HUXLEY, AND THE PROBLEM OF THE NATURALIST 35 



for truth, and not because science is the one thing worth knowing, 

 that he pleads for it so eloquently. It is because the improvement 

 of natural knowledge is conclusive testimony to the value of this 

 method that he devoted his life to the popularization of science. 

 It is because his right to use this method — the right which is also 

 the highest and first of duties — was disputed, that he entered the 

 stormy waters of controversy. 



** If I may speak of the objects I have had more or less definitely 

 in view, . . . they are briefly these : To promote the increase of 

 natural knowledge, and to forward the application of scientific 

 methods to all the problems of life, to the best of my ability, in 

 the conviction, which has grown with my growth and strengthened 

 with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of 

 mankind except veracity of thought and action, and the resolute 

 facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe with 

 which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off." 



To what nobler end could life be devoted than the attempt to 

 show us how we may ** learn to distinguish truth from falsehood, in 

 order to be clear about our actions, and to walk surefootedly in this 

 life".^ If he has succeeded, and every zoologist who is free to fol- 

 low Nature wherever she may lead is a witness that he has suc- 

 ceeded, — if, as the end of his lifelong labor, intellectual freedom 

 is established on a firmer basis, — this is his best monument, even 

 if the man should quickly be forgotten in the accomplishment of his 

 end. No memorial could be more appropriate than the speedy 

 establishment of that intellectual liberty which is not intellectual 

 license on a basis so firm that the history of the struggle to obtain 

 it shall become a forgotten antiquity. 



Huxley's lifelong devotion to the task of teaching the right 

 method of using our reason in the search for truth has been so 

 fruitful that the success or failure of his attempts to teach the 

 application of this method to specific problems is a matter of very 

 subordinate importance. 



As he was not only a man and a citizen, but, above all, a natu- 

 ralist, peculiar interest attaches to his utterances on the problems 

 of biology, although his various essays on this subject differ so 

 much in perspective that their effect upon many thoughtful readers 

 has proved to be practically equivalent to inconsistency. It is easy 



