincts." (Italics mine.) 



If only Huxley had employed a more self-denying 

 ordinance by living and speaking up to this recognition and had 

 thus modified his all too exuberant pronouncements, the world 

 might have been spared a good deal of irrationality and of 

 consequent mischief. 



The Times (7/1/15) says that the world owes more to 

 Huxley than it always remembers ; but that " he did not wholly 

 escape the controversialist's fate the inability to see fully an 

 adversary's position ; proneness to overstate his own good 

 points we had almost said colour blindness, except as to party 

 hues." . . "To lay the foundation of a new morality upon 

 the ' improvement of natural knowledge ' was to rest his 

 foundation upon one stone where several were needed." 



What distressed Huxley so profoundly was the fact that 

 frequently " the wicked flourishes like a green bay tree," 

 while " the righteous begs his bread." In this we can at least 

 sympathise with him. However, in his famous Romanes 

 Lecture he gives vent to his grievance thus: "If there is a 

 generalisation from the facts of human life, which has the 

 assent of thoughtful men in every age and country, it is that 

 the violator of ethical rules constantly escapes the punishment 

 which he deserves " ; and he adds that " Greek and Semite and 

 Indian are agreed upon this conclusion." Here we must differ, 

 as many, no doubt, have differed from him before. The pre- 

 vailing note of the Scriptures is quite the opposite to that 



