liged to choose between absolute materialism and absolute
idealism, I should feel compelled to accept the latter alternative"
(p. 279).

Let the jubilant but uninstructed and comparatively ignorant amateur
materialist therefore beware, and bethink himself twice or even thrice
before he conceives that he understands the universe and is competent
to pour scorn upon the intuitions and perceptions of great men in what
may be to him alien regions of thought and experience.

Let him explain, if he can, what he means by his own identity, or the
identity of any thinking or living being, which at different times
consists of a totally different set of material particles. Something
there clearly is which confers personal identity and constitutes an
individual: it is a property characteristic of every form of life,
even the humblest; but it is not yet explained or understood, and it
is no answer to assert gratuitously that there is some fundamental
"substance" or material basis on which that identity depends, any more
than it is an explanation to say that it depends upon a "soul." These
are all forms of words. As Hume says, quoted by Huxley with approval in
the work already cited, p. 194:--

"It is impossible to attach any definite meaning to the word
'substance,' when employed for the hypothetical substratum of soul
and matter.... If it be said that our personal identity requires
the assumption of a substance which remains the same while the
accidents of perception shift and change, the question arises what
is meant by personal identity?... A plant or an animal, in the
course of its existence, from the condition of an egg or seed to
the end of life, remains the same neither in form, nor in
structure, nor in the matter of which it is composed: every
attribute it possesses is constantly changing, and yet we say that
it is always one and the same individual" (p. 194).

And in his own preface to the 'Hume' volume Huxley expresses himself
forcibly thus,--equally antagonistic as was his wont to both ostensible
friend and ostensible foe, as soon as they got off what he considered
the straight path:--

"That which it may be well for us not to forget is, that the
first-recorded judicial murder of a scientific thinker [Socrates]
was compassed and effected, not by a despot, nor by priests, but
was brought about by eloquent demagogues.... Clear knowledge of
what one