The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-07-02
DEATH OF THE AGNosT1c.

Professor Huxley was the first Sag
nostic'' He invented the term him
self. His life was eminently useful.
His investigations into Nature and her
plans, her beginning and the eternity
Of her life, found nothing too minute
to analyze, nothing too laboriOus to
attempt.
Professor Huxley was born at Ealing,
in Middlesex, May 4, 1925, and after
mastering the rudimentary studies in
the local schools, fitted himself for the
medical profession under the tutelage
of his brother-in-Iaw, and by attending
coures of lectures at the Medical
School of the Charing Cross hospital.
His early ambitions had been to be-
come q mechanical engineer. The
special adaptability which he felt for
this was evidenced in his later anato-
mical and natural history researches.
when the mechanical aspects OF his
subject matter most impressed him.
After receiving his degree in 1S49,
Huxley passed a few years in shifting
assignments as a surgeon to marine
posts. His travels enabled him to OBJ
tain empirical knowledge of many
phrases of lower animal life, of which
his collections and deductions were
periodicals and brought him a fellow
ship in the Royal Society.
The active years Of Professor Hux-
ley's aggressive explorations of his
doctrines, which have been distinctive
enough to justify the coming of new
name with which to designate them,
were those of his professorship at the
Royal School of Mines. The appoint
ment as professor Of natural history
and paleontology was offered to him
in 1854, and was not relinquished by
him until 1885, when i'll health enforced
remittance of his incessant labors.
At first with little realization of his
subsequent successes, he struck off
from his title the subject Of paleont-
olocy, although his stunning Of the an
Gent branch of his subject he did not
long persist in.
Although allying himself In many
ways to the creeds of the free thinkers.
preceding and contemporary, he found
the only unassailable ground in what
is apparently an unsettled belief. az
Mysticism. This term and the expiica-
ton Of what it implies is due TO Huxley.
OF it he said: when l reached intel
lectual maturity and asked myself
whether was an atheist or panthe-
list, materialist or an idealist- Chris
tan or n free thinker, | found that
the more l learned or reflected the less
ready was the answer. So
took thought and invented what con-
ceived to be the appropriate tile Of
'agnostic.'
This avowal Of unbelief Of course did
not prevent a leaning toward some
theories as more reasonable and prob
able than others OF the truth of the
essential facts of the Darwinian theory
he was convinced, and 10 its demon
stration he directed much comparative
study. Between man and the higher
orders Of apes he discovered that there
was less of differnce than among she
different species of apes themselves.
In lectures delivered IN lSSS the idea
was developed that one matter desi<-
mated as protoplas,n is common 10 all !
orders Of animal life, from the yegct- /
able organism up through the protocol
and little differentiated animal organ |
ism 10 the highest form distinguished
as human. From the Darwanian con
illusions Huxley diverCed in some par
ticulars. That survival Of the fiitesr
and prevention Of degeneration IL
volved = continuance 81 conditions Of |
strife he did not accept The practice !
OF seIf-sacTirice succeeded the struggle
for existence as the law Of progress FOR !
civilized man
A. the most eminent exPounder Of /
evolution and other advanced doc
trines. Professor Huxley Inevitably |
gained the disapprovai Of orthodox ed
herenrs. who viewd him a an antago-
MS, Of the true faith Indeed. he was
not so violent - many who feel them |
selves enfrancaised after the oppre<-
sion Of supersfitjsa- OF the Bible hs !
once spoke as he magma casrta Of the
poor and the Gppse~sd Yes- like
others who fcoa ohemDslves unwarzns-