d when such a man presumes on an
authority, which was conferred on him for other purposes, to sit
in judgment on matters his incompetence to deal with which is
patent, it is permissible to ignore his sacerdotal pretensions,
and to tell him, as one would tell a mere, common, unconsecrated
layman: that it is not necessary for any man to occupy himself
with problems of this kind unless he so choose; life is filled
full enough with the performance of its ordinary and obvious
duties. But that, if a man elect to become a judge of these grave
questions; still more if he assume the responsibility of
attaching praise or blame to his fellow-men for the conclusions
at which they arrive touching them, he will commit a sin more
grievous than most breaches of the decalogue, unless he avoid a
lazy reliance upon the information that is gathered by prejudice
and filtered through passion, unless he go back to the prime
sources of knowledge--the facts of Nature, and the thoughts of
those wise men who for generations past have been her best
interpreters."

In the campaign for absolute freedom of thought, for the duty of not
believing anything except on sufficient evidence, Huxley was
frequently met by an argument of superficial strength, and which no
doubt was in the minds of many of his clerical opponents. In the minds
of a majority of people, it was said, and particularly of slightly
educated people, the reasons for right conduct and the distinctions
between right and wrong are firmly associated with the Bible and with
religion. If you allow doubts as to the absolute veracity of the
Bible, or as to the supernatural origin of religion to reach such
persons, you run a grave risk that they will reflect the uncertainty
on the canons of morality. In taking from them what you believe to be
false, inevitably you will unsettle their ideas on moral questions
although you might be in full agreement as to these moral questions.
Huxley refused to accept the asserted association between morality and
particular metaphysical or religious doctrines.

"Many ingenious persons now appear to consider that the
incompatibility of pantheism, of materialism, and of any doubt
about the immortality of the soul, with religion and morality is
to be held as an axiomatic truth. I confess that I have a certain
difficulty in accepting this dogma. For the Stoi