10 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 1 



series of ancestors, similar to these European fossils, 

 but still more equine, and extending in. unbroken 

 order much farther back in geological time, was 

 discovered in America. His use of this in his New 

 York lectures as demonstrative evidence of evolution, 

 and the immediate fulfilment of a further prophecy 

 of his will be told in due course. 



His address to the Cambridge Y.M.C.A., "A 

 Commentary on Descartes' 'Discourse touching the 

 method of using reason rightly, and of seeking 

 scientific truth,' " was delivered on March 24. This 

 was an attempt to give this distinctively Christian 

 audience some vision of the world of science and 

 philosophy, which is neither Christian nor Un- 

 christian, but Extra-christian, and to show "by what 

 methods the dwellers therein try to distinguish truth 

 from falsehood, in regard to some of the deepest and 

 most difficult problems that beset humanity, "in 

 order to be clear about their actions, and to walk sure- 

 footedly in this life," as Descartes says. For Descartes 

 had laid the foundation of his own guiding principle 

 of "active scepticism, which strives to conquer itself." 



Here again, as in the Physical Basis of Life, but 

 with more detail, he explains how far materialism is 

 legitimate, is, in fact, a sort of shorthand idealism. 

 This essay, too, contains the of ten -quo ted passage, 

 apropos of the "introduction of Calvinism into 

 science." 



I protest that if some great Power would agree to 

 make me always think what is true and do what is right, 



