HUXLEY AND HIS WORK. 779 



" I can not deny," he said, " that the increase of scientific knowledge 

 has deprived parts of the earlier books of the Bible of the historical 

 value which was generally attributed to them by our forefathers. The 

 story of the creation in Genesis, unless we play fast and loose either 

 with words or with science, can not be brought into harmony 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 iu their present form. Some histor- 

 ical element may underlie many of the traditions in the first eleven 

 chapters of that book, but this we can not 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 knowing 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 rewarded 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 himself an agnostic and the 

 attitude he assumed was agnosticism. 



This term agnostic, we are told by Mr. B. H. Hutton, was suggested 

 by Professor Huxley at a party held previous to the formation of the 

 now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James Knowles's house on 

 Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, and was suggested by St. 

 Paul's mention of the altar to the unknown God — ^AyvGoGtcp deep. 



But Huxley has explained that he assumed this term in contradis- 

 tinction to the gnostic of old. The gnostic claimed to know what in 

 the nature of things is unknowable, 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. Believing as he did, on a bed of pro- 

 longed illness he resignedly awaited the inevitable, and desired 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." 



