INTRODUCTION xxi 



cosmic process" as visibly to improve his condition. And 

 this road of progress toward human perfection can be 

 followed so long as the process of evolution continues on 

 an upward course, but, "some time, the summit will be 

 reached and the downward route will be commenced. 

 The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon 

 the suggestion that the power and intelligence of man 

 can ever arrest the procession of the great year." In 

 the face of the ultimate catastrophe when the cooling 

 globe will have finally triumphed over human effort, 

 Huxley had to find what comfort he could nearer at 

 hand. "There is nothing of permanent value," he wrote 

 in 1890 "(putting aside a few human affections), 

 nothing that satisfies quiet reflection except the sense 

 of having worked according to one's capacity and light, 

 to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of 

 all sorts." 



In the case of the individual he saw also no end to 

 the struggle between the law of nature and the law of 

 morality, and the outcome was no more cheering. "The 

 motive of the drama of human life is the necessity, laid 

 upon every man who comes into the world, of discovering 

 the mean between self-assertion and self-restraint suited 

 to his character and his circumstances. And the eter- 

 nally tragic aspect of the drama lies in this: that the 

 problem set before us is one the elements of which can 

 be but imperfectly known, and of which even an ap- 

 proximately right solution rarely presents itself, until 

 that stern critic, aged experience, has been furnished 

 with ample justification for venting his sarcastic humour 

 upon the irreparable blunders we have already made." 



The gloom of Huxley's view of the universe is in- 

 creased by the ideas of human freedom and necessity 

 which he sometimes, but not consistently, held. To be 

 sure, his view at its gloomiest is, as he said, no more 



