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I confess I hoped to find in Mr. Clodd’s book what I 
have entirely failed to construct for myself, a consistent 
and systematic summary of Huxley’s teaching in these 
matters. That he has not succeeded convinces me that 
the thing is impossible. Huxley’s position was avowedly 
negative ; he had no illusions on the subject (“ Life,” ii. 
301). Mr. Clodd says that he “asked the churches to 
revive” the creed of Micah. I fail to find the passage, 
or that he did more than recommend that creed as a 
‘* work of art.” Two years later he wrote :—‘“ That there 
is no evidence of the existence of such a being as the 
God of the theologians is true enough ” (“‘ Life,” il. 162). 
The fact is—and I think Mr. Clodd has failed to bring 
it out clearly—Huxley’s theological and ethical writings 
are not a gospel, but the revelation of the working of a 
nature of singular complexity. A heart of warm emotion 
was in perpetual conflict with an intellect which strove to 
be the “clear cold logic engine” which he so much 
desiderated (“ Life,” i. 198). The late R. H. Hutton, 
who often showed real insight, hit the mark when he said 
that Huxley’s “slender definite creed in no respect 
represented the cravings of his large nature,” and there 
was more than sly humour in Bishop Thirlwall’s remark 
on the presence at the Metaphysical Society of ‘‘ Arch- 
bishop Huxley and Prof. Manning.” The man’s real 
catholicity of temperament endeared him to his friends 
and overbore the effect of his cold logic and often 
petulant agnosticism. 
In dealing with biblical or any other ancient documents 
it is not sufficient to dismiss them because their literal 
accuracy cannot be sustained. The scientific problem is 
to ascertain how they came to be evolved by mankind 
and what is the true meaning behindthem. This Huxley 
rarely did, and in consequence laid himself open to the 
reproach attributed to Jowett that ‘‘he did not consider 
the literature.” Huxley said “the story of the Deluge 
is a pure fiction” (‘‘ Essays,” iv. 234). But it occurs in 
Babylonian literature, and he subsequently followed 
Suess in giving what is probably its true explanation 
(Z.c. 247). He gave himself an excellent example of the 
true method in his analysis of “the account of Saul’s 
necromantic expedition,’ which he thought “quite con- 
sistent with probability” (‘“ Essays,” iv. 291), and he 
defines in the same essay with luminous precision what 
may be described as the method of biblical palceontology 
(2. c. 290). 
It seems to me that it would be a mistake to take 
Huxley’s theology too seriously. It was essentially an 
intellectual product and not a working system. Thus he 
took “the conception of necessity to have a logical and 
not a physical foundation” (‘‘ Life,” 1. 412). He was 
above all things masculine and human. In re-reading 
his “ Life and Letters,” I am struck with the sanity of 
his judgments on administrative and political questions. 
To whatever extreme he pushed his logical conclusions in 
reasoning, when it came to ‘‘ business” he was essentially 
practical. He raised many important questions. That 
is easy enough even for men of smaller intellectual calibre. 
What he did with them is that which really interests 
us. The ethical problem is the one of greatest actual 
importance. His fundamental position as regards this 
was a divorce between theology and ethics. “The end 
of the evolution of theology will be like its beginning—it 
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NATURE 
[JUNE 5,-1902 
will cease to have any relation to ethics” (‘ Essays,” 
iv. 371, 372). But the practical difficulty at once occurred 
to him—How is the dense mass of human action to be 
influenced by an appeal to abstract principles? Here is 
his answer :—‘] must confess I have been . . . seriously 
perplexed to know by what practical measures the 
religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, 
was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of 
opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible. The 
Pagan moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble 
Stoic, Marcus Antonius, is too high and refined for an 
ordinary child” (“ Essays,” iii. 397). ‘‘ Life and colour ””— 
there you have the problem in a nutshell. When it 
came to the question of Board School education, he 
fought for the Bible. According to Mr. Clodd (p. 37), 
shortly before his death he regretted this, and ‘came to 
see” that it was “deplorable.” But in 1894 he did “ not 
repent ... in the least” (“ Life,” ii. 383), and as to the 
“highest biblical ideal,” he wrote in 1897, “I do believe 
that the human race is not yet, possibly never will be, in 
a position to dispense with it” (“‘ Essays,” v. 58). 
Meanwhile it is interesting to note that he had tried 
various other solutions. One was obedience to natural 
law, an old-fashioned :precept which traces back to 
Kingsley and farther :—“ The safety of morality lies in 
. a real and living belief in that fixed order of nature 
which sends social disorganisation upon the track of 
immorality, as surely as it sends physical disease after 
physical trespasses (‘‘ Essays,” ix. 146). 
But the “colour” question was insistent, as it must be, 
andso the moral sense was identified with “an innate sense 
of moral beauty ” (“ Life,” ii. 305). This was compared 
with the zsthetic sense, and as with that (“ Essays,” ix. 
80), “evolution accounts for morality” (“ Life,” 11. 360). 
This was an intuitional theory which was finally replaced 
by one that was practicaily utilitarian. “‘ Of moral purpose 
I see no trace in nature. That is an article of exclusive 
human manufacture” (‘‘ Life,” ii. 268). Mr. Clodd will 
save me the trouble of enforcing the position by further 
citations. “The terms ‘good’ and ‘ evil’ have no meaning 
till communal hfe begins. Where there is no society there 
isno sin. A solitary man on an uninhabited island can 
do no wrong ” (p. 284). I believe it is a moot point whether 
political economy can exist on an island with two in- 
habitants. but it seems a little harsh when there is only 
one to deprive him of such consolation as he may derive 
from his ‘‘innate sense of moral beauty ” and bring him 
down without appeal to the level of the beasts that 
perish. 
The Romanes lecture, which Mr. Clodd admires so 
much, to me is pathetic, because it is a sort of cry of 
despair. The cosmic order which we were formerly 
exhorted to conform to is identified with evil, and this is 
to be strenuously combated by the ethical principle. 
But the conflict will be unavailing, and the cosmic order 
will resume its sway. So after traversing the whole field 
of ethical exploration we are finally thrown into the 
arms of Schopenhauer. All this is intensely interesting 
to anyone who cares for such problems or for the work- 
ing of aremarkable mind. But helpful or constructive I 
distinctly say that it is not. I turn to Mr. Clodd and find 
that he extracts from it “a religion that, coordinated 
with the needs and aspirations of human nature, would 
