246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



admissions. Were all our actions linked one to another by me- 

 chanical necessity, it is admitted that responsibility and duty would 

 be no longer conceivable. Our " energies/' as Prof. Huxley ad- 

 mits, would be " paralyzed " by " utter necessarianism." Further, 

 did our conception of matter represent a reality, were matter low 

 and gross, as we are accustomed to think of it, then man, as the 

 product of matter, would be low and gross also, and heroism and 

 duty would be really successfully degraded, by being reduced to 

 questions of carbon and ammonia. But from all of these difficul- 

 ties Prof. Huxley professes to extricate us. Let us look back at 

 the arguments by which he considers that he has done so. 



We will begin with his method of liberating us from the 

 " iron " law of necessity, and thus giving us back our freedom and 

 moral character. He performs this feat, or rather, he thinks he 

 has performed it, by drawing a distinction between what will 

 happen and what must happen. On this distinction his entire 

 position is based. Now in every argument used by any sensible 

 man there is probably some meaning. Let us try fairly to see 

 what is the meaning in this. I take it that the idea at the bottom 

 of Prof. Huxley's mind is as follows: Though all our scientific 

 reasoning presupposes the uniformity of the universe, we are un- 

 able to assert of the reality behind the universe, that it might not 

 manifest itself in ways by which all present science would be 

 baffled. But what has an idea like this to do with any practical 

 question ? So far as man, and man's will, is concerned, we have 

 to do only with the universe as we know it ; and the only knowl- 

 edge we have of it, worth calling knowledge, involves, as Prof. 

 Huxley is constantly telling us, " the great act of faith," which 

 leads us to take what has been as a certain index of what will be. 

 Now, with regard to this universe, Prof. Huxley tells us that the 

 progress of science has always meant, and " means now more than 

 ever," " the extension of the province of . . . causation, and . . . 

 the banishment of spontaneity."* And this applies, as he ex- 

 pressly says, to human thought and action as much as to the 

 flowering of a plant. Just as there can be no voluntary action 

 without volition, so there can be no volition without some pre- 

 ceding cause. Accordingly, if a man's condition at any given 

 moment were completely known, his actions could be predicted 

 with as much or with as little certainty as the fall of a stone could 

 be predicted if released from the hand that held it. Now Prof. 

 Huxley tells us that, with regard to certainty, we are justified in 

 saying that the stone will fall ; and we should, therefore, be justi- 

 fied in saying similarly of the man, that he will act in such and 

 such a manner. Whether theoretically we are absolutely certain 

 is no matter. We are absolutely certain for all practical purposes, 



* " Lay Sermons," p. 123. 





