74 HUXLEY 



the eyes of most people, is for a man to presume to go 

 about unlabelled. The world regards such a person as 

 the police do an unmuzzled dog, not under proper 

 control. I could find no label that would suit me, 

 so, in my desire to range myself and be respectable, 

 I invented one ; and, as the chief thing I was sure of 

 was that I did not know a great many things that 

 the — ^ists and the — ites about me professed to be 

 familiar with, I called myself an Agnostic. Surely 

 no denomination could be more modest or more 

 appropriate ; and I cannot imagine why I should 

 be every now and then haled out of my refuge and 

 declared sometimes to be a Materialist, sometimes an 

 Atheist, sometimes a Positivist ; and sometimes, alas 

 and alack, a cowardly or reactionary Obscurantist." 



Blind Obedience. — " No personal habit more surely 

 degrades the conscience and the intellect than bUnd 

 and unhesitating obedience to unlimited authority." 



Ideal Womanhood. — " The possibility that the ideal 

 of womanhood lies neither in the fair saint, nor in 

 the fair sinner ; that the female type of character 

 is neither better nor worse than the male, but only 

 weaker ; that women are meant neither to be men's 

 guides nor their playthings, but their comrades, 

 their fellows, and their equals, so far as Nature puts 

 no bar to that equality, does not seem to have 

 entered into the minds of those who have had the 

 conduct of the education of girls." 



The Path of Truth. — " There is one guiding rule 

 by which a man may always find tliis path, and keep 

 himself from straying when he has found it. This 

 golden rule is — give unquahfied assent to no pro- 

 positions but those the truth of which is so clear 

 and distinct that they cannot be doubted." 



