;2o 



NA TURE 



[August i, 1895 



guide of man in the dark paths of hfe. Many a man of 

 science goes, or seems to others to go, through the world 

 ordering his steps by two ways of thinking. When he 

 is dealing with the matters the treatment of which has 

 given him his scientific position, with physical or with 

 biological problems, he thinks in one way ; when he is 

 dealing with other matters, those of morals and religion, 

 he thinks in another way : he seems to have two minds, 

 and to pass from the one to the other according to 

 the subject matter. It was not so with Huxley. He 

 could not split himself or the universe into two halves, 

 and treat the one and the other half by two methods 

 radically distinct and in many ways opposed ; he 

 applied the one method, which he believed to be the true 

 an d fruitful one, to all problems without distinction. 

 A nd as years came over him, the duty of making 

 th/i- view clear to others grew stronger and stronger. 

 ReZ/nquishing, not without bitter regret, little by little, the 

 calm intellectual joys of the pursuit of narrower morpho- 

 logical problems, he became more and more the apostle 

 of t he scientific method, driven to the new career by the 

 force of a pure altruism, not loving science the less but 

 loving man the more. .And his work in this respect was 

 a double one ; he had to teach his scientific brethren, at 

 least his biologic brethren, the ways of science, and he 

 had to teach the world the works of science. It was 

 this feeling which, on the one hand, led him to devote 

 so much labour to the organisation of biologic science 

 in order that his younger brethren might be helped 

 to walk in the straight path and to do their work well. 

 It was this feeling, on the other hand, which made him 

 urgent in the spread of the teaching of science. It was 

 this, and no vain love of being known, which led him to 

 the platfonn and the press. The zeal with which he de- 

 fended the theor\- of Natural Selection came from his see- 

 ing the large issues involved ; to him the theory- was a great 

 example of the scientific method applied successfully to 

 a problem of more than biologic moment ; while the 

 fierceness of his advocacy was a natural expression of 

 resentment on the part of one who saw a scientific con- 

 clusion, gained with unstinted pains and large reasoning, 

 judged contemptuously by men who knew nothing of 

 science according to methods in which science had no 

 part. 



Science, under this aspect, is a part of what is sometimes 

 called philosophy : and though Huxley felt, in common 

 with others, and felt deeply the pleasures of the intellec- 

 tual wrestler, struggling with problems which, seemingly 

 solved and thrown to the ground, spring up again at once 

 in unsolved strength, it was not these pleasures alone 

 which led him, especially in his later years, to devote so 

 much time and labour to technical philosophic studies. 

 He hoped out of the depths of philosophy to call 

 witnesses to the value of the scientific method. Indeed, 

 nearly all the work of the latter part of his life, including 

 the last imperfect fragment, written when the hand of 

 disease which was to be the hand of death was already 

 laid upon him, and bearing marks of that hand, was 

 wrought with one desire, namely to show that the only 

 possible solutions of the problems of the universe were 

 such as the scientific method could bring. This was at 

 the bottom of that antagonism to theology which he 

 never attempted to conceal, and the real existence of 

 iihii h no one who wishes to form a true judgment of the 

 iii.in ■ an ignore. He recognised that the only two con- 

 sistent conceptions of man and the universe were the 

 distinctly thcologic one and the scientific one ; he put 

 aside as unworthy of serious attention all between. He 

 was convjnrcd ihal the theologic conception was based on 

 error, and v"- '■ -f liii old age was spent in the study of 

 thcologic hereby he gathered for himself in- 

 creasing pp tre was no flaw in the judgment which 



had guided his «.iy from his youth upward. Not only so, 

 but he was no lc^s cunvinccd that, owing to what he 



NO. 1344. VOL. 52] 



believed to be the essential antagonism of the theologic 

 and the scientific methods, the dominance of the former 

 was an obstacle to the progress of the latter. This. 

 conviction he freely confessed to be the cause of his 

 hostile attitude : he believed it to be the justification 

 of even his bitter polemics. 



But while on the objective side his scientific mode of 

 thought thus made him a never-failing opponent of 

 theologic thought of every kind, a common tie on the 

 subjective side bound him to the heart of the Christian 

 religion. Strong as was his conviction that the moral 

 no less than the material goo'd of man was to be secured 

 by the scientific method alone, strong as was his con- 

 fidence in the ultimate victory of that method in the war 

 against ignorance and wrong, no less clear was his vision 

 of the limits beyond which science was unable to go. 

 He brought into the current use of to-day the term 

 "agnostic," but the word had to him a deep and solemn 

 meaning. To him " 1 do not know " was not a mere 

 phrase to be thrown with a light heart at a face of an 

 opponent who asks a hard question ; it was reciprocally 

 with the positive teachings of science the guide of his life. 

 Great as he felt science to be, he was well aware that 

 science could never lay its hand, could never touch, e\ en 

 with the tip of its finger, that dream with which our little 

 life is rounded, and that unknown dream was a power as 

 dominant over him as was the might of known science ; 

 he carried about with him every day thai which he did 

 not know as his guide of life no less to be minded than 

 that which he did know. Future visitors to the burial- 

 place on the northern heights of London, seeing on his 

 tombstone the lines — 



" And if there be no meeting p.ist the grave. 

 If all is darkne.ss, silence, yet \ is rest. 

 Be not afraid ye wailing hearts that weep, 

 For God still ' givelh his beloved sleep,' 

 And if an endless sleep He wills, — so best" — 



will recognise that the agnostic man of science had 

 much in common with the man of faith. 



There is still much more to say of him, but this is 

 not the place to say it. Let it be enough to add that 

 those who had the happiness to come near him knew 

 that besides science and philosophy there was room in 

 him for yet many other things ; they forgot the learned 

 investigator, the wise man of action, and the fearless 

 combatant as they listened to him talking of letters, of 

 pictures, or of music, always wondering; wliiih delighted 

 them most; the sure thrust with which he hit the mark 

 whatever it might be, or the brilliant wit which flashed 

 around his stroke. .And yet one word more. .\s an object 

 seen first at a distance changes in aspect to the looker-on 

 who draws nearer and yet more near, featmes unseen 

 afar off filling up the vision close at hand, so he seemed 

 to change to those who coming nearer and nearer to him 

 gained a happy place within his innermost circle ; his in- 

 cisive thought, his wide knowledge, his sure and prompt 

 judgment, his ready antl sharp word, all these shrunk 

 away so as to seem but a small part of him ; his greater 

 part, and that which most shaped his life, was seen to be 

 a heart full of love which, clinging round his family and 

 his friends in tenderest devotion, was spread over all his 

 fellow men in kindness guided by justice. 



j\I. Foster. 



DR. I- R I ED RICH TIETJEN. 



AT a time when astronomical knowledge is being ex- 

 tended at so rapid a rate, and in so many directions, 

 as has been the case during the last few years, it is 

 natural and right that the highest honour should be paid 

 to those astronomers to whose genius and industry are 

 due discoveries possible on account of original suggestion 



