214 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. IX 



manifesto in the previous year of the thirty-eight 

 Anglican divines in defence of biblical infallibility, 

 which practically ends in an appeal to the very 

 principle they reject. 



But he does not content himself with pointing out 

 the destructive effects of criticism upon the evidence 

 in favour of a " supernature " — " The present incarna- 

 tion of the spirit of the Renascence," he writes, 

 "differs from its predecessor in the eighteenth 

 century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down. 

 That of which it has laid the foundation, of which it 

 is already raising the superstructure, is the doctrine 

 of evolution," a doctrine that "is no speculation, but 

 a generalisation of certain facts, which may be 

 observed by any one who will take the necessary 

 trouble." And in a short dozen pages he sketches 

 out that "common body of established truths" to 

 which it is his confident belief that "all future 

 philosophical and theological speculations will have 

 to accommodate themselves." 



There is no need to recapitulate these ; they may 

 be read in Science and Christian Tradition, the fifth 

 volume of the Collected Essays ; but it is worth 

 noticing that in conclusion, after rejecting "a great 

 many supernaturalistic theories and legends which 

 have no better foundations than those of heathenism," 

 he declares himself as far from wishing to "throw 

 the Bible aside as so much waste paper " as he was at 

 the establishment of the School Board in 1870. As 

 English literature, as world-old history, as moral 



