180 Thomas Henry Husley. 
conviction which has grown with my growth and strengthened 
with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings 
of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the 
resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make- 
believe by which pious hands have hidden its ugliest features 
is stripped off. 
“Tt is with this intent that I have subordinated any reasona- 
ble, or unreasonable, ambition for scientific fame which I may 
have permitted myself to entertain to other ends; to the popn- 
larisation of science; to the development and organisation of 
scientific education; to the endless series of battles and skir- _ 
mishes over evolution; and to untiring opposition to that 
ecclesiastical spirit, that clericalism, which in England, as 
everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, 
is the deadly enemy of science. 
“Tn striving for the attainment of these objects, I have been 
but one among many, and I shall be well content to be remem- 
bered, or even not remembered, as such.” : 
Huxley was a man of strong moral nature, with a tender 
conscience, but he could not accept authority when his reason 
did not approve. The following quotation will make clear his 
views on religious subjects, which have been much misunder- 
stood : 
“When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask 
myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a 
materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker ; I found 
that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the 
answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had 
neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except 
the last. The one thing in which most of these good people 
were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. 
They were quite sure they had attained a certain “ gnosis,’— 
had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence ; 
while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong con- 
viction that the problem was insoluble. *  * *“ * “=o 
I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the ap- 
propriate title of “agnostic.” It came into my head as sug- 
gestively antithetic to the “gnostic” of Church History, who 
professed to know so-much about the very things of which I 
was ignorant.” 
One thing that will always be of special interest to Ameri- 
cans is Huxley’s visit to this country, in 1876. One object of 
this visit was to deliver a series of lectures in New York, but 
he came mainly to see America and its people, and what they 
were doing for science. The Exposition that year in Philadel- 
phia was also an inducement, and last, but not least, he wished 
to see a sister, who for many years had resided in the South. 
During his visit, which extended over seven weeks, he attended 
