2 26 Thomas Henry Huxley 



"The Platonic philosophy is probably the grandest exam- 

 ple of the unscientific use of the imagination extant ; and it 

 would be hard to estimate the amount of detriment to clear 

 thinking effected, directly and indirectly, by the theory of 

 ideas, on the one hand, and by the unfortunate doctrine of 

 the baseness of matter, on the other." 



Materialism was dismissed by Huxley as being an 

 inadequate philosophical explanation of the universe, 

 and as being based on a logical delusion. There re- 

 mains, however, a practical application of the word in 

 which the conceptions it involves are almost an inevit- 

 able part of science, and which was strenuously urged 

 by Huxley. In the earlier days of the world and of 

 .science almost all the phenomena of nature were re- 

 garded as random or wilful displays of living intelli- 

 gence. The earth itself and the sun, the moon, and 

 the stars were endowed with life ; legions of lULseen 

 intelligences ruled the operations of nature, and al- 

 though these might be bribed or threatened, pleased or 

 made angry, their actions were regarded as beyond 

 prediction or control. The procession of the seasons, 

 the routine of day and night, the placid appea.sement 

 of the rains, the devastating roar of storms, the shin- 

 ing of the rainbow, the bubbling of springs, the terrors 

 of famine and pestilence ; all these — the varying environ- 

 ment which makes or mars human life — were regarded 

 as inevitable and capricious. The whole progress of 

 phj'sical .science has been attended with a gradual 

 elimination of these supernatural agencies and with a 

 continual replacement of them by conceptions of phys- 

 ical sequence. 



" In singular contrast with natural knowledge, the acquaint- 

 ance of mankind with the supernatural appears the more ex- 

 act, and the influence of supernatural doctrine on conduct the 



