l60 HUXLEY 



Polemics, as Huxley said, " are always more or 

 less an evil." But the lukewarmness which lets error 

 and corruption pursue their baneful course is a greater 

 evil. And in the questions at issue between the ex- 

 ponents of the doctrine of Evolution and the defend- 

 ers of orthodoxy and privilege there was no place for 

 indifference or compromise. It was guerre a outrance. 

 The supremacy of clericalism involves the thraldom 

 of the mind, because its submission to an authority 

 claiming supernatural origin, and, therefore, one not 

 to be questioned, save at the soul's peril, was de- 

 manded. In ordinary matters, the claimant to author- 

 ity submits his credentials, on the verification of which 

 his claim is admitted or rejected. And in matters of 

 such high import as the beliefs which rule a man's 

 life, it would seem that the same method should apply. 

 Yet the notion is widespread, even among intelligent 

 persons, that the credentials required in mundane 

 things are not to be demanded in what are deemed 

 higher things. The spiritual " powers that be " — 

 bishops, priests, and deacons — " are ordained of God," 

 and the documents on which their claims are based 

 are exempt from scrutiny. The prevalence of such a 

 notion is explicable only by the fact that the majority 

 of people govern their workaday lives on principles 

 different from those which operate in the creeds which 

 they profess. They rely, in lazy acquiescence, upon 



