POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY 251 



In an analysis of Huxley's philosophical position, Mr. 

 W. L. Courtney has some interesting things to say 

 (" Professor Huxley as Philosopher," Fortnightly Review, 

 New Ser., lviii, 1895, p. 317). His earlier and later 

 writings are compared, and the conclusion reached that in 

 the final period of his life, — 



"... his large, cultivated, and sympathetic mind could 

 appreciate problems removed from the mental discipline of his 

 earlier years." 



And finally : — 



" It may, or may not be, more convenient and helpful to repre- 

 sent everything in accordance with a materialistic notation, from 

 the point of view of the progress of knowledge, but what are we 

 to do when the data of our science utterly refuse to be thus 

 represented ? How can the man who combats the cosmic pro- 

 cess, and carves out for himself a moral code in the teeth of all 

 that nature tells him, be represented by merely materialistic 

 formulas ? When Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason, he 

 was, if we like to phrase it so, an Agnostic ; but he added the 

 Critique of the Practical Reason, in which the problems of the 

 understanding were resolved by the reason. Is it possible that, 

 if Professor Huxley had carried out to their logical development 

 the thoughts involved in his Romanes Lecture, he, too, would 

 have supplemented, let us say, The Physical Basis of Life, by an 

 ethical theory, reposing on very different foundations ? " 



Prof. Ernst Haeckel (op. cit.) acknowledges the debt 

 which monistic philosophy owes to Huxley, and also 

 speaks of his work in regard to the evolution of 

 ethics : — 



" Of high interest are the researches which Huxley, as 

 * practical philosopher,' made in the relationship of the modern 

 doctrine of evolution to the great social and political problems of 

 our age. Partly he here arrives at entirely different conclusions 

 from those of his old friend, the famous ' Darwinian philosopher,' 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer. A short time ago Dr. Alexander Tille, 



