Aphorisms and Reflections from the works of T. H. HuxleyHuxley, Thomas Henry
Philosophy
Aphorisms and Reflections from the works of T. H. Huxley
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or sea-side
stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art,
nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him
something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of
those which are worth turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures are
not so abundant in this life that we can afford to despise this or any
other source of them. We should fear being banished for our neglect to
that limbo where the great Florentine tells us are those who, during
this life, "wept when they might be joyful."
LXXXI
No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the
master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man.
LXXXII
Compare the average artisan and the average country squire, and it may
be doubted if you will find a pin to choose between the two in point of
ignorance, class feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the ignorance is
of a different sort--that the class feeling is in favour of a different
class--and that the prejudice has a distinct savour of wrong-headedness
in each case--but it is questionable if the one is either a bit better,
or a bit worse, than the other. The old protectionist theory is the
doctrine of trades unions as applied by the squires, and the modern
trades unionism is the doctrine of the squires applied by the artisans.
Why should we be worse off under one _régime_ than under the other?
LXXXIII
The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more
or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing
something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and
complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold
ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game
of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the
phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the
laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know
that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our
cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance
for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid,
with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows
delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste,
but without remorse.
LXXXIV
Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature,
under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men
and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will
into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.
LXXXV
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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