368 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 



whom he was early brought into contact, received its 

 decisive impulse, as has been told before, from Carlj^le, 

 whose writings confirmed and established his youthful 

 reader in a hatred of shams and make-believes equal 

 to his own. 



In his mind no compromise was possible between 

 truth and untruth.^ Against authorities and influ- 

 ences he published Man's Place in Nature, though 

 warned by his friends that to do so meant ruin to his 

 prospects. When he had once led the way and 

 challenged the upholders of conventional orthodoxy, 

 others backed him up with a whole armoury of facts. 

 But his fight was as far as possible for the truth itself, 

 for fact, not merely for controversial victory or per- 

 sonal triumph. Yet, as has been saidby a representative 

 of a very different school of thought, who can wonder 

 that he should have hit out straight from the shoulder, 

 in reply to violent or insidious attacks, the stupidity 

 of which sometimes merited scorn as well as anger 1 



In his theological controversies he was no less 

 careful to avoid any approach to mere abuse or 

 ribaldry such as some opponents of Christian dogma 

 indulged in. For this reason he refused to interpose 



^ As he ouce said, when urged to WTite a more eulogistic notice 

 of a dead friend than he thought deserved, "The only serious 

 temptations to perjury I have ever knowTi have arisen out of the 

 desire to be of some comfort to people I cared for in trouble. If 

 there are such things as Plato's ' Royal Lies ' they are surely those 



which one is tempted to tell on such occasions. IMrs. is such 



a good devoted little woman, and I am so doubtful about having 

 a soul, that it seems absurd to hesitate to peril it for her satis- 

 faction." 



