244 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



and reduces its slave to the level of the machine- 

 hand that spends his life in making the heads of 

 screws. He believed in * scepticism as the highest 

 duty, and in blind faith as the one unpardonable sin.' 

 ' And,' he adds, * it cannot be otherwise, for every 

 great advance in natural knowledge has involved the 

 absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the 

 keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of 

 blind faith ; and the most ardent votary of science 

 holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he 

 most venerates holds them ; not because their verity 

 is testified by portents and wonders ; but because 

 his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses 

 to bring these convictions into contact with their 

 primary source, Nature whenever he thinks fit 

 to test them by appealing to experiment and to 

 observation Nature will confirm them. The man 

 of science has learned to believe in justification, not 

 by faith, but by verification. 1 Therefore he nursed 

 no illusions ; would not say that he knew when he 

 did not or could not know, and bidding us follow 

 the evidence whithersoever it leads us, remains the 

 surest-footed guide of our time. Such leadership is 

 his, since he has gone on * from strength to strength.' 

 The changes in the attitude of man towards moment- 

 ous questions which new evidence and the Zeitgeist 

 have effected, have been approaches to the position 

 taken by Huxley since he first caught the public ear. 

 His deep religious feeling kept him in sympathetic 

 touch with his fellows. Ever present to him was 

 * that consciousness of the limitation of man, that 

 sense of an open secret which he cannot penetrate, 

 in which lies the essence of all religion.' In one of 



