Febeuaet 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



parts of the earlier books of the Bible of the 

 historical value which was generally at- 

 tributed to them by our forefathers. The 

 story of the Creation in Genesis, unless we 

 play fast and loose either with words or 

 with science, cannot be brought into har- 

 mony with what we have learned from 

 geology. Its ethnological statements are 

 imperfect, if not sometimes inaccurate. The 

 stories of the Flood and of the Tower of Babel 

 are incredible in their present form. Some 

 historical element may underlie many of the 

 traditions in the first eleven chapters of that 

 book, but this we cannot hope to recover." 



But Huxley was not content to deny any 

 authority to the Scriptural basis of most of 

 the religions of Europe and America. He 

 denied that there was any means of know- 

 ing what the future had in store. He did 

 not deny that there was a heaven or a hell ; 

 he did not deny that in a future world man 

 might continue in a sublimated state, and 

 might be punished for his misdeeds or re- 

 warded for the good deeds he had performed 

 and for good thoughts on earth. He did 

 not venture to express any opinion on the 

 subject for the reason that he had no data 

 to base an opinion upon. He called him- 

 self an agnostic and the attitude he assumed 

 was agnosticism. 



This term agnostic, we are told by Mr. R. 

 H. Hutton, was suggested by Prof. Huxley 

 at a party held previous to the formation 

 of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, 

 at Mr. James Knowles' house on Clapham 

 Common, one evening in 1869, and was sug- 

 gested by St. Paul's mention of the altar to 

 the unknown God — ■'Ayvdarw Oem. 



But Huxley has explained that he as- 

 sumed this term in contradistinction to the 

 gnostic of old. The gnostic claimed to 

 know what in the nature of things is un- ^ 

 knowable, and as Huxley found himself with 

 an exactly opposite mental status, he coined 

 a word to express that antithetical state- 

 agnostic. 



I have done all I conceive to be necessary 

 in giving this statement of Huxley's attitude. 

 Whether he was right or wrong, each one 

 must judge for himself or herself. Believ- 

 ing as he did, on a bed of prolonged illness 

 he resignedly awaited the inevitable, and de- 

 sired that his sentiments reflected in verse 

 by his wife should be engraved on his tomb. 



' ' And if there be no meeting past the grave, 



If all is darkness, silence, yet 'tis rest. 

 Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep 

 For God ' still giveth his beloved sleep,' 

 And if an endless sleep he wills — so best." 

 Theo. Gill. 



OEBTITUDES AND ILLUSIONS. 

 chuae's illusion. 

 In the fall of 1880 I was encamped on the 

 Kaibab plateau at the edge of the forest 

 above the canyon gorge of a little stream. 

 White men and Indians composed the 

 party with me. Our task was to make a 

 trail down this side canyon into the depths 

 of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. 

 While in cariip after the day's work was done, 

 both Indians and white men engaged in 

 throwing stones across the little canyon, 

 which was many hundreds of feet in depth. 

 The distance from the brink of the wall on 

 which we were camped to the brink of the 

 opposite wall seemed not very great, yet no 

 man could throw a stone across the chasm, 

 though Chuar, the Indian chief, could 

 strike the opposite wall very near its brink. 

 The stones thrown by others fell into the 

 depths of the canyon. I discussed these 

 feats with Chuar and led him on to an ex- 

 planation of gravity. Now Chuar believed 

 that he could throw a stone much farther 

 along the level of the plateau than over the 

 canyon. His first illusion was thus one 

 very common among mountain travelers — 

 an underestimate of the distance of tower- 

 ing and massive rocks when the eye has no 

 intervening objects to divide the space iuto 

 parts as measures of the whole. - 



