192 Thomas Henry Huxley 



but each of them is a member of a social and political organis- 

 ation of great complexity, and has, in futnre life, to fit him- 

 self into that organisation, or be crushed by it. To this end it 

 is surely needful, not only that they should be made acquaiuted 

 with the elementary laws of conduct, but that their affections 

 should be trained, so as to love with all their hearts that con- 

 duct which tends to the attainment of the highest good for 

 themselves and their fellow-men, and to hate with all their 

 hearts that opposite course of actiuu which is fraught with 

 evil." 



He then proceeded to point out the distinction be- 

 tween the affection which is called religion, and the 

 .science which is called theology, and, without entering 

 into the question as to whether the latter were or were 

 not a true science, he insisted on the danger of a con- 

 fusion between the two. 



'* We are divided into two parties — the advocates of so-called 

 ' religious ' teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called 

 ' secular ' teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me 

 to be not only hopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if 

 either succeeded completely, it would discover, before many 

 years were over, that it had made a great mistake and done 

 serious evil to the cause of education. For, leaving aside the 

 more far-seeing minority on either side, what the religious 

 party is crying for is mere theology, under the name of religion ; 

 while the secularists have unwisely and wrongfully admitted 

 the assumption of their opponents, and demand the abolition 

 of all religious teaching, when they only want to be free of the- 

 ology — burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches." . . . 

 "If I were compelled to choose for one of my own children, 

 between a school in which real religious instruction is given, 

 and one without it, I should prefer the former, even though 

 the child might have to take a good deal of theology with it. 

 Nine-tenths of a dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood ; but 

 one swallows it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the 

 beneficial effect of which may be weakened, but is not de- 

 stroyed, by the wooden dilution, unless in the case of a few 



