82 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



1866 was also destined to play no unimportant part in 

 the furtherance of science teaching in this country. 

 Written with inimitable lucidity, it illustrates Huxley's 

 leaning towards the physiological side of biology, and his 

 admirable expository powers, and has deservedly attained 

 a measure of popularity rarely if ever excelled by works 

 of the kind. 



A lay sermon " On the Advisableness of Improving 

 Natural Knowledge (Coll. Essays, i, p. 18), delivered at 

 St. Martin's Hall (on Sunday evening, November 8), 

 clearly sets forth the importance of the movement initiated 

 by the foundation of the Royal Society, in the latter part 

 of the seventeenth century. The aims, methods and 

 ideals of natural science are here luminously presented, 

 and its wide-reaching influence in the future predicted 

 with a confidence which has since been fully justified. 

 The following passages will be familiar to many 

 readers : — 



" However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not a 

 few of them, who take this view of natural knowledge [/.^.j the 

 purely utilitarian one], and can see nothing in the bountiful 

 mother of humanity but a sort of comfort-grinding machine. 

 According to them, the improvement of natural knowledge 

 always has been, and always must be, synonymous with no more 

 than the improvement of the material resources and the increase 

 of the gratitication of men. 



" I say that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural 

 wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. 

 I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws 

 of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to 

 lay the foundations of a new morality. 



"But in this sadness [i.e., as expressed in Homer], this 

 consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an open 

 secret which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of all religion ; 

 and the attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by the 

 intellect, is the origin of the higher theologies. 



" The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to 



