a listless
preference. It does not, indeed, confound pure love with impure, but it
sets them on an equal footing; and those who contend that the former
under these conditions is intrinsically more attractive to men than the
latter, betray a most naive ignorance of what human nature is.
Supposing, for argument's sake, that to themselves it may be so, this
fact is not of the slightest use to them. It is merely the possession on
their part of a certain personal taste, which those who do not share it
may regard as disease or weakness, and which they themselves can neither
defend nor inculcate. It is true they may call their opponents hard
names if they choose; but their opponents can call them hard names back
again; but in the absence of any common standard, the recriminations on
neither side can have the least sting in them. Could, however, any
argument on such a matter be possible, it is the devotees of impurity
that would have the strongest case; for the pleasures of indulgence are
admitted by both sides, while the merits of abstention are admitted by
only one.

Let us go back, for instance, in connection with this matter, to what
Professor Huxley has told us is the grand result of education. It leads
us away, he says, from '_the rank and steaming valleys of sense_,' up to
the '_highest good_,' which is '_discerned by reason_,' '_resting in
eternal calm_.' And let us ask him again, what, as uttered by a
positivist, these words can by any possibility mean. '_The rank and
steaming valleys of sense_'! Why are they rank and steaming? Or, if they
are, why is that any condemnation of them? Or, if we do condemn them,
what else are we to praise? The entire raw material, not of our
pleasures only, but of our knowledge also, is given us, say the positive
school, by the senses. Surely then to condemn the senses must be to
condemn life. Let us imagine Professor Huxley talking in this way to
Theophile Gautier. Let us imagine him frowning grimly at the licentious
Frenchman, and urging him with all vehemence to turn to the _highest
good_. The answer will at once be, '_That is exactly, my dear Professor,
what I do turn to. And, listen_,' he might say--the following is again a
passage from his own writings--'_to the way in which I figure the
highest good to myself. It is a huge building, with its outer walls all
blind and windowless; a huge court within, surrounded by a colonnade of
white marble; in the midst a musical fountain with a je