242 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



the State of Nature prevails over the surface of 

 our planet.' 



But only those of low ideals would seek in this 

 impermanence of things excuse for inaction ; or 

 worse, for self-indulgence. The world will last a 

 very long time yet, and afford scope for battle 

 against the wrongs done by man to man. Even 

 were it and ourselves to perish to-morrow, our duty 

 is clear while the chance of doing it may be ours. 

 Clifford, dead before his prime, before the rich 

 promise of his genius had its full fruitage, speak- 

 ing of the inevitable end of the earth ' and all the 

 consciousness of men ' reminds us, in his essay on 

 The First and Last Catastrophe, that we are helped 

 in facing the fact ' by the words of Spinoza : " The 

 free man thinks of nothing so little as of death, and 

 his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life." ' 

 1 Our interest/ Clifford adds, ' lies with so much of the 

 past as may serve to guide our actions in the present, 

 and to intensify our pious allegiance to the fathers 

 who have gone before us and the brethren who are 

 with us ; and our interest lies with so much of the 

 future as we may hope will be appreciably affected 

 by our good actions now. Do I seem to say, " Let 

 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" Far 

 from it ; on the contrary I say, " Let us take hands 

 and help, for this day we are alive together." ' 



Evolution and Ethics was Huxley's last important 

 deliverance, since the completion of his reply to Mr. 

 Balfour's * quaintly entitled ' Foundations of Belief 

 was arrested by his death on the 3Oth June 1895. 



In looking through the Collected Essays, which 

 represent his non-technical contributions to know- 



