June 13, 1901] 



NATURE 



149 



The first was the problem of ethics. He summed up 

 his conclusions in the Romanes lecture delivered at 

 Oxford in 1893. This was his second speech delivered 

 there ; the first was in the "great Sammy fight," thirty- 

 three years before. He might well say that " Oxford 

 always represents English opinion in all its extremes" 

 (ii. 441). He nearly succeeded in producing as much 

 hubbub as on the first occasion. It is amusing, if not 

 very edifying, to read the anxious preliminary negotia- 

 tions. Huxley wrote, " Of course I will keep clear of 

 theology" (ii. 350), and Romanes naturally writes back 

 "in great alarm" (ii. 354). The pith of the whole thing 

 was, "the cosmic order is not a moral order." 



Morals are part of the cosmic order, but not identical 

 with it. Seriously regarded, this is a very simple state- 

 ment of pure fact, which is indeed the basis of one of Dr. 

 Watts's most familiar " Sacred Songs," the orthodoxy of 

 which no one has ever impeached. The order of nature 

 is self-regarding, and, as that familiar writer implies, 

 society " would be dissolved by a return to the state of 

 simple warfare among individuals" (ii. 352). The con- 

 trary view, embodied in the phrase "ethics of evolution," 

 Huxley traces to the ambiguity of the word "fittest." 

 That " which survives in the struggle for existence may 

 be, and often is, the ethically worst " (ii. 303). 



"The actions we call sinful are part and parcel of the 

 struggle for existence . . . and have become sins 

 because man alone seeks a higher life in voluntary 

 association " (ii. 282). 



So far this is a utilitarian theory of morals, and, as 

 far as it goes, accounts for the phenomena. But, as 

 Huxley saw, it leaves unexplained the fact that probably 

 every ethical system aims at a higher standard than is 

 ordinarily reached or is perhaps even necessary in prac- 

 tice. This apparently he would explain by " an innate 

 sense of moral beauty and ugliness (how originated need 

 not be discussed) " (ii. 305). I confess I am sorry for that 

 parenthesis. But the principle itself is comparable to 

 Matthew Arnold's " Something not ourselves which 

 makes for righteousness." At any rate, short work is to 

 made of those who do not possess it. 



" Some are moral cripples and idiots, and can be kept 

 straight not even by punishment. For these people 

 there is nothing but shutting up or extirpation " (ii. 306). 



I hope it is not irreverent to say that " Injuns is pisin " 

 seems to be a natural corollary. Huxley meant to look 

 up Nietzsche (ii. 360), but probably never did. Had he 

 done so the result would have been edifying. 



A critical study of Huxley's theological views, espe- 

 cially in the light afforded by the " Life and Letters," 

 would be extremely interestmg. This is not the place to 

 attempt anything of the sort. But some brief account is 

 necessary. The starting point is to be found in a letter 

 to Kingsley : — 



" ' Sartor Resartus ' led me to know that a deep sense of 

 religion was compatible with the entire absence of 

 theology" (i. 220). 



Now this suggests two remarks which are both justi- 

 fied, I think, by my own personal knowledge. In the first 

 place I am firmly persuaded that he, if any one, was a 

 deeply religious man. I am equally persuaded that he 

 had a perfect passion for technical theology. He often 

 NO. 1650, VOL. 64] 



thought himself, at least so he told me, that he might 

 have been a successful lawyer. I do not doubt it. But 

 the cerebral equipment which might have found employ- 

 ment in that direction got turned on to theology. This, 

 I think, throws light on his shortcomings in this field. 

 Dogma may be treated, and I think should be, in a 

 scientific spirit ; Huxley too often indicted it as if he 

 were in a police court. There is no doubt that he 

 adopted this attitude deliberately. 



" My object has been to stir up my countrymen to 

 think about these things ; and the only use of controversy 

 is that it appeals to their love of fighting and secures 

 their attention" (ii. 291). 



" I must," he says, " have a strong vein of Puritan blood 

 in me somewhere " (ii. 91), and I think it cannot be doubted 

 that he was right. His point of view was that of an ex- 

 treme nonconformist. I need not say that this implies 

 no disrespect, for nonconformity has been one of the 

 roots of the English character. 



In one aspect the religious sentiment is a response 

 to the craving for a supernatural sanction to rules of con- 

 duct. Its varied but practically universal manifestation 

 amongst mankind has got to be accounted for by evolution 

 just as much as the possession of a vertebral column. 

 It is not practically helpful to dismiss it as irrational. 



Huxley, like others of a Puritan temperament, had 

 more liking for the Old Testament than the New : " the 

 only religion that appeals to me is prophetic Judaism" 

 ("- 339)- But Calvinism, I think, contained much with 

 which he most nearly sympathised. " Science," he 

 wrote to Kingsley, " 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" (i. 219). "I have the firmest belief," he 

 continues, "that the Divine Government .... is wholly 

 just." There is a very interesting passage, too long to- 

 quote (ii. 303), in which he points out that " the best 

 theological teachers .... substantially recognise these 

 realities of things, however strange the forms in which 

 they clothe their conceptions." For my own part, I wish 

 he had applied the principle which is implied here irv 

 some of his controversial essays. Writings thousands of 

 years old would have been unintelligible if they had not 

 been expressed not merely in the language but in terms 

 of the ideas current at the time. The demonology of the 

 first century was scarcely worth the powder and shot be- 

 stowed upon it. If it had cost Huxley himself "many a 

 struggle to get free " from the Pentateuchal cosmogony 

 (i. 167), he lived to see Canon Driver give up its " physi- 

 cal truth .... altogether" (ii. 218) ; the process of 

 attrition of what is superfluous will go on. 



Huxley, however, in his episcopophagous mood was a 

 grievous disappointment to extremists when it came to 

 practical business. It is difficult, I think, to exaggerate 

 the importance of the work he did on the London School 

 Board and at a terrible cost to his health. He expressed 

 "his belief that true education was impossible without 

 ' religion,' of which he declared that all that is unchange- 

 able in it is constituted by the love of some ethical ideal 

 to govern and guide conduct " (ii. 340), and he unhesita- 

 tingly adopted the words of Mr. Forster in 1870 :— 



" I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and 



