the level of the lower animals, and will love the abnormal, the monstrous, the deformed, for its own. sake. Such is the natural fruit of that philosophy which rejects the only rational conceptions of Right and Wrong, and degrades to the region of molecular physics, conceptions properly appertaining to the domain of the organic and the spiritual. Examples are not far to seek. And they are the sure signs of a decadent and effete civilisation.

APPENDIX.

A portion of Chapters I. and II. of this work appeared in the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW of November, 1886, under the title "Materialism and Morality." In the next number of the Review, Professor Huxley, in an article called "Science and Morals," took exception to certain observations of mine regarding his philosophical tenets and teaching. As I find myself unable, in the present volume, to withdraw those observations, it seems right to reprint here the following pages, published originally in the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW of February, 1887.

THE PROVINCE OF PHYSICS: A REJOINDER TO PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY, in his article Science and Morals, in the December number of this Review, desiderates "an explanation" of the "theory of his tenets "† expressed in my paper, Materialism and Morality, published in November. In proceeding to comply with the requisition of, I will not say my opponent, but my critic, I shall endeavour to be as little polemical as possible. To skill in controversy I make no pretence. And if I possessed it, assuredly I should not * P. 792. My references throughout the Appendix, unless it is otherwise expressly stated, are to vol. xlvi. of the Fortnightly Review. † P. 788.

I firmly

choose to exercise it against Professor Huxley. believe that, as he had said, we have both at heart the interests of the same sacred cause: that we may both unfeignedly declare "seu vetus est verum, diligo sive novum," however widely our convictions as to what is true, may differ.

Before I turn to the point in Professor Huxley's strictures specially requiring attention from me, I must say a word or two as to my own article which elicited them. The Professor represents me as having proceeded "after the manner of a medieval disputant." I can conceive of nothing less medieval than my paper on Materialism and Morality, either in form or in thought. Professor Huxley, who quotes St. Thomas Aquinas -although with some misapprehension of his meaning*-must*

The first of the two passages quoted by Professor Huxley from St. Thomas Aquinas is, "Ratio autem alicujus fiendi in mente actoris existens est quædam præexistentia rei fiendæ in eo." "This," the Professor says, "puts the whole case [for Determinism] in a nutshell. The ground for doing a thing in the mind of the doer is, as it were, the pre-existence of the thing done." But that is not what Aquinas means. He means that you cannot do a thing unless you have an ideal conception of it as doable.

The second, which Professor Huxley also considers an excellent "statement of the case for Determinism," runs as follows :

"Omnia quæ sunt in tempore, sunt Deo ab æterno præsentia, non solum ea ex ratione quâ habet rationes rerum apud se presentes, ut quidam dicunt, sed quia ejus intuitus fertur ab æterno supra omnia, prout sunt in sua præsentialitate. Unde manifestum est quod contingentia infallibiliter a Deo cognoscuntur, in quantum subduntur divino conspectui secundum suam præsentialitatem; et tamen sunt futura contingentia, suis causis proximis comparata."

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This is a commonplace of the schools. 'Futura contingentia " means free acts; and all Catholic theologians agree that they are infallibly foreknown. But they are foreknown as free, and cannot be predetermined by Absolute Power in any way that would destroy this freedom. Professor Huxley no doubt unwittingly — cuts Aquinas's doctrine in halves, and adopts the half which suits him. Of the passage cited by Professor Huxley from the De Civitate it must suffice to say that St. Augustine means not an inevitable fate but a "wise" Providence.

APPENDIX.] A REJOINDER TO PROF. HUXLEY. 239

be well aware how scholastic disputations were, and are still, conducted. I suppose, therefore, that I may regard this description of my dialectics as a mere harmless pleasantry, introduced to season a grave discussion. I may remark in passing that great gain would accrue if a little of the exact method of the schools could be introduced into the arguments upon momentous subjects which from time to time find place in our leading Reviews. "The rigorous definition, careful analysis, precise classification," the absence of which I deplored in my last contribution to these pages, would soon make an end of much loose thinking and looser writing. Of course no one would number Professor Huxley among loose thinkers or loose writers. Still, in matter of fact, his article might supply more than one instance to justify this view of mine. Thus the remark-perhaps he would call it a thesisin my paper* that Materialism, in all its schools, is led to deny free will, is treated by the Professor† as though it were equivalent to the assertion that every school which denies free will is Materialistic. He has "converted" my proposition wrongly by universalising the predicate. Again, he uses the word "spontaneity" in a sense quite peculiar to himself. "The term, if it has any meaning at all," he asserts, means uncaused action." This is really an astounding statement. I will only remark upon it, pace tunti viri, that "spontaneity' unquestionably has a meaning in philosophy; and that, as unquestionably, "uncaused action" is not what it means. I know that the precise terminology of the schools is impossible in writings which are addressed to "the general reader." We must adopt popular modes of speech when we appeal to the unscientific tribunal of public opinion. The problem for those of us who think we have something to teach the world, is to translate our philosophy into the world's language. It

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* P. 585.

† P. 799-800.

P. 798.

is a problem which can never be completely solved. Identity between the vulgar and the scientific vesture of ideas is impossible. But assuredly the translator ad populum is not warranted in imposing a brand-new sense of his own upon technical terms of well-understood significance.

Such, at all events, is the rule which I myself have followed, as in my other writings, so in my article, Materialism and Morality. The argument of the paper was briefly this: that "the invalidation of the moral code, the prevalence of ethical Agnosticism, scepticism as to all first principles,” are unmistakable signs of the times, which, as practical men, we may well consider portentous; and that the denial of free will and moral responsibility now rife in the world is largely owing to the spread of Materialism.* I pointed out how the more popular literature of the day, which is the truest expression of society, is redolent of Materialism in its most putrid forms And here Professor Huxley warmly sympathises with me, as we might have felt sure he would. I also said that, "if we survey the higher thought of Europe as a whole, we must find it, too, largely given over to Materialism." And among the exponents of that higher thought of whose teaching this is "the practical outcome," I was led to mention Professor Huxley as one of the most eminent and most influential. His doctrines, I ventured to say, seem to me "in their ultimate resolution" to be "substantially at one' "with the Positivism which finds so positive an exponent in Mr. Frederic Harrison. And remembering Mr. Herbert Spencer's wise admonition that 66 only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced upon reluctant minds," I proceeded to amplify my meaning by saying, "Professor Huxley puts aside as unverifiable everything which the senses cannot verify, everything beyond

*It may, in some cases, be the Determinism of an Idealist school but, for the most part, I am convinced, it is something much baser.