66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



know nothing about the unseen world and the future ? I was ig- 

 norant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of 

 a professed theologian," is either a quibble, or one of many indi- 

 cations that he does not recognize the point at issue. I am speak- 

 ing, as the sentence shows, of scientific knowledge — knowledge 

 which can be obtained by our own reason and observation alone — 

 and no one with Prof. Huxley's learning is justified in being igno- 

 rant that it is not upon such knowledge, but upon supernatural 

 revelation, that Christian belief rests. However, as he goes on to 

 say, my view of " the real state of the case is that the agnostic 

 ' does not believe the authority ' on which ' these things ' are 

 stated, which authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fash- 

 ioned ' infidel ' who is afraid to own to his right name." The argu- 

 ment has nothing to do with his motive, whether it is being afraid 

 or not. It only concerns the fact that that by which he is distinct- 

 ively separated from the Christian is that he does not believe the 

 assurances of Jesus Christ. 



Prof. Huxley thinks there is " an attractive simplicity about 

 this solution of the problem " — he means, of course, this statement 

 of the case — " and it has that advantage of being somewhat offen- 

 sive to the persons attacked, which is so dear to the less refined 

 sort of controversialist." I think Prof. Huxley must have forgot- 

 ten himself and his own feelings in this observation. There can 

 be no question, of course, of his belonging himself to the more 

 refined sort of controversialists ; but he has a characteristic fancy 

 for solutions of problems, or statements of cases, which have the 

 " advantage of being somewhat offensive to the persons attacked." 

 Without taking this particular phrase into account, it certainly has 

 " the advantage of being offensive to the persons attacked " that 

 Prof. Huxley should speak in this article of " the pestilent doctrine 

 on which all the churches have insisted, that honest disbelief " — 

 the word " honest " is not a misquotation — " honest disbelief in 

 their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offense, indeed a 

 sin of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future 

 retribution as murder or robbery," or that he should say, " Trip 

 in morals or in doctrine (especially in doctrine), without due re- 

 pentance or retractation, or fail to get properly baptized before 

 you die, and a plebiscite of the Christians of Europe, if they were 

 true to their creeds, would affirm your everlasting damnation by 

 an immense majority." We have fortunately nothing to do in 

 this argument with plebiscites ; and as statements of authoritative 

 Christian teaching, the least that can be said of these allegations is 

 that they are offensive exaggerations. It had " the advantage " 

 again, of being " offensive to the persons attacked," when Prof. 

 Huxley, in an article in this review on " Science and the Bishops," 

 in November, 1887, said that " scientific ethics can and does declare 



