Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3

by Thomas Henry Huxley

As between Mr. Spencer and myself, the question is not one of "a dividing line," but of entire and complete divergence as soon as we leave the foundations laid by Hume, Kant, and Hamilton, who are MY philosophical forefathers. To my mind the "Absolute" philosophies were finally knocked on the head by Hamilton; and the "Unknowable" in Mr. Spencer's sense is merely the Absolute redivivus, a sort of ghost of an extinct philosophy, the name of a negation hocus-pocussed into a sham thing. If I am to talk about that of which I have no knowledge at all, I prefer the good old word "God", about which there is no scientific pretence.

To my mind Agnosticism is simply the critical attitude of the thinking faculty, and the definition of it should contain no dogmatic implications of any kind. I, for my part, do not know whether the problem of existence is insoluble or not; or whether the ultimate cause (if there be such a thing) is unknown or not. That of which I am certain is, that no satisfactory solution of this problem has been offered, and that, from the nature of the intellectual faculty, I am unable to conceive that such a solution will ever be found. But on that, as on all other questions, my mind is open to consider any new evidence that may be offered.

[And later:—]

I have long been aware of the manner in which my views have been confounded with those of Mr. Spencer, though no one was more fully aware of our divergence than the latter. Perhaps I have done wrongly in letting the thing slide so long, but I was anxious to avoid a breach with an old friend…

Whether the Unknowable or any other Noumenon exists or does not exist, I am quite clear I have no knowledge either way. So with respect to whether there is anything behind Force or not, I am ignorant; I neither affirm nor deny. The tendency to idolatry in the human mind is so strong that faute de mieux it falls down and worships negative abstractions, as much the creation of the mind as the stone idol of the hands. The one object of the Agnostic (in the true sense) is to knock this tendency on the head whenever or wherever it shows itself. Our physical science is full of it.

[Nevertheless, the doctrine seemed to take almost everybody by surprise. The drift of the lecture was equally misunderstood by critics of opposite camps. Huxley was popularly supposed to hold the same views as Mr. Spencer—for were they not both Evolutionists? On general attention being called to the existing difference between their views, some jumped to the conclusion that Huxley was offering a general recantation of evolution, others that he had discarded his former theories of ethics. On the one hand he was branded as a deserter from free thought; on the other, hailed almost as a convert to orthodoxy. It was irritating, but little more than he had expected. The conditions of the lecture forbade any reference to politics or religion; hence much had to be left unsaid, which was supplied next year in the Prolegomena prefacing the re-issue of the lecture.

After all possible trimming and compression, he still feared the lecture would be too long, and would take more than an hour to deliver, especially if the audience was likely to be large, for the numbers must be considered in reference to the speed of speaking. But he had taken even more pains than usual with it.] "The Lecture," [he writes to Professor Romanes on April 19], "has been in type for weeks, if not months, as I have been taking an immensity of trouble over it. And I can judge of nothing till it is in type." [But this very precaution led to unexpected complications. When the proposition to lecture was first made to him, he was not sent a copy of the statute ordering that publication in the first instance should lie with the University Press; and in view of the proviso that "the Lecturer is free to publish on his own behalf in any other form he may like," he had taken Professor Romanes' original reference to publication by the Press to be a subsidiary request to which he gladly assented. However, a satisfactory arrangement was speedily arrived at with the publishers; Huxley remarking:—]

All I have to say is, do not let the University be in any way a loser by the change. If the V.-C. thinks there is any risk of this, I will gladly add to what Macmillan pays. That matter can be settled between us.

[However, he had not forgotten the limitation of his subject in respect of religion and politics, and he repeatedly refers to his careful avoidance of these topics as an "egg-dance." And wishing to reassure Mr. Romanes on this head, he writes on April 22:—]

There is no allusion to politics in my lecture, nor to any religion except Buddhism, and only to the speculative and ethical side of that. If people apply anything I say about these matters to modern philosophies, except evolutionary speculation, and religions, that is not my affair. To be honest, however, unless I thought they would, I should never have taken all the pains I have bestowed on these 36 pages.