222 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. IX 



And that is the pity of it. As in the past, so, I fear, 

 through a very long future, the multitude will continue 

 to turn to those who are ready to feed it with the viands 

 its soul lusteth after ; -who will offer mental peace where 

 there is no peace, and lap it in the luxury of pleasant 

 delusions. 



To missionaries of the Neo-Positivist, as to those of 

 other professed solutions of insoluble mysteries, whose 

 souls are bound up in the success of their sectarian 

 propaganda, no doubt, it must be very disheartening if 

 the " w^orld," for whose assent and approbation they sue, 

 stops its ears and turns its back upon them. But what 

 does it signify to any one ^vho does not happen to be a 

 missionary of any sect, philosophical or religious, and 

 who, if he were, would have no sermon to preach except 

 from the text with which Descartes, to go no further 

 back, furnished us two centuries since ? I am very sorry 

 if people w^ill not listen to those who rehearse before 

 them the best lessons they have been able to learn, but 

 that is their business, not mine. BeUef in majorities is 

 not rooted in my breast, and if all the world were against 

 me the fact might warn me to revise and criticise my 

 opinions, but would not in itself supply a ghost of a 

 reason for forsaking them. For myself I say deliberately, 

 it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and 

 be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of 

 those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, 

 because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the 

 awful realities which it shudders to look at. 



A letter to Mr. IS". P. Clayton also discusses the 

 basis of morality. 



HoDESLEA, Eastbourne, Nov. 5, 1892. 

 Deae Sir — I well remember the interview to which 

 you refer, and I should have replied to your letter sooner, 

 but during the last few weeks I have been very busy. 



