Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/362

354 of will, that there was some merit in believing what you cannot prove, and that if a statement of fact is put before you, you must either believe it or disbelieve it. Huxley, on the other hand, like most men of science, demanded clear proof, or what seemed to him clear proof, before he accepted any conclusion; he would, I believe, have admitted that you might accept a statement which you could not explain, but would have maintained that it was impossible to believe what you did not understand; that in such a case the word 'belief was an unfortunate misnomer; that it was wrong, and not right, to profess to believe anything for which you knew that there was no sufficient evidence, and that if it is proved you cannot help believing it; that as regards many matters the true position was not one either of belief or of disbelief, but of suspense.

In science we know that though the edifice of fact is enormous, the fundamental problems are still beyond our grasp, and we must be content to suspend our judgment, to adopt, in fact, the Scotch verdict of 'not proven/ so unfortunately ignored in our law as in our theology.

Faith is a matter more of deeds, not of words, as St. Paul shows in the Epistle to the Hebrews. If you do not act on what you profess to believe, you do not really and in truth believe it. May I give an instance? The Fijians really believed in a future life; according to their creed, you rose in the next world exactly as you died here—young if you were young, old if you were old, strong if you were strong, deaf if you were deaf, and so on. Consequently it was important to die in the full possession of one's faculties; before the muscles had begun to lose their strength, the eye to grow dim, or the ear to wax hard of hearing. On this they acted. Every one had himself killed in the prime of life; and Captain Wilkes mentions that in one large town there was not a single person over forty years of age.

That I call faith. That is a real belief in a future life.

Huxley's views are indicated in the three touching lines by Mrs. Huxley, which are inscribed on his tombstone:

 Be not afraid, ye wailing hearts that weep, For still He giveth His beloved sleep, And if an endless sleep He wills—so best.

That may be called unbelief, or a suspension of judgment. Huxley doubted.

But disbelief is that of those who, no matter what they say, act as if there was no future life, as if this world was everything, and in the words of Baxter in 'The Saints' Everlasting Rest,' profess to believe in Heaven, and yet act as if it was to be 'tolerated indeed rather than the flames of Hell, but not to be desired before the felicity of Earth.'

Huxley was, indeed, by no means without definite beliefs. "I am," he said, "no optimist, but I have the firmest belief that the Divine Government (if we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the 'customs