6 INTRODUCTION 



rational interpretation of nature, and combated 

 many intellectual errors with which the theology 

 of that day had, through careless thinking and 

 uncritical exegesis, been sorely tainted. The 

 mistake is made though that is no excuse be- 

 cause he emphasised, as Newton did, the duty of 

 scientific men to study and emphasise every 

 extension of the province of what we call 

 " Matter " and " Force " ; and because he urged 

 that " the growth of science, not merely of physi- 

 cal science, but of all science, means the demon- 

 stration of order and natural causation among 

 phenomena which had not previously been 

 brought under those conceptions." 



Doubtless the claim that Huxley was a sup- 

 porter of philosophic Materialism, as against 

 Idealism, is only made by half educated people ; 

 but such persons are numerous ; and hence for the 

 present it is desirable to take every opportunity 

 of pointing out that the contention is untrue, and 

 was always resented by Huxley himself. The fol- 

 lowing quotation from his 1886 essay " Science 

 and Morals," now included in the volume called 

 " Evolution and Ethics," will suffice to show how 

 he regarded such a rhetorical accusation. 

 ^Evolution and Ethics, p. 129-130.] 



" I understand the main tenet of Material- 

 ism to be that there is nothing in the universe 

 but matter and force; and that all the 

 phenomena of nature are explicable by de- 

 duction from the properties assignable to 



