nostic" was given its
vogue by Huxley. To superficial people it was quite often used
synonymously with "infidel" and "freethinker," both words of reproach.
To Huxley it meant simply one who did not know, but wished to learn.

The controlling impulse of Huxley's life was his absolute honesty. To
pretend to believe a thing against which one's reason revolts, in order
to better one's place in society, was to him the sum of all that was
intellectually base.

He regarded man as an undeveloped creature, and for this creature to lay
the flattering unction to his soul that he was in special communication
with the Infinite, and in possession of the secrets of the Creator, was
something that in itself proved that man was as yet in the barbaric
stage.

Said Huxley: "As to the final truths of Creation and Destiny, I am an
agnostic. I do not know, hence I neither affirm nor deny."

* * * * *

Humor and commonsense usually go together. Huxley had a goodly stock of
both. When George Eliot died, there was a very earnest but ill-directed
effort made to have her body buried in Westminster Abbey. Huxley, being
close to the Dean, serving with him on several municipal boards, was
importuned by Spencer to use his influence toward the desired end.
Huxley saw the incongruity of the situation, and in a letter that
reveals the logical mind and the direct, literary, Huxley quality, he
placed his gentle veto on the proposition and thus saved the "enemy" the
mortification of having to do so.

Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey, but this was not to be the final
resting-place of the dust of Mill, Tyndall, Spencer, George Eliot or
Huxley. These had all stood in the fore of the fight against
superstition and had both given and received blows.

The Pantheon of such battle-scarred heroes was to be the hearts of those
who prize above all that earth can bestow the benison of the God within.
"Above all else, let me preserve my integrity of intellect," said
Huxley. Here is Huxley's letter to Spencer:

4 Marlborough Place, Dec. 27, 1880

My Dear Spencer: Your telegram which reached me on Friday evening
caused me great perplexity, inasmuch as I had just been talking to
Morley, and agreeing with him that the proposal for a funeral in
Westminster Abbey had a very questionable look to us, who desired
nothing so much as that peace and honor should attend George Eliot
to her grave.