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
.