I have read the “Protest,” with a copy of which you have favoured me, and as you wish that I should do so, I will trouble you with a brief statement of my reasons for my inability to sign it.

I object to clause 2 on the ground long since taken by Hume that the order of the universe such as we observe it to be, furnishes us with the only data upon which we can base any conclusion as to the character of the originator thereof.

As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins affect endless generations of their progeny.  Men are tempted, men are punished for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own; and they are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their consciousness lasts.

The theological doctrines to which you refer, therefore, are simply extensions of generalisations as well based as any in physical science.  Very likely they are illegitimate extensions of these generalisations, but that does not make them wrong in principle.

And I should consider it waste of time to “protest” against that which is.

As regards clause 3 I find that as a matter of experience, erroneous beliefs are punished, and right beliefs are rewarded—­though very often the erroneous belief is based upon a more conscientious study of the facts than the right belief.  I do not see why this should not be as true of theological beliefs as any others.  And as I said before, I do not care to protest against that which is.

Many thanks for your congratulations.  My tour was very pleasant and taught me a good deal.

I am yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

P.S.—­You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.

4 Marlborough Place, November 19, 1876.

My dear Darwin,

I confess I have less sympathy with the half-and-half sentimental school which he represents than I have with thoroughgoing orthodoxy.

If we are to assume that anybody has designedly set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the words, than that he is malevolent and unjust.  Infinite benevolence need not have invented pain and sorrow at all—­infinite malevolence would very easily have deprived us of the large measure of content and happiness that falls to our lot.  After all, Butler’s “Analogy” is unassailable, and there is nothing in theological dogmas more contradictory to our moral sense, than is to be found in the facts of nature.  From which, however, the Bishop’s conclusion that the dogmas are true doesn’t follow.

With best remembrances to Mrs. Darwin, ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[This incident suggests the story of a retort he once made upon what he considered an unseasonable protest in church, a story which exemplifies, by the way, his strong sense of the decencies of life, appearing elsewhere in his constant respect for the ordinary conventions of his dislike for mere Bohemianism as such.