26o Tliomas Mcnry Huxley 



nature of the Biblical miracles provided him with addi- 

 tional reason for refusing to attach any extrinsic value 

 to the contents of the book. 



On the other hand, although he declined to accept 

 the Bible as a miraculous and authentic revelation, again 

 and again he expressed himself in the strongest terms 

 as to its value to mankind, and as to the impossibility of 

 any scientific advance diminishing in any way whatso- 

 ever that value. 



"The antagonism between religion and science, about which 

 we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabric- 

 ated, on the one hand, by shortsighted religious people who 

 confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion ; 

 and, on the other, by equally shortsighted scientific people who 

 forget that science takes for its province only that which is sus- 

 ceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside 

 the boundaries of that province, they must be content with 

 imagination, with hope, and with ignorance." 



And again ; 



" In the eighth century B.C., in the heart of a world of idola- 

 trous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception 

 of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspira- 

 tion of genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. 

 ' And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 

 to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? ' If any so- 

 called religion takes away from this great saying of Micah, I 

 think it wantonly mutilates, while if it adds thereto, I think 

 it obscures, the perfect ideal of religion." 



