36 Teachings of Thomas Huxley 



IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 



For his lack of faith in this doctrine Hux- 

 ley was severely scored by the clergy both in 

 England and abroad. It was, however, per- 

 fectly natural to his frame of mind to disbe- 

 lieve in whatever had merelv an emotional 

 basis. In a paper before the Metaphysical So- 

 ciety in 1871, on "Has a Frog a Soul V he 

 voiced the opinion that if St. Augustine, Cal- 

 vin, and Jonathan Edwards have held in sub- 

 stance the view that men are conscious auto- 

 mata, to hold this view with them should not 

 brand a man a fatalist, a materialist, or an 

 atheist. This scarcely seems relevant, however, 

 for belief in conscious automata neither predi- 

 cates nor denies anything concerning the life 

 after death. That we are immortal because we 

 are extremelv desirous of bein^ so to his mind 

 contains the quintessence of suspicions^ 3s, 

 and since nothing can be proved respecting the 

 distinct existence, the substance, or the dura- 

 bility of the soul he does not think it a matter 

 for disputation. "It is not a little strange that 

 our strong desire that a certain occurrence 

 should happen should be put forward as evi- 

 dence that it will happen. If the mother's 

 agonized prayer that her child should live has 

 not prevented him from dying, experience cer- 

 tainly affords no presumption that the aspira- 

 tion for immortality is any more likely to be 



