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Page 29
If there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of
the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the
increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over
Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows
that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and
the intensity of want, with its concomitant physical and moral
degradation among the masses of the people, I should hail the
advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair
away as a desirable consummation.
In the matter of personal conduct he rejected the notions that the
moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future
rewards and punishments, and that such a system is indispensable to
practical morality. "I believe," he said, "that both these dogmas are
very mischievous lies."
There is no need for future compensation because, so he firmly
believed, "the Divine Government--if we may use such a phrase to
express the sum of the 'customs of matter'--is wholly just....But for
this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that
the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the _whole_
law--physical as well as moral--and that moral obedience will not
atone for physical sin, or _vice vers�_." Thus he could declare "the
more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my
own), the more obvious it is that the wicked does _not_ flourish, nor
is the righteous punished." "The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as
certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so--for experimental
proof of the fact is within reach of us all--nay, is before us all in
our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it." Nevertheless--
It is to be recollected, in view of the apparent discrepancy
between men's acts and their rewards, that Nature is juster
than we are. She takes into account what a man brings with him
into this world, which human justice cannot do. If I, born a
bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from
others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me; but
I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would
be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done
the same thing.
Accordingly--
Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I
believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of
this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that
their inevitable rewards and punishments are here.
If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from
evil-doing, surely a fortiori the certainty of hell now will
do so? If a man could be firmly impressed with the belief that
stealing damaged him as much as swallowing arsenic would do
(and it does), would not the dissuasive force of that belief
be greater than that of any based on mere future expectations?
And this leads me to quote words written by an old friend and
colleague of his, Sir Spencer Walpole:--
Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard
were, on the whole, the highest. He recognized that the fact
of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the
most upright of lives; and I am very much of the opinion of a
little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who,
when she was told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future
rewards and no fear of future punishments, emphatically
declared: "Then I think Professor Huxley is the best man I
have ever known."
XIII
MORALITY AND THE CHURCH
It is alike interesting and satisfactory to reflect that practical
morality in civilized life is much the same for all earnest men,
however they differ in their theories as to the origin of moral ideas
and the kind of motives and sanctions to be insisted on for right
action. It is true that the theologians and supernaturalists have
erected their scaffolding around the building of social and human
morality, vowing that it will not stand without. Yet it remains steady
when the scaffolding is warped by the winds of doctrine or uprooted
by advancing knowledge. The spirit that has built it is free from the
perverted enthusiasms which crusade against freedom, put thought in
fetters, and sanctify persecution. It lends no support to the other
spirit that would dominate minds and consciences by formul� that lie
outside the court of reason. These things are of clericalism, and it
was clericalism to which Huxley ever found himself in opposition, for
it "raises obstacles to scientific ways of thinking, which are even
more important than scientific discoveries." But all associations for
promoting that sympathy which is at the foundation of human society
need not be infected with clericalism. If such a step were otherwise
expedient, even the State might do something towards that end
indirectly:--
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