Teachings of Thomas Huxley 35 



than any other the requirements of facts, has 

 been so often repudiated. The attitude of 

 Huxley in this matter was non-committal ; he 

 found no proof that would appeal to a logical 

 mind like his own concerning the nature of 

 the Deity, and he just as certainly found none 

 upon which to base a denial of that Deity's 

 existence. He savs: "Of all the senseless 

 babble I have ever had occasion to read, the 

 demonstrations of the philosophers who under- 

 take to tell us all about the nature of God 

 would be the worst, if they were not surpassed 

 by the still greater absurdities of the philoso- 

 phers who try to prove that there is no God." 



It is necessary to recognize that there are a 

 variety of facts in this world of ours concern- 

 ing which we have not the slightest inkling; 

 but if, in the absence of such knowledge, we 

 find it necessary to our meutal constitution to 

 assume some theory about them, there is not 

 the slightest harm in assuming that which 

 seems to us most tenable in the light of cold 

 reason; and, whether we be right or wrong, 

 we have a point of reckoning from which to 

 map out our course. In this attitude there is 

 certainly an advantage. We can at least steal 

 away carefully and cautiously along' the shores 

 of truth, leaving the hopeless derelict of doubt 

 sailless and rudderless and without a port of 

 entry on the ocean of total unbelief. 



