THE INTERPRETER 157 



quiry, slides from these formulae and symbols into what 

 is commonly understood by materialism, seems to me 

 to place himself on a level with the mathematician 

 who should mistake the x's and y's with which he 

 works his problems for real entities, and with this 

 further disadvantage, as compared with the mathema- 

 tician, that the blunders of the latter are of no prac- 

 tical consequence, while the errors of systematic ma- 

 terialism may paralyse the energies and destroy the 

 beauty of a life. 1 



In his repudiation of the coarser materialistic views 

 of the universe, and in his recognition what insoluble 

 mystery attends the connection between the thoughts 

 of a man and the organ of those thoughts, Huxley 

 was under no delusion that he had disarmed old prej- 

 udices, or secured any deserters from the orthodox 

 camp. For, in place of conceding anything, he had 

 only made clearer his hostility towards the super- 

 natural explanations in which alone his opponents 

 found rest and satisfaction. And seeing to what nar- 

 row dimensions the region once covered by those ex- 

 planations had shrunk before the advance of the forces 

 of natural knowledge, he pressed on to conquest of 

 what remained. 



1 Coll. Essays, i. pp. 164, 165. 



