316 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xvi 



for all his dreams. Nor does it help me to tell me 

 that the aspirations of mankind that my own highest 

 aspirations even lead me towards the doctrine of 

 immortality. I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it 

 be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me 

 to believe a thing because I like it 



Science has taught to me the opposite lesson. She 

 warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps 

 with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence 

 for such belief than for one to which I was previously 

 hostile. 



My business is to teach my aspirations to conform 

 themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise 

 with my aspirations. 



Science seems to me to teach in the highest and 

 strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in 

 the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will 

 of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be 

 prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow 

 humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, 

 or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn 

 content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all 

 risks to do this. 



There are, however, other arguments commonly 

 brought forward in favour of the immortality of man, 

 which are to my mind not only delusive but mischievous. 

 The one is the notion that the moral government of the 

 world is imperfect without a system of future rewards 

 and punishments. The other is : that such a system is 

 indispensable to practical morality. I believe that both 

 these dogmas are very mischievous lies. 



With respect to the first, I am no optimist, but I 

 have the firmest belief that the Divine Government (if 

 we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the 

 "customs of matter") is wholly just. The more I 

 know intimately of the lives of other men (to say 

 nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me that 



