The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 277 transmute “ I doubt ” into “ I know .” However , Huxley grasped the great and grand truth that the natural philosopher who examines worlds , suns , and stars , is in reality only experimenting on his own “ inner consciousness ," beyond which to him there is Nothing These stars thou seest Are but the figuring of thy brain .' This Nothing , this absolute nihility , is again the Qabalistic Zero . Huxley did not belong to that now rapidly growing school ( sic ) of crapulous scientists who inflate themselves , like the frog in the fable , with the gases produced from an eightpenny box of chem icals with which they intend to solve in some dingy attic the flashing mysteries of the spheres . The Caput Mortuum was his playground , but the Anima Vitae eluded his eager grasp ; yet this greatest of modern philosophers , curious to say , stood almost alone , on one side growling science asserting , “ There is no Archaeus ," on the other religion howling “ There is ! There is !” Yet as a positive and a negative formulate Zero , so these twain were as one yelping pack of jackals , who prowl by night fearing the brightness of the day . Huxley aptly sums up the standpoint an Agnostic should take in the following : If a piece of lead vere to remain suspended of itself in the air , the occurrence would be a “ miracle " in the sense of a wonderful event , indeed ; but no one trained in the methods of science would imagine that any law of nature was really violated thereby . He would simply set to work to investigate the conditions under which so highly un 1 Gargoyles , vol . iii, p . 89 .