262 Thomas Henry Huxley 



the modern forms of religion. As John Morle}-, in his 

 Essay on J ^oltaire wrote of such a person : 



" There are new solutions for him, if the old have fallen dumb. 

 If he no longer believe death to be a stroke from the sword of 

 God's justice, but the leaden footfall of an inflexible law of 

 matter, the humility of his awe is deepened, and the tenderness 

 of his pit)' made holier, that creatures who can love so much 

 should have their days so shut round with a wall of darkness. 

 The purifying anguish of remorse will be stronger, not weaker, 

 when he has trained himself to look upon every wrong in 

 thought, every duty omitted from act, each infringement of the 

 inner spiritual law which humanity is constantlv perfecting for 

 its own guidance and advantage, less as a breach of the decrees 

 of an unseen tribunal than as an ungrateful infection weaken- 

 ing and corrupting the future of his brothers." 



But there are wider questions than the immediate 

 problems of conduct. A certain type of mind finds it 

 almost impossible not to attempt ethical judgments on 

 the whole universe, not to speculate whether the Cos- 

 mos, as we can imagine it from the part of it within the 

 cognisance of man, offers a spectacle of moral or im- 

 moral or of non-moral significance. In the old times of 

 Greece and in the modern world many have been devoid 

 of the taste for argument on such subjects. Those who 

 are uninterested in these abstract discussions are rarely 

 in opposition to the mode of faith surrounding them, 

 as to reject the doctrines held by the majority of one's 

 friends and associates implies either a disagreeable dis- 

 position or an unusual interest in ultimate problems ; 

 they are usually orthodox according to their environ- 

 ment — Stoics, Epicureans, Jews, Kpiscopalians, Catho- 

 lics, Quakers, Methodists, Mormons, Mohammedans, 

 Buddhists, or whatever may be the prevailing dogma 

 around them. The attitude of indifference to moral 



