CHAPTER XIV 



REACTION FROM DARWINISM; HUXLEY 



Reaction as to ethics Due to the vision of strttggle and pain Not 

 sympathy, but justice is essential It must suspend oirtright the cos- 

 mic process Older evolutionism (Greece, India) gave no guidance 

 Criticism ; nature and spirit are opposed Yet connected, and 

 reason fulfils the cosmic process by transforming it 



IT will readily be divined that it is in a special sense 

 we connect the name of Huxley with reaction from 

 Darwinism. From the time when he was converted 

 to the new views, Huxley was perhaps their most brill- 

 iant and successful advocate, both in scientific circles 

 and as a populariser, speaking to the world of readers. 

 Yet, in regard to ethics, he was continually restive. 

 The Romanes lecture for 1893 is only the most delib- 

 erate among many striking utterances of his, tending 

 in that direction. His thesis runs to the following 

 effect, that evolutionary science has done nothing for 

 ethics ; that on the contrary men only become ethical 

 as they set themselves against the principles embodied 

 in the evolutionary process of the animal world. Far 

 from regarding evolution as the master-key to ethics, 

 Huxley insists that the two terms are irreconcilable. 



Plainly, Huxley has considered only one possible 

 form of union between evolution and ethics. For 

 him evolution means Darwinism ; the struggle for ex- 



148 



