377 
ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY TO A BODY OF THE 
CLERGY AT SION COLLEGE. 
Nov. 21, 1867. 
_ In coming here to-night at the request of your President, I beg it may he 
distinctly understood that for what I may say I alone am responsible. One 
of the things which strikes us in these times is the fact that there are two 
great leading sections of society, i. e., philosophers and clergy, which occupy 
positions towards each other which are neither pleasing nor wise. These 
two portions of society at one time taught hut one doctrine, although they 
represented different sides of that doctrine ; but now it is not so — the views 
of each have become more and more divergent, although the fact remains 
that philosophy and theology are but different sides of one and the same 
thing. 
You clergy, from a sort of conventional dishonesty of society, tend to 
widen that divergence. The mental atmosphere in which my friends, as 
scientific men, and the clergy live, are different — the two utterly distinct : 
the points of contact between the two very limited indeed. Intellectual 
communion there is none ; each goes on, exists, and thinks in his own 
separate world. 
This, to say the least of it, is lamentable ; both are men of the same 
origin, the same interests, the same desire for truth. Why is it the divergence 
is so great ? Your President has done me the honour of thinking that I, for 
the present at least, may he regarded as the representative of science and 
scientific research on this occasion, and I on this occasion accept that 
responsibility. 
My business to-night is not to he the missionary, hut the minister of 
science. I desire no converts, I seek to make no proselytes ; I am not here 
to. proselytize, and I desire most anxiously to abstain from anything that 
j ar upon the minds of those who hear me. The line which I purpose 
to take is simply this 1st. What we men of science think ; and 2nd. 
Why we think it. There are two ways by which the divergence between 
clerical and scientific opinion spoken of may be met. 1st. By the conversion 
of either side, which I fear I must pronounce to be hopeless. 2nd. By each 
side believing in the probity of the other, and trying to understand one 
another. 
After this preface I shall make no further apology, but come direct to the 
point, and state clearly the conclusion we men of science arrive at by the 
deductions we are bound to make from existing facts. We cannot see our 
way out of these conclusions. Holding the principles we do, rationally and 
fairly, we cannot, in common sense and reason, draw back and give them 
up. We must go on to the legitimate consequence of those conclusions 
and of those principles. 
You tell your congregations that the world was made six thousand years 
ago, in the period of six days — and further, that all living animals were made 
within that period, and on sundry of those days, and as made so have con- 
tinued to the present time, making whatever deductions may be necessary 
for extinction of species and other changes since their original creation. 
Thus you hold and teach that men of science like myself are liable to pains 
and penalties, as men who are guilty of breaking or disputing great moral 
laws. I am bound to say I do not believe these statements you make and 
teach, and I am further bound to say that I do not, and I cannot call up to 
mind amongst men who are men of science and research, ^truthful men, one 
