164 HUXLEY 



him to sympathise less with the "half-and-half senti- 

 mental school," represented by divines of the type of 

 Dean Farrar, than " with thoroughgoing orthodoxy," 

 as represented by the late Mr. Spurgeon. Of one 

 and all of them it may be said that his thoughts were 

 not their thoughts, nor his ways their ways. He 

 dealt with facts ; they played with phrases. They 

 acted as if " the analysis of terms is the right way of 

 knowledge, and mistook the multiplication of proposi- 

 tions for the discovery of fresh truth." ' And he 

 thought them lacking in straightforwardness. His 

 conversation was " Yea, yea," or " Nay, nay " ; theirs 

 was evasive, or qualifying, when a direct question was 

 put to them. To him they seemed to confuse much 

 and to explain nothing. And he felt that if men of 

 science have not lightened our darkness concerning 

 many things, theologians have only deepened it. To 

 mix with them was to inhale a relaxing air wherein 

 the fibres of veracity were loosened. 



Some time before his death, the decay of dogmatic 

 theology, which a changed intellectual atmosphere had 

 brought about, was followed by a revival of sacerdotal- 

 ism, the force of which has increased rather than 

 abated. The result is a general materialising of 

 u aids to faith." Churches and services are more 

 ornate ; the sensuous stimuli of music, incense, and 

 1 Rousseau, by John Morley, ii. p. 338. 



