iiS 



NA TURE 



[November 29, 1900 



of faith be open to our gaze or not, is a very temple of many 

 and august mysteries. . . . Everywhere around you are 

 evidences of the existence and movement of a mysterious 

 power which you can neither see, nor touch, nor define, nor 

 measure, nor understand." 



One of Huxley's difficulties he has stated in the following 

 words : " Infinite benevolence need not have invented pain and 

 sorrow at all — infinite malevolence would very easily have de- 

 prived us of the large measure of content and happiness that 

 falls to our lot." 



This does not, I confess, strike one as conclusive. It seems 

 an answer — if not perhaps quite complete, that if we are to have 

 any freedom and responsibility, the possibility of evil follows 

 necessarily. If two courses are open to us, there are two alter- 

 natives ; either the results are the same in either case, and then 

 it does not matter what we do ; or the one course must be wise 

 and the other unwise. Huxley, indeed, said in another place : — • 

 ' ' I protest that if some great power could agree to make me 

 always think what is true, and do what is right, on condition of 

 being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning 

 before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. 

 The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right ; 

 the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest 

 terms to any one who will take it of me. But when the Materi- 

 alists stray beyond the borders of their path, and talk about 

 there being nothing else in the world but Matter and Forces and 

 necessary laws, .... I decline to follow them." 



Huxley was no enemy to the existence of an Established 

 Church. 



" I could conceive," he said, " the existence of an Established 

 Church which should be a blessing to the community. A church 

 in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the 

 iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting 

 before men's minds of an ideal of true, just and pure living ; a 

 place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares 

 should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher 

 life which is possible for all, though attained by so few ; a 

 place in which the man of strife and of business shou'd have 

 time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he covets 

 compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if such a 

 Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it." 



It seems to me that he has here very nearly described the 

 Church of Stanley, of Jowett, and of Kingsley. 



Sir W. Flower justly observed that -while "if the term 're- 

 ligious ' be limited to acceptance of the formularies of one of 

 the current creeds of the world, it cannot be applied to Huxley ; 

 but no one could be intimate with him without feeling that he 

 possessed a deep reverence for ' whatsoever things are true, 

 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- 

 soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 

 things are of good report,' and an abhorrence of all that is the 

 reverse of these ; and that, although he found difficulty in ex- 

 pressing it in definite words, he had a pervading sense of adora- 

 tion of the infinite, very much akin to the highest religion." 



Lord Shaftesbury records that " Prof. Huxley has this 

 definition of morality and religion : — ' Teach a child what is 

 wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, 

 that is religion ! ' Let no one henceforth despair of making 

 things clear and of giving explana'ions ! " (' Life and Works," 

 iii. 282). 



I doubt, indeed, whether the debt which Religion owes to 

 Science has yet been adequately acknowledged. 



The real conflict — for conflict there has been and is — is not 

 between Science and Religion, but between .Science and Super- 

 stition. A disbelief in the goodness of God led to all the 

 horrors of the Inquisition. Throughout the Middle Ages and 

 down almost to our own times, as Lecky has so powerfully 

 shown, the dread of witchcraft hung like a black pall over 

 Christianity. Even so great and good a man as Wesley 

 believed in it. It is Science which has cleared away these dark 

 clouds, and we can hardly fail to see that it is just in those 

 countries where Science is most backward that Religion is less 

 well understood, and in those where Science is most advanced 

 that Religion is purest. The services which Science ha? 

 rendered to Religion have not as yet, I think, received the 

 recognition they deserve. 



Many of us may think that Huxley carried his scepticism too 

 far, that some conclusions which he doubted, if not indeed 

 proved, yet stand on a securer basis than he supposed. 



He approached the consideration of these awful problems, 



NO. 1622, VOL. (i'^ 



however, in no scoffing spirit, but with an earnest desire to 

 arrive at the truth, and I am glad to acknowledge that this has 

 been generously recognised by his opponents. 



From his own point of view, Huxley was no opponent of 

 religion, however fundamentally he might differ from the 

 majority of clergymen. In Science we diff"er, but we are all 

 seeking for truth, and we do not dream that any one is an 

 enemy to "science." 



In Theology, however, unfortunately as we think, a different 

 standard has been adopted. Theologians often, though no 

 doubt there are many exceptions, regard a difference from 

 themselves as an attack on religion, a suspension of judgment 

 as an adverse verdict, and doubt as infidelity. 



It is therefore only just to them to say that their obituary 

 notices of Huxley were fair and even generous. When they 

 treated him as a foe they did so, as a rule, in a spirit as 

 honourable to them as it was to him. 



The Christian World, in a very interesting obituary notice, 

 truly observed that " if in Huxley's earlier years the average 

 opinion of the churches had been as ready as it is now to accept 

 the evolution of the Bible, it would not have been so startled by 

 Darwin's theory of the evolution of man ; and Darwin's greatest 

 disciple would have enjoyed thirty years ago the respect and 

 confidence and affection with which we came to regard him 

 before we lost him." 



" Surely it is a striking and suggestive fact that both the re- 

 tiring and the incoming President of the Royal Society, by way 

 of climax to their eulogies, dwelt on the religious side of 

 Huxley's character. " If religion means strenuousness in doing 

 right, and trying to do right, who," asked Lord Kelvin, "has 

 earned the title of a religious man better than Huxley ? " And 

 similarly Sir J. Lister, in emphasising Huxley's intellectual 

 honesty, "his perfect truthfulness, his whole-hearted benevo- 

 lence," felt impelled to adopt Lord Kelvin's word and celebrate 

 "the religion that consists in the strenuous endeavour to be 

 and do what is right." 



Huxley was not only a great man, but a good and a brave 

 one. It required much courage to profess his opinions, and if 

 he had consulted only his own interests he would not have done 

 so, but we owe much to him for the inestimable freedom which 

 we now enjoy. 



When he was moved to wrath it was when he thought wrong 

 was being done, the people were being misled, or truth was 

 being unfairly attacked, as, for instance, in the celebrated dis- 

 cussion at Oxford. The statue in the Natural History Museum 

 is very powerful and a very exact likeness, but it is like him 

 when he was moved to righteous indignation. It is not Huxley 

 as he was generally, as he was when he was teaching, or when 

 in the company of friends. He was one of the most warm- 

 hearted and genial of men. Mr. Hutton, who sat with him on 

 the Vivisection Commission, has recorded that "considering he 

 represented the physiologists on this Commis^ion, I was much 

 struck with his evident horror of anything like torture even foL- 

 scientific ends." I do not, however, see why this should h^e 

 surprised him, because the position of physiologists is that at is 

 the anti-vivisectionists who would enormously increase the suffer- 

 ing in the world. To speak of inflicting pain " for scientific 

 ends" is misleading. It is not for the mere acquisition of use- 

 less knowledge, but for the diminution of suffering and because 

 one experiment may prevent thousands of mistakes and save 

 hundreds of lives. The medical profession may be mistaken in 

 this, but it is obvious that their conviction, whether it be right 

 or whether it be wrong, is not only compatible with, but is 

 inspired by, a horror of unnecessary suffering. 



The great object of his labours was, in his own words, " to 

 promote the increase of natural knowledge and to forward the 

 application of scientific methods of investigation to all the 

 problems of life." His family life was thoroughly happy. He 

 was devoted to his children, and they to him. "The love our 

 children show us," he said in one of his letters, " warms our 

 old age better than the sun." 



Nor can I conclude without saying a word about Mrs. Huxley, 

 of whom her son justly says that she was " his help and stay for 

 forty years, in his struggles ready to counsel, in adversity to 

 comfort ; the critic whose judgment he valued above almost any, 

 and whose praise he cared most to win ; his first care and his 

 latest thought, the otherj self, whose union with him was a 

 supreme example of mutual sincerity and devotion." 



At a time of deep depression and when his prospects looked 

 most gloomy he mentions a letter from Miss Ileathorn as 



