HUXLEY 31 



should be made to advance that knowledge as 

 rapidly as may be. 



Natural knowledge was, he maintained, the 

 one and the same guide, the only sure guide in 

 the quest after both physical and moral wel- 

 fare. The address " On Improving Natural 

 Knowledge," which was delivered nearly half a 

 century ago, in 1866, and which comes first in the 

 first volume of his collected Addresses and 

 Essays, and is the key to all which follow, sets 

 forth in telling words his conviction that what 

 began as a search into things physical has become 

 a search into things spiritual, and that the value 

 of natural knowledge lies not so much in the 

 mastery which it has given over the forces which 

 determine the welfare of the body (valuable as 

 that mastery may be) as in the mastery which it 

 promises over the forces which determine the wel- 

 fare of man as a whole. Natural knowledge was, 

 he said, " a real mother of mankind, bringing 

 them up with kindness, and, if need be, with stern- 

 ness in the way they should go, and instructing 

 them in all things needed for their welfare." 



The improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direc- 

 tion it has taken and however low the aims of those who 

 may have commenced it, has not only conferred practical 

 benefits on men, but in so doing has effected a revolution 

 in their conceptions of the universe and of themselves, and 

 has profoundly altered their modes of thinking and their 

 views of right and wrong. I say that natural knowledge, 

 seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas 

 which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural 

 knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, 

 has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay 

 the foundation of a new morality. 



