218 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. IX 



etc., he reiterates his words written thirty-two years 

 before : — 



So far back as 1860 I ^vxote : — 



" The doctrine of special creation owes its existence 

 very largely to the supposed necessity of making science 

 accord with the Hebrew cosmogony " ; and that the 

 hypothesis of special creation is, in uiy judgment, a " mere 

 specious mask for our ignorance." Not content with 

 negation, I said : — 



" Harmonious order governing eternally continuous 

 progress ; the web and woof of matter and force inter- 

 weaving by slow degrees, without a broken thread, that 

 veil which lies between us and the infinite ; that universe 

 which alone we know, or can know ; such is the picture 

 which science draws of the world." 



. . . Every reader of Goethe wiU> know that the second 

 is little more than a paraphrase of the well-known 

 utterance of the " Zeitgeist " in Faust, which surely is 

 something more than a mere negation of the clumsy 

 anthropomorphism of special creation. 



Follows a query about " Providence," my answer to 

 which must depend upon what my questioner means by 

 that substantive, whether alone, or qualified by the 

 adjective "moraL" 



If the doctrine of a Providence is to be taken as the 

 expression, in a way " to be understanded of the people," 

 of the total exclusion of chance from a place even in the 

 most insignificant comer of Nature, if it means the strong 

 conviction that the cosmic process is rational, and the 

 faith that, throughout all duration, unbroken order has 

 reigned in the universe, I not only accept it, but I am 

 disposed to think it the most important of all truths. 

 As it is of more consequence for a citizen to know the 

 law than to be personally acquainted with the features of 

 those who will surely carry it into effect, so this very 

 positive doctrine of Providence, in the sense defined, 



