238 Thomas Henry Huxley 



" And, seeing liow large a share of this clamour is raised by 

 the clergy of one denomination or another, may I say, in con- 

 clusion, that it really would be well if ecclesiastical persons 

 would reflect that ordination, whatever deep-seated graces it 

 may confer, has never been observed to be followed by any 

 visible increase in the learning or the logic of its subject. 

 Making a man a Bishop, or entrusting him with the office of 

 ministering to even the largest of Presbyterian congregations, 

 or setting him up to lecture to a church congress, really does 

 not in the smallest degree augment such title to respect as his 

 opinions may intrinsically possess. And when such a man 

 presumes on an authority, which was conferred on him for 

 other purposes, to sit in judgment on matters his incompetence 

 to deal with which is patent, it is permissible to ignore his 

 sacerdotal pretensions, and to tell him, as one would tell a 

 mere, common, unconsecrated layman : that it is not necessary 

 for any man to occupy himself with problems of this kind un- 

 less he so choose ; life is filled full enough with the perform- 

 ance of its ordinary and obvious duties. But that, if a man 

 elect to become a judge of these grave questions ; still more if 

 he assume the responsibility of attaching praise or blame to 

 his fellow-men for the conclusions at which they arrive touch- 

 ing them, he will commit a sin more grievous than most 

 breaches of the decalogue, unless he avoid a lazy reliance upon 

 the information that is gathered by prejudice and filtered 

 through passion, unless he go back to the prime sources of 

 knowledge — the facts of Nature, and the thoughts of those 

 wise men who for generations past have been her best 

 interpreters." 



In the campaign for absolute freedom of thought, 

 for the duty of not believing anything except on suffi- 

 cient evidence, Huxley was frequently met by an argu- 

 ment of superficial strength, and which no doubt was 

 in the minds of many of his clerical opponents. In the 

 minds of a majority of people, it was said, and par- 

 ticularly of slightly educated people, the reasons for 

 right conduct and the distinctions between right and 



