no one will suspect us of any prejudice against professor huxley. we have often praised his vigorous writings, and his admirable service to freethought. we recognise him as a powerful fighter in the great battle between reason and faith. he is a born controversialist, he revels in the vivisection of a theological opponent, and it is easy to understand how the more placid darwin could cry to him admiringly, "what a man you are!"
but for some reason or other it seems the fate of professor huxley, as it is the fate of herbert spencer, to be made use of by the enemies of freethought; and it must be admitted that, to a certain extent, he gratuitously plays into their hands.
mr. herbert spencer has been a perfect god-send to the christians with his "unknowable"—the creation of which was the worst day's work he ever accomplished. it is only a big word, printed with a capital letter, to express the objective side of the relativity of human, knowledge. it connotes all that we do not know. it is a mere confession of ignorance; it is hollowness, emptiness, a vacuum, a nothing. and this nothing, which mr. spencer adorns with endless quasi-scientific rhetoric, is used as a buttress to prop up tottering churches.
professor huxley has been nearly as serviceable to the churches with his "agnosticism," which belongs to the same category of substantially meaningless terms as the "unknowable." no doubt it serves the turn of a good many feeble sceptics. it sounds less offensive than "atheism." an agnostic may safely be invited to dinner, while an atheist would pocket the spoons. but this pandering to "respectability" is neither in the interest of truth nor in the interest of character. an atheist is without god; an agnostic does not know anything about god, so he is without god too. they come to the same thing in the end. an agnostic is simply an atheist with a tall hat on. atheism carries its own name at the hall of science; when it occupies a fine house at eastbourne, and moves in good society, it calls itself agnosticism. and then the churches say, "ah, the true man of science shrinks from atheism; he is only an agnostic; he stands reverently in the darkness, waiting for the light."
nor is this the only way in which professor huxley has helped "the enemy." he is, for instance, far too fond of pressing the "possibility" of miracles. we have no right, he says, to declare that miracles are impossible; it is asserting more than we know, besides begging the question at issue. perfectly true. but professor huxley should remember that he uses "possibility" in one sense and the theologians in another. he uses it theoretically, and they use it practically. they use it where it has a meaning, and he uses it where it has no meaning at all, except in an à priori way, like a pair of brackets with nothing between them. when the agnostic speaks of the "possibility" of miracles, he only means that we cannot prove a universal negative.
let us take an instance. suppose some one asserts that a man can jump over the moon. no one can demonstrate that the feat is impossible. it is possible, in the sense that anything is possible. but this is theoretical logic. according to practical logic it is impossible, in the sense that no rational man would take a ticket for the performance.
why then does professor huxley press the "possibility" of miracles against his freethinking friends? he is not advancing a step beyond david hume. he is merely straining logical formul? in the interest of the black army.
now let us take another instance. in a recent letter to the times, with respect to the famous letter of the thirty-eight clergymen who have given the bible a fresh certificate, professor huxley is once more careful to point out that science knows nothing of "the primal origin" of the universe. but who ever said that it did? atheists, at any rate, are not aware that the universe ever had an origin. as to the "ultimate cause of the evolutionary process," it seems to us mere metaphysical jargon, as intolerable as anything in the mounding phraseology of the theologians.
but this is not all. professor huxley delivers himself of the following utterance: "in fact it requires some depth of philosophical incapacity to suppose that there is any logical antagonism between theism and the doctrine of evolution." this is food and drink to a paper like the christian world. but what does it mean? certainly there is no antagonism between the terms "theism" and "evolution." they do not fight each other in the dictionary. but is there not antagonism between evolution and any kind of theism yet formulated? the word "god" means anything or nothing. give your god attributes, and see if they are consistent with evolution. that is the only way to decide whether there is any "logical antagonism" between evolution and theism. the trouble begins when you are "logical" enough to deal in definitions; and the only definition of god that will stand the test of evolution is "a sort of a something."
we leave professor huxley to present that highly edifying theistic conclusion to his old theological opponents, and, if he likes, to flaunt it in the faces of his freethinking friends. but is it really worth while for samson to grind chaff for the philistines? we put the question to professor huxley with all seriousness. let him teach truth and smite falsehood, without spending so much time in showing that they harmonise when emptied of practical meaning. a sovereign and a feather fall with equal rapidity in a vacuum; and if you take away fact and experience, one proposition is as "possible" as another. but why should a great man waste his energies in propagating such a barren truism?
