2l6 HUXLEY 



Himself declared that He taught nothing but that 

 which lay implicitly, or explicitly, in the religious and 

 ethical system of His people. 



And the scribe said unto Him, Of a truth, Teacher, 

 Thou hast well said that he is one ; and there is none 

 other but he, and to love him with all the heart, and 

 with all the understanding, and with all the strength, 

 and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more 

 than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 



xii - 3 2 > 33> 



Here is the briefest of summaries of the teaching 



of the prophets of Israel of the eighth century ; does 

 the Teacher, whose doctrine is thus set forth in His 

 presence, repudiate the exposition ? Nay ; we are 

 told, on the contrary, that Jesus saw that He " an- 

 swered discreetly," and replied, "Thou art not far 

 from the kingdom of God." 



So that I think that even if the creeds, from the 

 so-called " Apostles' " to the so-called " Athanasian," 

 were swept into oblivion ; and even if the human 

 race should arrive at the conclusion that, whether a 

 bishop washes a cup or leaves it unwashed, is not a 

 matter of the least consequence, it will get on very 

 well. The causes which have led to the development 

 of morality in mankind, which have guided or im- 

 pelled us all the way from the savage to the civilised 

 state, will not cease to operate because a number of 

 ecclesiastical hypotheses turn out to be baseless. 

 And, even if the absurd notion that morality is more 

 the child of speculation than of practical necessity 

 and inherited instinct had any foundation ; if all the 

 world is going to thieve, murder, and otherwise mis- 

 conduct itself as soon as it discovers that certain por- 

 tions of ancient history are mythical ; what is the 

 relevance of such arguments to any one who holds by 

 the Agnostic principle ? l 



1 Coll. Essays, v. p. 316. 



