s before he coined the word "Agnostic" to label
his attitude towards the unproved, whether likely or unlikely, in
contradistinction to the Gnostics, who professed to "know" from within
apart from external proof, Huxley described the Agnostic position he
had already reached--the position of suspending judgment where actual
proof is not possible; the attitude of mind which regards the words
"I believe" as a momentous assertion, not to be uttered on incomplete
grounds. Writing to Charles Kingsley in 1860, he says:--

I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no
reason for believing in it; but, on the other hand, I have no
means of disproving it.

Pray understand that I have no a priori objections to the
doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature
can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such
evidence as would justify me in believing anything else, and
I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half
so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the
indestructibility of matter. Whoso clearly appreciates
all that is implied in the falling of a stone can have
no difficulty about any doctrine simply on account of its
marvellousness. But the longer I live the more obvious it is
to me that the most sacred act of a man's life is to say
and to feel, "I believe such and such to be true." All the
greatest rewards, and all the heaviest penalties of existence,
cling about that act. The universe is one and the same
throughout; and if the condition of my success in unravelling
some little difficulty of anatomy or physiology is that I
shall rigorously refuse to put faith in that which does not
rest on sufficient evidence, I cannot believe that the great
mysteries of existence will be laid open to me on other terms.
It is of no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities.
I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the
inverse square, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon
weaker convictions. I dare not if I would.

From such a point of view intellectual veracity takes on a moral
aspect; indeed, it is a pillar of morality. Disregard of it has led
to incalculable social wrong and individual suffering, oppressions and
persecutions, unprogressive obscurantism, joined with perverted ideals
and intellectual arrest. "Ecrasez l'infame," cried the reforming
Voltaire