D., F. R. S. London, 1870, p. 323.
[22] _Evidence of Man's Place in Nature_. London, 1864, p. 107.
[23] Since writing the above paragraph our eye fell on the following
note on the 89th page of the Duke of Argyle's _Reign of Law_, which it
gives us pleasure to quote. It seems that a writer in the _Spectator_
had charged Professor Huxley with Atheism. In the number of that paper
for February 10, 1866, the Professor replies: "I do not know that I care
very much about popular odium, so there is no great merit in saying that
if I really saw fit to deny the existence of a God I should certainly do
so, for the sake of my own intellectual freedom, and be the honest
atheist you are pleased to say I am. As it happens, however, I cannot
take this position with honesty, inasmuch as it is, and always has been,
a favorite tenet, that Atheism is as absurd, logically speaking, as
Polytheism." In the same paper he says, "The denying the possibility of
miracles seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative Atheism." How
this can be reconciled with the passages quoted above, we are unable to
see.
[24] _Lay Sermons_, etc., p. 330.
[25] _Contemporary Review_, vol. xviii. 1871, p. 444. In this same
article Mr. Huxley says: "Elijah's great question, Will ye serve God or
Baal? Choose ye, is uttered audibly enough in the ears of every one of
us as we come to manhood.
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