THE CONTROVERSIALIST 1 69 



that which is susceptible of clear intellectual com- 

 prehension. . . . The antagonism of science is 

 to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under 

 which religion herself is often well-nigh crushed. 

 And I trust that this antagonism will never cease ; but 

 that, to the end of time, true science will continue to 

 fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of 

 relieving men from the burden of false science, 

 which is imposed upon them in the name of Re- 

 ligion. 1 



Superfluous to add, therefore, that Huxley was no 

 iconoclast ; no man who is imbued with the spirit of 

 the doctrine of evolution, which links us to the past 

 as its products and finds a warrant for all that yet has 

 been, can be that. Regulation, not suppression, of 

 human nature, was his aim. He was as anxious as 

 any defender of the faith can be that religion should 

 u bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness " ; 

 his care was to afford it free play by the removal of 

 the accretions which make it unlovely and a reproach 

 before the world. In an address delivered as far back 

 as 187 1, he said that he could 



conceive the existence of an Established Church 

 which should be a blessing to the community. A 

 Church in which, week by week, services should be 

 devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions 

 in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of 

 an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in 

 which those who are weary of the burden of daily 



1 Coll. Essays, iv. pp. 160, 163. 



