70 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



la the Preface (dated April 7, 1 893) to vol. ii. of 

 the Collected Essays, in speaking of these very lectures, 

 Huxley suggests a course that many would be well 

 advised to follow : — 



" It would seem that many people must have found them 

 useful thirty years ago ; and, though the sixties appear now to 

 be reckoned by many of the rising generation as a part of the 

 dark ages, I am not without some grounds for suspecting that 

 there yet remains a fair sprinkling even of ' philosophic thinkers ' 

 to whom it may be a profitable, perhaps even a novel, task to 

 descend from the heights of speculation and go over the ABC 

 of the great biological problem as it was set before a body of 

 shrewd artizans at that remote epoch." 



Two paragraphs, on the highest aim of life and the 

 proper attitude to maintain towards scientific speculation, 

 respectively, are particularly well worth quoting : — 



" So far as I can venture to offer an opinion on such a matter, 

 the purpose of our being in existence, the highest object that 

 human beings can set before themselves, is not the pursuit of 

 any such chimera as the annihilation of the unknown ; but it 

 is simply the unwearied endeavour to remove its boundaries a 

 little further from our little sphere of action. 



" Men of science do not pledge themselves to creeds ; they 

 are bound by articles of no sort ; there is not a single belief 

 that it is not a bounden duty with them to hold with a light 

 hand and to part with cheerfully, the moment it is really proved 

 to be contrary to any fact, great or small. And if, in course 

 of time I see good reasons for such a proceeding, I shall have 

 no hesitation in coming before you, and pointing out any change 

 in my opinion without finding the slightest occasion to blush 

 for so doing. So I say that we accept this view as we accept 

 any other, so long as it will help us, and we feel bound to retain 

 it only so long as it will serve our great purpose — the improve- 

 ment of man's estate and the widening of his knowledge. The 

 moment this, or any other conception, ceases to be useful for 

 these purposes, away with it to the four winds ; we care not 

 what becomes of it ! " 



