THOMAS HUXLEY, the centenary of whose birth has been celebrated this week, was a great biologist and philosopher as well as a fierce and scornful antagonist. It was he who popularized the Darwinian theories, and while it would be sheer obscurantism not to recognize his great contribution to human knowledge and the progress of human thought, it may be pointed out that much of what he taught has been modified by later thinkers. His controversies with Gladstone and the Duke of Argyll have little historical value because they were contests between men who regarded the phenomena of life from entirely different angles, and who were quite unable to appreciate any point of view but their own. Nowadays the Catholic does not find it impossible to reconcile evolution with the belief in a beneficent Creator and in the special creation of man, made in His Maker’s image. In the Times centenary article this week it is said that Huxley “opposed the duty of doubt to the duty of belief”. The duty of doubt applies to the religious teacher as well as to the scientist, whose often arrogant assertions are not to be accepted just because they are stated. On the other hand, to doubt just for the joy of doubting is nothing but eccentric arrogance; and this is largely responsible for the moral decadence of our times. There is, of course, little resemblance between the dignified agnosticism of a Huxley and the blatant ignorance of a Hyde Park atheist. But the scientific agnostic cannot altogether escape responsibility for the wave of materialism which is threatening Europe, and which finds its ruthless and logical apologists in the rulers of Soviet Russia.
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