UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



absorption of its scientific and philosophical mate- 

 rial, by the literary and artistic spirit. 



How vividly present Huxley is in everything he 

 writes or speaks, the man shining through his sen- 

 tences as if the sword were to shine through its scab- 

 bard ! a different type from Tyndall, more con- 

 troversial. A lover of combat, he sniffs the battle 

 afar; he is less poetical than Tyndall, less given to 

 rhetoric, but more a part of what he says, and hav- 

 Jng a more absolutely transparent style. How he 

 charged the foes of Darwin, and cleared the field of 

 them in a hurry! His sentences went through their 

 arguments as steel through lead. 



As a sample of fine and eloquent literary state- 

 ment I have always greatly admired that closing 

 passage in his essay on "Science and Morals" in 

 which he defends physical science against the at- 

 tacks of Mr. Lilly, who, armed with the weapons of 

 both theology and philosophy, denounced it as the 

 evil genius of modern days : 



If the diseases of society [says Huxley] consist in the 

 weakness of its faith in the existence of the God of the 

 theologians, in a future state, and in uncaused volitions, 

 the indication, as the doctors say, is to suppress Theology 

 and Philosophy, whose bickerings about things of which 

 they know nothing have been the prime cause and con- 

 tinual sustenance of that evil skepticism which is the 

 Nemesis of meddling with the unknowable. 



Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance of 

 these high matters. She lights the fire, sweeps the house, 

 186 



