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 formulæ 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?