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
[If animals are conscious automata with souls] the soul stands related
to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness
answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.
XXVIII
Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise
men.
XXIX
The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any
honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.
XXX
Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the
demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about
the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by
the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that
there is no God.
XXXI
That which is to be lamented, I fancy, is not that society should do its
utmost to help capacity to ascend from the lower strata to the higher,
but that it has no machinery by which to facilitate the descent of
incapacity from the higher strata to the lower.
XXXII
Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against
truth.
XXXIII
Misery is a match that never goes out.
XXXIV
Genius as an explosive power beats gunpowder hollow; and if knowledge,
which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not
small that the rocket will simply run amuck among friends and foes.
XXXV
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect, are
the qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished
from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.
XXXVI
The higher the state of civilisation, the more completely do the actions
of one member of the social body influence all the rest, and the less
possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering,
more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens.
XXXVII
I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every
man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the
happiness of his fellow men.
XXXVIII
Education promotes peace by teaching men the realities of life and the
obligations which are involved in the very existence of society; it
promotes intellectual development, not only by training the individual
intellect, but by sifting out from the masses of ordinary or inferior
capacities, those who are competent to increase the general welfare
by occupying higher positions; and, lastly, it promotes morality and
refinement, by teaching men to discipline themselves, and by leading
them to see that the highest, as it is the only permanent, content is
to be attained, not by grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys
of sense, but by continual striving towards those high peaks, where,
resting in eternal calm, reason discerns the undefined but bright ideal
of the highest Good--"a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night."
XXXIX
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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