io6 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



importance to medical students of some school training in 

 chemistry, physics and botany is emphasized, some criticism 

 is directed against the current methods of teaching and 

 acquiring a knowledge of physiology, and the abolition 

 of comparative anatomy and materia medica from the 

 medical curriculum advocated. Besides this it is strongly 

 urged that, in the interest of the London medical schools, 

 the teaching of the theoretical subjects in the course of 

 study ought to be centralized in two or three insti- 

 tutions. 



One of Huxley's most famous addresses, that "On 

 Descartes' ' Discourse touching the Method of using 

 one's Reason rightly and of seeking Scientific Truth,' " was 

 delivered on March 24, to the Cambridge Y.M.C.A. 

 (Coll. Essays, i, p. 166). The address is not merely 

 interesting as a lucid exposition of Cartesian philosophy, 

 but also because it demonstrates that this philosophy 

 was one of the important influences that had helped 

 to bring about Huxley's characteristic intellectual 

 attitude : — 



" This golden rule is — give unqualified assent to no proposi- 

 tions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that 

 they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this great first 

 commandment of science consecrated Doubt. It removed 

 Doubt from the seat of penance among the grievous sins to 

 which it had long been condemned, and enthroned it in that 

 high place among the primary duties, which is assigned to it by 

 the scientific conscience of these latter days. . . . When I say 

 that Descartes consecrated doubt, you must remember that it 

 was that sort of doubt which Goethe has called, 'the active 

 scepticism, whose whole aim is to conquer itself;' and not 

 that other sort, which is born of flippancy and ignorance, and 

 whose aim is only to perpetuate itself, as an excuse for idleness 

 and indifference." 



Another very well-known lecture, " On the Formation 



