CHAPTER XVI 



ETHICS OF THE COSMOS 



Conduct and Metaphysics— Conventional and Critical Minds — 

 Good and Evil — Huxley's Last Appearance at Oxford — Tbe 

 Ethical Process and the Cosmic Process— Man's Interven- 

 tion — The Cosmic Process Evil— Ancient Reconciliations — 

 Modern Acceptance of the Difficulties— Criticism of Hux- 

 ley's Pessimism — Man and his Ethical Aspirations Part of 

 the Cosmos. 



WE have seen that Huxley reftised to acquiesce in 

 the current orthodox doctrine that otir systems 

 of morality rested on a special revelation, miraculous 

 in its origin, and vouched for by the recorded miracles 

 of its Fomider, or by those entrusted by the Fotinder 

 with miraculous power. He supported the view that, 

 historically and actually, there is no necessary connec- 

 tion between religion and morality. The one is an at- 

 tempt, in his opinion always unsuccessful, to lift the veil 

 from the unseen, to know the unknowable ; the other 

 is simply the code that social man, through the ages, 

 has elaborated for his own guidance, and proved by his 

 own experience. So far as the conduct of life goes, the 

 morality of one who accepts the agnostic position with 

 regard to revelation and the iniseen universe differs in 

 no respect from the code taken under the protection of 



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