HUXLEY 41 



opponent harm. To those who blame him for 

 this the reply may be given that the greater the 

 reverence resting on what he was convinced was 

 a false foundation, the more pressing seemed to 

 him the duty to show the falseness of the founda- 

 tion in the clearest, most direct way, such as could 

 be understood by all. Moreover, the manner in 

 which he used his weapons in this matter was in 

 no wise different from his usual manner on other 

 occasions. He was by temperament " ever a 

 fighter " ; in his combats within the realms of 

 natural knowledge, and these were not a few, he 

 hit quick and he hit hard, for such was his way of 

 fighting. 



Many of his friends, who, like him, put their 

 trust in natural knowledge, reproached him with 

 spending his strength in warfare of such a kind. 

 The surest way to make natural knowledge pre- 

 vail, they said, is to extend its boundaries; as it 

 advances other things must give way before it. 

 Was it not a misdirection of energy that he who 

 in past years had shown such power and done so 

 much to drive farther and farther off the line 

 which parts the known from the unknown, should 

 spend time and labour in controversies which in 

 themselves brought no clear advancement of 

 natural knowledge, and in conducting which he 

 could make little use of that wealth of natural 

 knowledge which he already possessed, and had, 

 with tireless labour, to seek the arguments which 

 he used in unaccustomed antiquarian and lingu- 

 istic studies ? 



