Liberalism 239 



wrong are firml}- associated with the Bible and with 

 religion. If 3'ou allow doubts as to the absolute verac- 

 ity of the Bible, or as to the supernatural origin of 

 religion to reach such persons, you run a grave risk 

 that they will reflect the uncertainty on the canons of 

 morality. In taking from them what you believe to 

 be false, inevitably you will unsettle their ideas on 

 moral questions although you might be in full agree- 

 ment as to these moral questions. Huxley refused to 

 accept the asserted association between morality and 

 particular metaphysical or religious doctrines. 



" Many ingenious persons now appear to consider that the 

 incompatibility of pantheism, of materialism, and of any doubt 

 about the immortality of the soul, with religion and morality 

 is to be held as an axiomatic truth. I confess that I have a 

 certain difficulty in accepting this dogma. For the Stoics 

 were notoriously materialists and pantheists of the most ex- 

 treme character ; and while no strict Stoic believed in the 

 eternal duration of the individual soul, some even denied its 

 persistence after death. Yet it is equally certain, that, of all 

 gentile philosophies. Stoicism exhibits the highest ethical 

 development, is animated by the most religious spirit, and has 

 exerted the profoundest influence upon the moral and religious 

 development not merely of the best men among the Romans, 

 but among the moderns down to our own day." 



He held the view now generally taken by students 

 of the histor}^ of man, that standards of conduct and 

 religious beliefs arose in separate ways and developed 

 independently, and that it was only comparatively' 

 recently that ' ' religion took morality under its pro- 

 tection." But he met the argument in a still more 

 direct fashion by rejecting entirely the possibility or 

 advisability of founding any S5^stem of ethics upon a 

 false basis. 



"It is very clear to me," he wrote, "that, as Beelzebub is 



