There is no need for future compensation because, so he firmly believed, “the Divine Government—­if we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the ’customs of matter’—­is wholly just....But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the whole law—­physical as well as moral—­and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or vice versa.”  Thus he could declare “the more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is that the wicked does not flourish, nor is the righteous punished.”  “The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so—­for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all—­nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.”  Nevertheless—­

It is to be recollected, in view of the apparent discrepancy between men’s acts and their rewards, that Nature is juster than we are.  She takes into account what a man brings with him into this world, which human justice cannot do.  If I, born a bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me; but I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done the same thing.

Accordingly—­

Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that their inevitable rewards and punishments are here.

If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from evil-doing, surely a fortiori the certainty of hell now will do so?  If a man could be firmly impressed with the belief that stealing damaged him as much as swallowing arsenic would do (and it does), would not the dissuasive force of that belief be greater than that of any based on mere future expectations?

And this leads me to quote words written by an old friend and colleague of his, Sir Spencer Walpole:—­

Of all the men I have ever known, his ideas and his standard were, on the whole, the highest.  He recognized that the fact of his religious views imposed on him the duty of living the most upright of lives; and I am very much of the opinion of a little child, now grown into an accomplished woman, who, when she was told that Professor Huxley had no hope of future rewards and no fear of future punishments, emphatically declared:  “Then I think Professor Huxley is the best man I have ever known.”

XIII

MORALITY AND THE CHURCH