1 62 HUXLEY 



" I am very glad," he writes to a correspondent, 

 " that you see the importance of doing battle with the 

 clericals. I am astounded at the narrowness of view 

 of many of our colleagues on this point ! They shut 

 their eyes to the obstacles which clericalism raises in 

 every direction against scientific ways of thinking, 

 which are even more important than scientific discov- 

 eries. 



" I desire that the next generation may be less fet- 

 tered by the gross and stupid superstitions of ortho- 

 doxy than mine has been/' 1 



He observed that the conversion of a man into a 

 " clerk in holy orders " was not attended with any ad- 

 dition to his intelligence. On the contrary, it leads 

 to the cramping of his intellect, since at a fluent pe- 

 riod of life, when he is on the threshold of its problems, 

 he is required to stunt the further development of his 

 mind by declaring that he accepts certain beliefs as 

 final. 2 Nor does the clothing him with a shovel-hat, 

 apron, and gaiters " in the smallest degree augment 

 such title to respect as his opinions may intrinsically 

 possess." 3 The emphasising of this in the case of 



1 II. 234. 



2 " If the clergy are bound down, and the laity unbound ; if the 

 teacher may not seek the Truth, and the taught may; if the Church 

 puts the Bible in the hand of one as a living spirit and in the hand 

 of the other as a dead letter — what is to come of it ? I love the 

 Church of England. But what is to become of such a monstrous 

 system, such a Godless lie as this?" (To Professor Dawlcins, 

 1862.) — Letters of (the then Rev.) John Richard Green, p. 1 10. 



3 Coll. Essays, i. p. 249 ; and see Morley's Diderot, ii. p. 50 

 (note). 



