L, 
ails ee i a) 
REMINISCENCES OF HUXLEY 209 
looked amusingly small and commonplace in contrast 
with the giant mind of the philosopher. The defeated 
party was left with no resources except rhetorical arti- 
fice to cover his retreat, and his general aspect was 
foxy, not to say Jesuitical. At least so Huxley de- 
clared, and I thoroughly agreed with him. Yet 
surely it would be a very inadequate and unjust esti- 
mate of Gladstone, which should set him down as a 
shuffler, and there leave the matter. From the states- 
man’s point of view it might be contended that Glad- 
stone was exceptionally direct and frank. But a 
statesman is seldom, if ever, called upon to ascertain 
and exhibit the fundamental facts of a case without 
bias and in the disinterested mood which Science de- 
mands of her votaries. The statesman’s business is 
to accomplish sundry concrete political purposes, and 
he measures statements primarily, not by their truth, 
but by their availableness as means toward a practi- 
cal end. Pure science cultivates a widely different 
habit of mind. One could no more expect a prime 
minister, as such, to understand Huxley’s attitude in 
presence of a scientific problem, than a deaf-mute to 
comprehend a symphony of Beethoven. Gladstone’s 
aim was to score a point against his adversary, at 
whatever cost, whereas Huxley was as quick to detect 
his own mistakes as anybody else’s; and such differ- 
ences in temperament were scarcely compatible with 
mutual understanding. 
If absolute loyalty to truth, involving complete self- 
abnegation in face of the evidence, be the ideal aim of 
the scientific inquirer, there have been few men in 
whom that ideal has been so perfectly realized as in 
Huxley. If ever he were tempted by some fancied 
2P 
