Spiritual Evolution of Society 1 89 



attitude of those who neither deny its existence nor 

 assert it, and in any case hold that it must never be 

 mistaken for, or confused with, the contents of the 

 bracket, was called by Huxley, ' Agnosticism.' It 

 was his own position, and one which is now very 

 general." As far as I have been able to discover, this 

 is only a partial truth in regard to Huxley. No doubt 

 he was the protagonist of the Agnostic school, but 

 the fact remains that he was ultimately forced to 

 the conclusion of an " inscrutable power " behind 

 the machine. I believe these were his own words ; at 

 present it is impossible for me to verify this statement ; 

 however, I am able to give one or two extracts from 

 the article on " Huxley " in the " Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica," which prove that he did arrive at this 

 conclusion : " He insisted, however, that ' atheism 

 is, on purely philosophic grounds, untenable.' " His 

 theism never really advanced beyond the recognition 

 of " the passionless impersonality of the unknown and 

 the unknowable, which Science shows everywhere under- 

 lying the thin veil of phenomena " {" Life," i. 239). We 

 have here clear proof that Huxley was compelled to 

 give up the purely materialist standpoint : his strong 

 logical faculty and power of reasoning, combined with 

 wide knowledge and outlook, demanded the concept of 

 an eternal, omnipotent Power, who must logically 

 be the designing and regulating Power, otherwise why 

 postulate Him at all ? The denial of Him was, " on 

 purely philosophic grounds, untenable," and even 

 Science proved in similar fashion unwarrantable, for 

 " everywhere " there is evidence of an inscrutable 

 Power " underlying the thin veil of phenomena." The 

 thin veil is most interesting, and is certainly damaging 

 to the mechanists, who look to Huxley as the high 

 priest of their dogma. Truly, out of their own mouths 

 have they been convicted of error. 



