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Huxley and scientic agnosticism: the strange history of a failed rhetorical

strategy

BERNARD LIGHTMAN

The British Journal for the History of Science / Volume 35 / Issue 03 / September 2002, pp 271 - 289
DOI: 10.1017/S0007087402004715, Published online: 09 October 2002

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BERNARD LIGHTMAN (2002). Huxley and scientic agnosticism: the strange history of a failed rhetorical strategy. The British
Journal for the History of Science, 35, pp 271-289 doi:10.1017/S0007087402004715

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BJHS, 2002, 35, 271–289

Huxley and scientific agnosticism :

the strange history of a failed rhetorical strategy
BERNARD LIGHTMAN*

Abstract. Huxley’s invention of the term ‘ agnostic ’ in 1869 is often seen as a brilliant rhetorical
strategy. Portrayed as an effective weapon in Huxley’s public debates with defenders of the
Anglican establishment, the creation of scientific agnosticism has been interpreted as a turning
point in the relationship between science and religion. In this paper I will challenge this
interpretation of the rise of scientific agnosticism. Huxley was reluctant to identify himself
unambiguously as an agnostic in public until 1883 and his restricted use of agnostic concepts
during the 1870s and 1880s was compromised when other unbelievers, with different agendas,
sought to capitalize on the polemical advantages of referring to themselves as agnostics. As a
result, he was not always associated with agnosticism in the public mind and his original
conception of it was modified by others to the point where he felt compelled to intervene in 1889
to set the record straight. But Huxley could not control the public meaning of ‘ agnosticism ’ and
its value to him as a rhetorical strategy was severely limited.

Despite their long friendship with T. H. Huxley, John Tyndall and T. A. Hirst were not
very impressed with his trilogy of essays on agnosticism published in 1889 in The
Nineteenth Century." Tyndall wrote to Hirst on 15 April 1889 that he had read Huxley’s
articles and the one ‘ on miracles especially I thought of little use. It was hacking a dead
horse ’.# ‘ Your opinion of Huxley’s articles agreed ’, Hirst replied on 22 April, ‘ on the
whole with my own ’. Huxley’s essays displayed great erudition, but in Hirst’s estimation
they lacked depth.$ In his personal journal, Hirst had earlier written on 1 March that the
controversy between Huxley and Henry Wace had resulted in a ‘ vain, futile, word-fence ’,
and Hirst eventually became weary of the whole debate after reading Huxley’s third piece
in June.% Though in general bored by Huxley’s essays on agnosticism and the controversy
they engendered, one point emerged concerning the origins of the term ‘ agnosticism ’ which
astonished Hirst. In the initial article Huxley ‘ mentions a fact previously unknown to me :
viz that Agnosticism was the name given by (Huxley) himself to his own creed ’.&
Hirst’s surprise is itself surprising. As a member of the X-Club, Hirst was a part of
Huxley’s inner circle. In addition to Huxley and Hirst, the membership included Tyndall,
* Division of Humanities, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
This article is based on a paper given at the ‘ Locating the Victorians ’ conference held in London from 12 to
15 July 2001.
1 The articles were entitled ‘ Agnosticism ’, ‘ Agnosticism : a rejoinder ’, and ‘ Agnosticism and Christianity ’,
and they appeared in the February, March and April issues of the journal.
2 Tyndall Papers, Royal Institution, Correspondence between Thomas Archer Hirst and John Tyndall, 742.
(R.I. MSS T., 31\F10, 546).
3 Tyndall Papers, Royal Institution, Tyndall Correspondence, T. H. Hirst to John Tyndall, 22 April 1889 (R.I.
MSS T., 11\F2, 254).
4 Tyndall Papers, Royal Institution, typescript bound journals of T. H. Hirst, volume 5, 2583 and 2607.
5 Tyndall Papers, op. cit. (4), volume 5, 2578.
272 Bernard Lightman
William Spottiswoode, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Edward Frankland, John Lubbock and
George Busk. Founded in 1864, the X-Club was a private, informal society where members
could engage in frank discussion about literature, politics and science over dinner.
Moreover, they could plot together on how to achieve common goals, such as the
advancement of research, the infiltration and control of important scientific institutions
and societies, and the bid to undermine the cultural authority of the Anglican clergy. For
twenty years the members of the club met once a month from October to June. In his
journal entry describing the first meeting of the club, Hirst wrote that the members were
united by a ‘ devotion to science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas.
Amongst ourselves there is perfect outspokenness ’.' If the members were so open about
their religious heterodoxy, and if agnosticism was an important weapon in the attempt to
challenge the power of the Anglican establishment, then why did Hirst first learn that
Huxley had coined the term ‘ agnostic ’ twenty years after the fact ?
Hirst’s belated discovery raises a number of questions about the cultural status of
agnosticism from the time that Huxley invented the word in 1869 to the appearance of his
essay ‘ Agnosticism ’ in 1889, where he publicly proclaimed his role as neologist. If one of
Huxley’s closest friends did not know up until 1889 that he had coined the word, then what
of those who were not part of Huxley’s inner circle ? How widely were the terms ‘ agnostic ’
and ‘ agnosticism ’ used during the 1870s and 1880s ? Another set of related questions arises
concerning Huxley’s use of agnosticism as a rhetorical device. Why did Huxley wait for
twenty years to reveal that he had been responsible for inventing this new term ? Why did
he wait so long, only six years before his death, to state what he meant by the term as
originally conceived ? Why have scholars not explored the reasons for Huxley’s twenty-
year silence, a silence which may be just as intriguing as Darwin’s twenty-year delay in
publicly revealing his conversion to evolutionary theory ?
These questions have rarely been asked, in part because scholars have tended to assume
that Huxley’s role as neologist was well known to his contemporaries during the 1870s and
1880s, before the publication of his trilogy of essays on agnosticism. Peterson, for example,
asserted that ‘ Huxley had been known as the father of ‘‘ agnosticism ’’ for nearly twenty
years ’ before the appearance of the essay ‘ Agnosticism ’.( Moreover, Huxley’s invention of
the term ‘ agnostic ’ is often seen as a brilliant rhetorical strategy. Portrayed as an effective
weapon in Huxley’s public debates with defenders of the Anglican establishment, the
creation of scientific agnosticism has been interpreted as a turning point in the relationship
between science and religion. In his chapter on scientific naturalism in Between Science and
Religion, Frank Turner argued that naturalism led directly to a ‘ self-serving agnosticism ’,
for ‘ the dismissal of ontological considerations and the restricted view of knowledge were
polemically (rather than personally) important as a means of permitting naturalistic
authors to ignore questions, issues, and experiences inimical to their secular vision ’.) More
recently, Desmond has argued in a similar vein that agnosticism served as a mask for
Huxley’s doubt, allowing him to elude his detractors by deflecting any enquiry into his

6 Tyndall Papers, op. cit. (4), volume 4, 1702.

7 H. Peterson, Huxley : Prophet of Science, London, 1932, 245.
8 F. Turner, Between Science and Religion : The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late Victorian England,
New Haven and London, 1974, 21.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 273
heterodoxy and providing a ‘ neutral ground ’ where he could ‘ shake hands with university
modernizers and church reformers, literary radicals and dissident artists ’.* Other scholars
have pointed to the polemical advantages which Huxley gained by using agnosticism to
distinguish his position from other forms of unbelief, such as positivism and materialism,
or even Haeckel’s Darwinismus."! Whether seen as a rhetorical weapon to be used against
the Anglican clergy or fellow unbelievers, in both cases it is implied that agnosticism
constituted a well-thought-out strategy which Huxley resorted to often during the 1870s
and 1880s."" This is in keeping with Huxley’s reputation for inventing or redefining words
in order to give himself a rhetorical edge in controversies concerning scientific theory, as
well as those surrounding religious heterodoxy."#
Huxley’s relationship with the form of unbelief for which he supplied a name is far more
complicated. Not only was he reluctant to identify himself unambiguously as an agnostic
in public until 1883, his restricted rhetorical use of agnostic concepts during the 1870s and
1880s was also compromised when other unbelievers, with different agendas, sought to
capitalize on the polemical advantages of referring to themselves as agnostics. As a result,
he was not always associated with agnosticism in the public mind and his original
conception of it was modified by others to the point where he felt compelled to intervene
in 1889 to set the record straight. Huxley found that he could not control the public
meaning of ‘ agnosticism ’ and that consequently its value as a rhetorical weapon was
limited. By 1889 he had realized that to make the most of his neologism he had to reveal
that he was responsible for the creation of the term and argue that his role as inventor gave
him the right to determine the proper understanding of agnostic philosophical discourse.
His evolving strategy for agnosticism can be inferred by moving back and forth between
analyses of unbelief in the periodical press and how Huxley dealt with the changing
fortunes of his new coinage in his published work. Historians have been fooled by Huxley’s
self-serving reconstruction in 1889 of the history of agnosticism. Though Huxley’s account
of how he invented the term suggests that since 1869 he pursued a coherent and consistent
strategy to gain acceptance for his brain-child, he was actually forced by events to alter his
tactics on more than one occasion. There were roughly three phases in the history of
agnosticism prior to 1889. From 1869 to 1877 the term had little currency in public and,
if Huxley used it at all, it was largely in the private meetings of the Metaphysical Society.
From 1878 to 1883, partly due to Huxley’s Hume, the word started to have greater
currency, as more and more articles discussing agnosticism appeared in the periodical
press. The exchange between Herbert Spencer and Frederic Harrison in 1884 in the pages
9 A. Desmond, Huxley : from Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest, Reading, 1997, 375, 378, 389–90.
10 D. W. Dockrill, ‘ T. H. Huxley and the meaning of ‘‘ agnosticism ’’ ’, Theology (1971), 74, 474 ; J. Moore,
‘ Deconstructing Darwinism : the politics of evolution in the 1860s ’, Journal of the History of Biology (1991), 24,
388.
11 Bernard Lightman, The Origins of Agnosticism : Victorian Unbelief and the Limits of Knowledge,
Baltimore, 1987, follows this line of approach. An important exception to this historiographical trend is Paradis’s
assertion that agnosticism ‘ does not emerge as a philosophical system, particularly in the context of Huxley’s own
work. It was an idea developed largely under the pressure of conflict and controversy ’. Paradis claims that the
idea of order was more basic to his vision. See J. Paradis, T. H. Huxley : Man’s Place in Nature, Lincoln, NE,
1978, 112.
12 James Strick has discussed Huxley’s complex strategy in hijacking the term ‘ biogenesis ’ in his debate with
Henry Bastian on spontaneous generation. See J. Strick, Sparks of Life, Cambridge, 2000, 90.
274 Bernard Lightman
of the Nineteenth Century touched off a huge controversy on the significance of
agnosticism and ushered in a new phase, in which the term was brought into prominence.
It was not until the end of this third phase, in 1889, that Huxley finally entered the public
controversy and tried to reassert control over his coinage. Here Huxley not only presented
his claim to have created the term, but he also dictated the proper meaning of agnosticism
by outlining its philosophical foundations.

Huxley’s new coinage : ‘ agnosticism ’ up to 1878

The story of how Huxley came to invent the term ‘ agnostic ’ in 1869 is well known.
Huxley’s account in ‘ Agnosticism ’ emphasizes his embarrassment among members of the
Metaphysical Society, which included many of the leading intellectual figures of the day,
when he found himself metaphorically naked, without a label to describe his philosophical
position. While most of the other members were ‘ -ists of one sort or another ’, Huxley was
a man ‘ without a rag of a label to cover himself with ’. So he invented what he thought to
be the ‘ appropriate title of ‘‘ agnostic ’’ ’, which had come to him as ‘ suggestively antithetic
to the ‘‘ gnostic ’’ of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things
of which I was ignorant ’."$ Writing in 1889, Huxley does not mention that at the time he
had recently been fighting off charges of materialism as a result of his views in ‘ The
physical basis of life ’ (1868). As late as October of 1869, an essayist for the Theological
Review remarked that ‘ it is but rarely given to a magazine article to excite popular interest
to such an extent ’, before proceeding to place Huxley among the materialists."% By
identifying himself as an agnostic, Huxley could distance himself from materialism and
atheism, types of unbelief which were associated with the working class, and not with
respectable members of the intellectual elite. Moreover, Huxley could also use the label
‘ agnostic ’ to distinguish his position from that of Herbert Spencer, whose shadowy
unknowable deity, first presented in First Principles (1862), was no longer attractive to
him."& Huxley asserts in his account in ‘ Agnosticism ’ that he took ‘ the earliest opportunity
of parading ’ his new title at the Metaphysical Society."'
But if Huxley publicized his coinage in the meetings of the Metaphysical Society, it is not
reflected in the papers he delivered to his fellow members. Huxley gave three papers, ‘ The
views of Hume, Kant, and Whately upon the logical basis of the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul ’ (17 November 1869), ‘ Has a frog a soul ; and of what nature is that soul,
supposing it to exist ? ’ (8 November 1870), and ‘ The evidence of the miracle of the
resurrection ’ (11 January 1876). None of them use the terms ‘ agnostic ’ or ‘ agnosticism ’,
and only the first develops a line of thought which resonates with Huxley’s later definition
of agnosticism as involving the concept of the limits of knowledge. The essay concludes
with a quote from Kant to the effect that the hypothesis of the immortality of the soul is

13 T. H. Huxley, Science and Christian Tradition, New York, 1894, 239. Original emphasis.
14 J. Owen, ‘ Modern materialism and its relation to immortality ’, Theological Review (1869), 6, 536, 543.
15 Huxley felt comfortable using Spencer’s term the ‘ Unknowable ’ in his published work during the mid-
1860s. But by the end of the decade there are signs that he could no longer accept Spencer’s worship of the
‘ Unknowable ’ See Lightman, op. cit. (11), 136–7.
16 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 239.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 275
beyond physical experience and therefore ‘ in its very nature incapable of proof or of
scientific evidence ’."( Nor did Huxley’s colleagues pick up on the term in their papers, even
in those which dealt directly with themes connected to agnosticism. In his paper on ‘ Is God
unknowable ’ (11 June 1872), J. B. Dalgairns, an Oxford convert to Catholicism who
became the superior of the London Oratory in 1863, never mentions Huxley or the word
‘ agnostic ’, focusing his criticisms on Herbert Spencer as the apostle of the Unknowable.
If Huxley’s new coinage met with limited circulation within the Metaphysical Society,
its appearance was even more scarce in the periodical press during the 1870s. Few journals
used the new term in discussions of Huxley’s work or in analyses of contemporary unbelief.
Moreover, Huxley was seldom seen as the chief threat to religious orthodoxy. In a piece
in Blackwoods Magazine on ‘ Modern scepticism and its fruit ’ in 1874, unbelievers are
referred to as sceptics, not agnostics.") The review of Huxley’s Lay Sermons, Addresses,
and Reviews in the Contemporary Review in 1870 made no mention of ‘ agnostic ’ or
‘ agnosticism ’."* Augustus Blauvelt’s three-part study of modern scepticism in the 1873
volume of Scribner’s Monthly, a periodical published in New York, did not use the label
‘ agnostic ’, and focused primarily on Renan, Strauss, Tyndall and Spencer. Huxley is
mentioned only twice in passing.#! Tyndall wrote to Huxley about Blauvelt’s articles,
mentioning how critical they were of Spencer. On 25 September 1873 Huxley jokingly
replied that it was ‘ rather cool ’ of Tyndall ‘ to talk of his pitching into Spencer where you
are chief target yourself ’. He added, ‘ I come in only par parentheZ se, and I am glad to see
that people are beginning to understand my real position, and to separate me from such
raging infidels as you and Spencer. ’#"
Those who did publicize the words ‘ agnostic ’ or ‘ agnosticism ’ were insiders in one way
or another. They were familiar with Huxley and his views through their membership in the
Metaphysical Society or through a personal connection with the man himself. St George
Mivart’s ‘ The assumption of agnostics ’, published in the Fortnightly Review in 1873, was
one of the few to pick up on the term ‘ agnostic ’. Mivart, a liberal Catholic evolutionist,
had been excommunicated by Huxley from the Darwinian camp a few years previously for
his criticisms of Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871) and for his providential evolutionism.##
Mivart identified the ‘ Agnostic philosophy ’ as the ‘ metaphysical system at present so
widely popular in England ’ and pointed to Huxley as a prominent leader of this school of
nescience, though not the inventor of the term. Agnostics, Mivart argued, inevitably
espoused an untenable ‘ absolute scepticism ’, which undermined their own position as well
as that of their enemies. But in this piece Mivart dealt primarily with the ability of the
human mind to ascertain moral truths and affirm personal existence, not doubts about the

17 T. H. Huxley, ‘ The views of Hume, Kant, and Whately upon the logical basis of the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul ’, in Metaphysical Society Papers, volume 1, unpublished collection, the Bodleian Library,
Oxford, 2657 e.1, p. 4.
18 [J. Brown], ‘ Modern scepticism and its fruit ’, Blackwoods Magazine (1874), 115, 113–24. No sceptics are
mentioned by name, though the criticism of the notion of humans as automata clearly indicates that Huxley is
one of the targets (120).
19 H. Calderwood, ‘ Professor Huxley’s lay sermons ’, Contemporary Review (1870), 15, 195–206.
20 A. Blauvelt, ‘ Modern skepticism ’, Scribner’s Monthly (1873), 6, 424–32, 582–96, 725–39.
21 L. Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols., New York, 1902, i, 433.
22 Desmond, op. cit. (9), 407–8.
276 Bernard Lightman
existence of a divine being.#$ Another author who used the term ‘ agnostic ’ or ‘ agnosticism ’
in public was John Dalgairns, who revised his Metaphysical Society paper for publication
in the Contemporary Review in 1872. Here he did mention the term, referring to the ‘ total
ignorance ’ necessary to ‘ the position of Agnosticism ’, followed by a quote from Huxley
on the limits of human consciousness.#%
Richard Holt Hutton was a more significant example of one of the few journalists who
used the term ‘ agnostic ’. Editor of The Spectator, theologian, journalist and man of letters,
Hutton was one of the original members of the Metaphysical Society. The word ‘ agnostic ’
might have remained within the confines of a private club for the intellectual elite if not
for him. In a series of articles throughout the 1870s, Hutton drew attention to the new term
and was certainly among the first to refer to Huxley as an agnostic.#& In his article on ‘ Pope
Huxley ’ in the 29 January 1870 issue of The Spectator, Hutton referred to Huxley as ‘ a
great and severe Agnostic ’, while later, in the 1 October 1870 issue, he referred to Huxley’s
‘ favourite ‘‘ agnostic ’’ creeds, and the altar on which he has more than once professed to
lay his offerings, – that inscribed ‘‘ to the Unknown God ’’ ’.#'
In these pieces, Hutton characterized Huxley’s position as an agnostic one, but he did
not assert that Huxley was responsible for coining the term. Hutton later claimed in 1881
that he had been at the party previous to the formation of the Metaphysical Society at
James Knowles’s house in 1869 where Huxley had first suggested the new term.#( But when
Hutton dealt with this point in his earlier essays he was more ambiguous. In ‘ The moral
significance of atheism ’ (1871) he defended the men of science from the charge of atheism,
accepting their own description of their ‘ state of mind as a sort of know-nothingism or
Agnosticism, or belief in an unknown and unknowable God ’. Hutton asserted that
agnosticism was ‘ Professor Huxley’s phrase ’, but he added that ‘ this is also Professor
Tyndall’s ’ ;#) Huxley later acknowledged Hutton’s role in popularizing the term in his
essay on ‘ Agnosticism ’. ‘ When the Spectator had stood godfather to it ’, Huxley declared,
‘ any suspicion in the minds of respectable people, that a knowledge of its parentage might
have awakened was, of course, completely lulled ’.#* Huxley here implied that there was
more to be gained if he concealed his role as neologist and allowed Hutton to popularize
the new term in the pages of a respectable journal.

23 G. Mivart, ‘ The assumptions of agnostics ’, Fortnightly Review (1873), 13, 718, 723, 726, 731.
24 J. Dalgairns, ‘ Is God unknowable ? ’, Contemporary Review (1872), 20, 616.
25 Hutton first used the term in 1869 in an article on the debate at Oxford on the establishment of an honours
school in theology, but there was no mention of Huxley or any other unbeliever. See [R. H. Hutton], ‘ The
theological statute at Oxford ’, The Spectator (1869), 42, 642. Hutton was likely the first to publish Huxley’s
coinages ‘ agnostic ’ and ‘ agnosticism ’. See Lightman, op. cit. (11), 12.
26 [R. H. Hutton], ‘ Pope Huxley ’, The Spectator (1870), 43, 135 ; [R. H. Hutton], ‘ Science in its condescending
mood ’, The Spectator (1870), 43, 1170.
27 J. Murray (ed.), A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 4 vols., Oxford, 1888, i, 186.
28 R. Hutton, Theological Essays, 3rd edn., London, 1888, 22. Similarly, in 1876, in a discussion of Leslie
Stephen’s ‘ An agnostic’s apology ’, Hutton rejected Stephen’s claim that agnostic was a new nickname invented
by opponents and affirmed that ‘ Agnostic ’ was the name demanded by Professor Huxley for those who
disclaimed atheism and believed in an Unknown and Unknowable God. By stating that Huxley ‘ demanded ’ that
he be known as an agnostic still left open the issue of who invented the term. [R. H. Hutton], ‘ Militant
agnosticism ’, The Spectator (1876), 49, 763.
29 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 239.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 277
With his reputation for heterodoxy, any suggestion for a new word to describe a new
form of unbelief, especially one which he had invented, would have been subject to attack
and rejection. Throughout the mid-1870s the temptation to speak must have been
enormous. The uproar which followed Tyndall’s Belfast Address in 1874 gave Huxley’s
enemies the opportunity to label him and his friend Tyndall materialists.$! Huxley could
have distanced himself from materialism by insisting on his commitment to agnosticism.
Leslie Stephen’s ‘ An agnostic’s apology ’ (1876), the first time an important agnostic
actually used the term ‘ agnostic ’ in print and defended its validity as an appropriate
response to the bankruptcy of Christian orthodoxy, adopted a passionate and yet sarcastic
tone which Huxley may have regretted. From his point of view it could have hampered the
acceptance of the term in common discourse. But Huxley initially wrote nothing about
agnosticism in his published work up to 1877 in the hope that the term would be
accepted.$"
If Huxley did not speak publicly about his coinage, his ability to control the meaning of
the term was restricted. His solution to this problem was to deal with the issue indirectly
in his book on Hume (1878), published in John Morley’s ‘ English Men of Letters ’ series.
Here Huxley linked Hume, Locke and Kant to agnosticism in his first use of the term in
print. ‘ If ’, Huxley declared,
in thus conceiving the object and the limitations of philosophy, Hume shows himself the spiritual
child and continuator of the work of Locke, he appears no less plainly as the parent of Kant and
as the protagonist of that more modern way of thinking, which has been called ‘ agnosticism ’.$#
By establishing a noble lineage for agnosticism without implicating himself, he hoped to
preserve its respectability. Through Hume, or rather hiding behind Hume, Huxley could
present a more fully developed agnostic philosophy. Huxley was careful not to identify
himself as an agnostic or claim to have been the inventor of the term. Several critics were
not fooled in the least. In his Popular Science Monthly article ‘ Agnosticism as developed
in Huxley’s Hume ’, James McCosh, philosopher and president of Princeton College,
argued that Huxley’s own philosophy was ‘ expounded in the form of an epitome of the
system of the Scottish scepter with constantly interspersed criticisms of his own ’. Through
a comparison and criticism of Huxley and Hume on their primary epistemological
principles, McCosh believed he could ‘ discover and comprehend what agnosticism is, as
expounded by its eminent living philosopher ’, though he did not assert that Huxley had
coined the term.$$ Hutton, as usual, was watching Huxley’s every move. In ‘ An old-world
agnostic ’ he reviewed Hume, remarking on how interesting it was to see ‘ the Agnostic of
the eighteenth century as he is represented and supplemented by the Agnostic of the
nineteenth ’. Hutton cleverly used Hume to critique Huxley. Hume’s openness and his cool
temperament were ‘ perfectly adapted to the tone of his philosophy ’ while Huxley and
other modern agnostics discussed matters ‘ with a certain ardour and scorn for compromise
30 B. Lightman, ‘ Scientists as materialists in the periodical press : Tyndall’s Belfast address ’, Conference on
Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical, 19–21 April 2001, Dibner Institute, Boston.
31 A computer search of Huxley’s published work in The Huxley File, created by Charles Blinderman,
confirms that Huxley did not use the terms ‘ agnostic ’ or ‘ agnosticism ’ until the appearance of Hume in 1878.
See http :\\www.aleph0.clarku.edu\huxley\.
32 T. H. Huxley, Hume, New York, 1879, 58.
33 J. McCosh, ‘ Agnosticism as developed in Huxley’s Hume ’, Popular Science Monthly (1879), 15, 478, 485.
278 Bernard Lightman
that belongs to the temperament of belief ’. Hume, Hutton believed, ‘ would not have quite
approved Professor Huxley’s zealous sincerity ’.$%

Increased currency : from 1879 to 1883

Corresponding with Huxley in 1881, Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843–1922), an
Oriental scholar, was surprised to find out from Huxley who had coined the term
‘ agnostic ’. Since he had often ‘ met with it as a term of abuse ’ in the ‘ writings of the
theologically minded who lay the whole stress upon its negative side ’, he had not expected
to learn that the word came ‘ from a source I revere so highly ’.$& From 1879 to 1883, the
second phase of the history of ‘ agnosticism ’, Huxley’s coinage began to have greater
currency as the attention of the periodical press ensured that it would become a part of
common discourse. But still Huxley’s connection with ‘ agnosticism ’, let alone his role as
neologist, was seldom raised until the very end of this period. Huxley remained silent after
the publication of Hume. None of his published works from 1879 to 1883 contain
references to his coinage. When in 1883 several periodicals caught wind of the impending
publication of an essay by Huxley wherein he claimed to have invented the term, Darwin’s
bulldog chose to muzzle himself by distancing himself publicly from the journal publishing
this piece.
James Knowles, editor of the Nineteenth Century, was partly responsible for the
increased currency of the terms ‘ agnostic ’ and ‘ agnosticism ’ in this period, as well as
throughout the rest of the decade and into the next. To Knowles, it was a word which
sparked controversies guaranteed to boost sales of his journal. In 1880 he published two
articles on agnosticism as it impacted on another contentious issue, the ‘ woman question ’.
The essay on ‘ Agnosticism and women ’ in the April issue by Bertha Lathbury began by
pointing out that it was widely acknowledged that ‘ Agnosticism is gaining ground among
men ’. Though men preferred ‘ to hope that women will be slow to drive logic to its ultimate
end ; that they will still cling with womanly inconsistency to all that is refining and soothing
in the old creeds ’, in the long run agnosticism must ‘ equally gain ground among women ’.
As a result of losing their faith, women would not be able to pursue their three primary
roles with heartfelt conviction : taking care of the old or sick, teaching the ignorant and
attending to the well-being of loved ones. They would become discontented with ‘ the quiet
home life which is often their only lot ’, plunged into despair when agnosticism left a void
in their hearts, and seek professional careers to find new meaning in their lives.$' The
following month a reply by an essayist more sympathetic to agnosticism, J. H. Clapperton,
challenged this gloomy picture. Rejecting the essentialist notion informing the earlier
article, that women are by nature more religious and fit for traditional social roles, the
author argued that agnostics perceived human nature as ‘ infinitely modifiable ’. Moreover,
there was already ‘ a considerable band of female agnostics ’ in England. ‘ They have no
mind to whine over the inevitable or to be obstructive in the universal onward march. ’

34 [R. H. Hutton], ‘ An old-world agnostic ’, The Spectator (1879), 52, 110.

35 Huxley Papers, College Archives, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Thomas William
Rhys to T. H. Huxley, 7 December 1881, HP 13n121.
36 B. Lathbury, ‘ Agnosticism and women ’, Nineteenth Century (1880), 7, 619–20, 626.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 279
They had not lost their relish for life, become sunk in despair or sought professional work
in order to drown their suffering.$(
Two years later a controversy erupted in the pages of the Nineteenth Century over
whether or not an agnostic was justified in attending church. Louis Greg maintained that
it was appropriate, and not hypocritical, if an agnostic became a regular attendant at
church. If the agnostic did not attend, they would not only set a bad example for others,
whose motivation for absenting themselves had nothing to do with intellectual reservations,
they would also prevent cordial cooperation with the local parson, whose authority in a
small district was essential for the welfare of the community. An agnostic should therefore
attend church for the good of others.$) J. Henry Shorthouse was prepared to take Greg’s
argument one step further. Whereas Greg did not believe it was proper for an agnostic to
repeat the Creeds, much less offer themselves as communicants, Shorthouse thought that
an agnostic ‘ should certainly offer himself as a communicant ’.$* But J. H. Clapperton,
who had participated in the earlier debate on women and agnosticism, disagreed with both
Greg and Shorthouse. Since the agnostic recognized that ‘ science is slowly but surely
undermining the theological explanation of the Universe, and step by step verifying the
Evolution theory ’, they had a duty to truth which prevented them from attending church.
Greg’s position was ‘ hypocritical ’ and ‘ retrograde ’.%!
General discussions of agnosticism, which did not associate this form of unbelief with
specific individuals, also appeared in journals other than the Nineteenth Century
throughout this period. In Leisure Hour in 1881 the Reverend Prebendary W. Anderson
described agnosticism as a ‘ newly invented word meaning ‘‘ ignorance ’’ ’ which expressed
the ‘ attitude of the infidelity in vogue at the present day ’. The growth and popularity of
agnosticism, Anderson maintained, was due to the popularity of science. Though Anderson
pointed out that ‘ it has been invented by men who have made great discoveries in their own
department of knowledge ’, he mentioned no names. Anderson was critical of the agnostic’s
alleged neutrality. In reality, he argued, the agnostic sided with the atheist.%" Two years
later the Scottish Review published a piece on ‘ Agnosticism ’, treating it as the ‘ scientific
tendency of the ‘‘ nineteenth ’’ century ’. No particular agnostic was singled out for
attention. Huxley was mentioned once, but his scientific opinion was cited as support for
the notion that there is no evidence for the theory of spontaneous generation, placing him
on the side of religious critics of materialism. This article tried to make the case that even
the agnostic admitted the existence of a transcendent mystery that served as a ground for
religious belief.%# A satirical piece of fiction, ‘ Autobiography of an agnostic ’ in Fraser’s
Magazine in 1881, avoided naming any contemporary agnostics. A young man tries to live
according to the agnostic principle of ‘ believing nothing ’. He demands proof from
his parents that he is their son (they disown him), and he questions whether he really
loves his betrothed and she him (she breaks off the engagement). He ends up alone, but

37 J. H. Clapperton, ‘ Agnosticism and women : a reply ’, Nineteenth Century (1880), 7, 843–4.

38 L. Greg, ‘ The agnostic at church ’, Nineteenth Century (1882), 11, 76.
39 J. Shorthouse, ‘ The agnostic at church. I. ’, Nineteenth Century (1882), 11, 650.
40 J. H. Clapperton, ‘ The agnostic at church. II. ’, Nineteenth Century (1882), 11, 653–4.
41 Rev. Prebendary W. Anderson, ‘ Agnosticism ’, Leisure Hour (1881), 30, 276–7.
42 G. Matheson, ‘ Agnosticism ’, Scottish Review (1883), 2, 87, 95, 100.
280 Bernard Lightman
with his principles intact. This is meant to underscore the absurdity of the agnostic
position if taken to its logical conclusion.%$
But even in those articles on agnosticism where individuals were named, Huxley rarely
was the primary target. In the Wesleyan London Quarterly Review, agnosticism was
referred to as ‘ that modern and popular form of the materialistic philosophy ’, and was
characterized as being militantly hostile towards religion. Tyndall was pointed to as a
materialist while Huxley escaped mention.%% The only target in the Month and Catholic
Review’s piece on ‘ Agnostics in Parliament and in the press ’ was Charles Bradlaugh.%&
Two essays on modern unbelief appeared in the Contemporary Review in this period. The
1881 issue contained an essay on ‘ The arrogance of modern scepticism ’, which accused
prominent advocates of agnosticism and positivism of taking on ‘ the mantle of dogmatic
intolerance ’ once regarded as ‘ peculiar to theologians ’. Harrison was the main focus of
attention, while Stephen was presented as the chief representative of agnosticism. Huxley
was spoken of briefly in a reference to his essay ‘ Force and matter ’, but more as a modern
sceptic than as an agnostic.%' Published in the Contemporary Review two years later,
Frances Power Cobbe’s ‘ Agnostic morality ’ accused agnostics of ‘ undermining practical
ethics in all directions ’. Cobbe named Spencer, Darwin, Harrison and George Eliot as
agnostics who were guilty of corrupting their generation. Huxley did not appear among the
accused.%( In a series of three articles on agnosticism published in 1882 in the Catholic
journal The Month, Spencer, not Huxley, was treated as the typical representative of
atheistical agnosticism.%)
Up until the early 1880s, Huxley had kept his contemporaries guessing about the true
nature of his heterodox beliefs. Even his enemies, after piecing together glimpses of his
views from bits and pieces of his public statements, were hard pressed to prove that Huxley
was an agnostic or even worse. But Huxley’s secret, his role as neologist, could not be kept
much longer. In 1882 in the pages of Notes and Queries a reader wanted to know the
earliest use of the word ‘ agnosticism ’. After several correspondents pointed to publications
in which the word appeared in 1876 and 1874, James A. H. Murray, the noted philologist,
credited Huxley with coining the term in 1869. However, tracking down Huxley as the
inventor had not been easy for Murray since it was not common knowledge. He discovered
it only ‘ after a considerable chase ’.%*
Late in 1883 Huxley’s role as inventor of the term ‘ agnostic ’ became the subject of even
more public speculation as the result of a bizarre breach of ethical conduct by the editor
43 B. Thomas, ‘ Autobiography of an agnostic ’, Fraser’s Magazine (1881), 103, 666, 669.
44 Anon., ‘ The authorship of nature ’, London Quarterly Review (1880), 54, 2, 3, 13.
45 Anon., ‘ Agnostics in Parliament and in the press ’, Month and Catholic Review (1880), 40, 141.
46 F. Peek, ‘ The arrogance of modern scepticism : a layman’s protest ’, Contemporary Review (1881), 39,
571–3.
47 F. Cobbe, ‘ Agnostic morality ’, Contemporary Review (1883), 43, 790, 793. In an earlier article on
‘ Magnanimous atheism ’ in 1877, Cobbe’s primary agnostic target was Harrison. See F. Cobbe, ‘ Magnanimous
atheism ’, Theological Review (1877), 14, 464.
48 By the Editor, ‘ The Coryphaeus of agnosticism ’, The Month (1882), 45, 457–70 ; by the Editor, ‘ The
prevalent phase of unbelief ’, The Month (1882), 45, 153–68 ; R. F. C., ‘ The sources of modern agnosticism ’, The
Month (1882), 45, 315–28.
49 E. Marshall, ‘ Agnosticism ’, Notes and Queries (1882), 5, 489 ; V. H. I. L. I. C. I. V., ‘ Agnosticism ’, Notes and
Queries (1882), 6, 34 ; E. H. M. and J. R. Thorne, ‘ Agnosticism : agnostic ’, Notes and Queries (1882), 6, 418.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 281
of a new journal devoted to agnosticism. Huxley’s reaction to the incident would have
confused those who were curious about the origins of the term. In order to launch his new
periodical, the Agnostic Annual, with a bang, Charles Albert Watts, son of the famous
secularist Charles Watts, planned to have a symposium on agnosticism for the first issue
with contributions from some of the foremost unbelievers of the age. He wrote to Huxley
asking him for his views. Huxley responded to Watts on 10 September 1883, stating that
some twenty years ago or thereabout, I invented the word ‘ agnostic ’ to describe people who, like
myself, confess themselves to be hopelessly ignorant concerning a variety of matters about which
metaphysicians and theologians both modern and heterodox dogmatise with the utmost
confidence.
Huxley remarked that it had been a ‘ source of some amusement ’ for him to ‘ watch the
gradual acceptance of the word and its correlate ‘‘ agnosticism ’’ ’, adding that The
Spectator ‘ first adopted and popularized it ’.&! Huxley was later shocked to learn that
Watts intended to publish his letter in the Agnostic Annual. He wrote to Tyndall on 25
November 1883 that he had not imagined ‘ that any-one could play such a dishonourable
trick as this Watts has done ’. Huxley had been led to believe that Watts ‘ merely wanted
information about my views ’, and he considered his response to be a private
communication. But Watts ‘ printed this without asking leave or sending proof ’.&" Huxley’s
letter to Watts was subsequently published in the 1884 issue of the Agnostic Annual as part
of the symposium on agnosticism.&#
On 17 November 1883 the Academy carried a story in its ‘ Notes and news ’ column
concerning Huxley’s contribution to the Agnostic Annual. According to the Academy,
Huxley ‘ proclaims himself to be the founder of Agnosticism, and, after setting forth its
chief theses, indicates its relation to religious supernaturalism ’.&$ Huxley quickly wrote a
letter to the correspondence column of the Academy to try and set the record straight. It
appeared in the 24 November issue. Having been forced ‘ out of the closet ’ by Watts, he
tried his best to play down his central role in the formation of agnosticism. First, he
publicly rebuked Watts. ‘ Except in the sense that a forced loan is sometimes called a
‘‘ contribution ’’ I have not ‘‘ contributed ’’ to the Agnostic Annual ’, Huxley declared, ‘ the
editor of that work having thought fit to publish a letter which was intended as my private
reply … and to print my name in his list of contributors, without asking my permission to
do so ’. Huxley believed that Watts had somehow tried to soothe his irritation by stating
in the preface to the symposium that Huxley claimed to be the founder of agnosticism.
Huxley complained that the writer of the paragraph in the Academy ‘ improves this into
a still more arrogant piece of self-assertion by prefixing ‘‘ pro ’’ to ‘‘ claim ’’ ’. For the first
time Huxley did admit publicly to having invented the word ‘ agnostic ’, but he denied that
he was the founder of agnosticism.&% This was considered newsworthy enough to be picked
up by The New York Times, which ran the story on 10 December 1883.&& The Agnostic
50 Huxley Papers, op. cit. (35), T. H. Huxley to Charles Watts, 10 September 1883, HP 28n196.
51 Tyndall Papers, op. cit. (3), T. H. Huxley to John Tyndall, 25 November 1883, 9n3106 (R.I. MSS T., 13\F12,
90.).
52 T. H. Huxley, P. A. Taylor et al., ‘ Agnosticism : a symposium ’, Agnostic Annual (1884), 5–20.
53 Anon., ‘ Notes and news ’, Academy (1883), 23, 330.
54 T. H. Huxley, ‘ Correspondence. The ‘‘ agnostic annual ’’ ’, Academy (1883), 350–1.
55 Anon., ‘ [A Paragraph] ’, The New York Times, 10 December 1883, 3.
282 Bernard Lightman
Annual had a limited circulation, so few had the opportunity to read Huxley’s letter to
Watts, though they would have had the opportunity to read about it in the Academy or
The New York Times. But Huxley had hedged his involvement with agnosticism to such
an extent that readers may have been confused by his admission that he had merely
invented the term.

‘ Agnosticism ’ and controversy : from 1884 to 1888

After 1883, ‘ agnosticism ’ was a hot topic of debate. As a result, it became a prominent
feature in the intellectual landscape. For the first time since Leslie Stephen had published
his ‘ An agnostic’s apology ’ in the previous decade, an influential agnostic, Herbert
Spencer, spoke out on the nature of his beliefs and became embroiled in 1884 in a
controversy with another major unbeliever, Frederic Harrison. Interest in agnosticism also
grew due to the publication of two important works, Darwin’s life and letters and James
Cotter Morrison’s The Service of Man, both of which sparked even more controversy.
During this period a number of different groups with varying agendas attempted to take
advantage of the interest in agnosticism and they appropriated the label ‘ agnostic ’ for
themselves. Despite the higher profile of his coinage, and though it was now more widely
known that Huxley had invented the term, he remained relatively silent.
Early in 1884 Huxley’s role as inventor was noted in Murray’s A New English Dictionary
on Historical Principles. Under the word ‘ Agnostic ’ Murray included a quote from a letter
by Hutton, which asserted that the term was ‘ suggested by Huxley at a party held previous
to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr James Knowles’s house
on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in my hearing ’.&' But Huxley’s relationship to
agnosticism was overshadowed in 1884 by the spectacle of two unbelievers engaged in
bitter controversy in the pages of the Nineteenth Century throughout almost the entire
year. Knowles knew what interested his readers. Spencer’s endorsement of a positive creed
of agnosticism in ‘ Religion : a retrospect and prospect ’ in the January number had drawn
from Harrison a spirited attack in the March issue entitled ‘ The ghost of religion ’, where
he argued that Spencer’s Unknowable could not serve as the basis of a healthy religion.
Spencer countered with an assault on Comte and Positivism in his ‘ Retrogressive religion ’
in July, only to be challenged by Harrison in September in ‘ Agnostic metaphysics ’. Spencer
had his final say in ‘ Last words about agnosticism and the religion of humanity ’ in
November.&(
Other journals became involved in Harrison and Spencer’s debate over the adequacy of
agnosticism to satisfy the human need for religion. Hutton, of course, ensured that The
Spectator entered the fray early on. In January of 1884, after the appearance of Spencer’s
first article, the author of ‘ Agnostic dreamers ’ blasted both Spencer and Harrison. Whereas
Spencer’s ‘ vision of a mighty mist ’ contained no religious meaning, Harrison was depicted
as another type of agnostic who destroyed idols and then inconsistently presented one of

56 Murray, op. cit. (27).

57 For an analysis of the controversy see S. Eisen, ‘ Frederic Harrison and Herbert Spencer ’, Victorian Studies
(1968), 12, 33–56.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 283
his own, the worship of the dead. In expecting the rest of humanity to become enchanted
with their visions of new religions, both Spencer and Harrison were unrealistic dreamers.
‘ Few dreamers ’, the author maintained, ‘ seem to us to dream dreams so wild as the
Positivists and Agnostics of the present day ’.&) A week later another article appeared on
agnosticism in The Spectator, this time in the form of a review of Philosophical Basis of
Theism by Samuel Harris, professor of theology at Yale. ‘ It is needless to say that
‘‘ Agnosticism ’’ is fast becoming a more and more popular watchword ’, the anonymous
writer declared, and the ‘ root-principle of modern unbelief ’ was the notion that the
existence of a divine being was ‘ radically inaccessible to our faculties ’. When comparing
Huxley and Spencer as doubters, the author favoured the former. Huxley’s position, that
he was unable to arrive at any conclusion on the subject of God’s existence, ‘ is a statement
which we accept, and do not care to disprove ’. But Spencer dogmatized about the
Unknowable, for he stated that nobody could possibly know the Unknowable. Whereas
Huxley offered a ‘ confession of personal ignorance ’, Spencer presented a theory of
knowledge. Huxley’s position was far more preferable as it allowed ‘ some hope of
religious conviction, whereas the other announces as its first principle that such a hope is
absurd ’. Spencer’s ‘ fanatical colour ’ was ‘ far more dangerous ’.&*
Spencer was also the chief target in an article by the Catholic Wilfrid Ward on ‘ The
healing art in philosophy ’, published in 1885 in the Dublin Review. ‘ It is scarcely necessary
to remind my readers, ’ Ward affirmed, ‘ that agnosticism is the watchword of modern
unbelief ’ and that it implied the notion that knowledge of God and all spiritual truth was
‘ unattainable by man ’. Ward recommended Newman’s Grammar of Assent as the antidote
to poisonous agnostic ideas. Hume and Spencer were singled out as agnostics while Huxley
escaped mention. Referring to the debate between Spencer and Harrison, Ward pointed to
a contradiction in Spencer’s agnosticism. Throughout the controversy, Spencer’s
knowledge of the Unknowable seemed to grow steadily. ‘ This Unknowable cause ’, Ward
wrote, ‘ seems growing gradually to the dimensions of the God whom agnosticism has
professed to place on his funeral pile ’.'!
Agnosticism became a focal point for controversy again in 1887 and 1888, in part due
to the publication of two important books. Francis Darwin’s Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin (1887) sparked interest in Darwin’s religious beliefs or lack of them. Frederic
Myers’s study of ‘ Charles Darwin and agnosticism ’ in the Fortnightly Review for January
of 1888 optimistically concluded that the glorification of human ignorance cast by Huxley’s
‘ trenchant polemic ’ could not possibly ‘ be kept up for long ’.'" The appearance of
James Cotter Morison’s The Service of Man (1887) also provoked reviewers to discuss
the fortunes of agnosticism. In an anonymous review in the Church Quarterly Review the
author claimed that agnosticism had not been able to elicit any enthusiasm among
the English. Cotter Morison’s positivism was treated as but one form of agnosticism,
and the least attractive among ‘ these abortions, each of which is proclaimed as the religion

58 Anon., ‘ Agnostic dreamers ’, The Spectator (1884), 57, 9, 11.

59 Anon., ‘ Professor Harris on agnosticism ’, The Spectator (1884), 57, 54.
60 W. Ward, ‘ The healing art in philosophy ’, Dublin Review (1885), 96, 35, 37, 45–6.
61 F. Myers, ‘ Charles Darwin and agnosticism ’, Fortnightly Review (1888), 49, 104. See also E. Walmsley,
‘ Charles Darwin, how he became an agnostic ’, Month. A Catholic Magazine (1888), 62, 496–506.
284 Bernard Lightman
of the future, but never becomes anybody’s religion in the present ’.'# The Spectator
returned to the breach with an article on Cotter Morison as ‘ one of the most learned and
brilliant of that paradoxical group of men who may properly be termed ardent agnostics,
men who press their agnosticism with a sort of apostolic unction ’.'$
The sensational controversies surrounding agnosticism in this period, in particular the
Spencer–Harrison confrontation in 1884, led a number of different groups to see Huxley’s
label as an attractive one. By identifying themselves as agnostics they believed they would
be seen as adherents to the most up-to-date scientific world view. But though they eagerly
appropriated Huxley’s term, their real allegiance was to Herbert Spencer’s more
theistically oriented agnosticism. Richard Proctor, the prolific popularizer of astronomy
who had fascinated the Victorian reading public throughout the 1870s with his many
works on extraterrestrial life, chose to make Spencerian agnosticism the new focal point
for his popular science journal Knowledge in 1885, when he switched it from a weekly to
a monthly.'% The lead article for the new monthly, ‘ The unknowable ; or, the religion of
science ’, set the tone for subsequent issues.'& Proctor rejected the notion of a conflict
between science and religion. Drawing on Spencer’s reconciliation of science and religion
in First Principles, Proctor saw each as authoritative in their own spheres. Under the same
title of ‘ The unknowable ’, Proctor penned a series of articles on Herbert Spencer, religious
agnosticism, the evolution of religious ideas and cosmic evolution, which appeared on a
regular basis throughout the entire year.''
Renegade secularists were equally taken by the lure of agnosticism. Led by C. A. Watts,
who respected his father’s tradition of non-militancy and abhorred Charles Bradlaugh’s
aggressive atheism, a group of dissident secularists pursued a new strategy for placing their
brand of unbelief at the forefront of organized freethought. Watts was impressed by the
success of middle-class scientific naturalists like Huxley, Spencer and Tyndall and he
modelled his strategy on their methods. He hoped to move towards an alliance with
eminent middle-class unbelievers and away from secularism’s radical working-class roots.
Agnosticism was the key to Watts’s new tactics. It represented the most up-to-date phase
of scientific unbelief and it had an air of respectability about it, thanks to the middle-class
scientific naturalists who defended it. In 1884, shortly after taking over his father’s
publishing business, he brought out the Agnostic Annual. In January 1885 he began
publishing a monthly, entitled the Agnostic. Watts’s ally, William Stewart Ross, followed
his lead and pushed dissident secularism towards the new agnosticism. In January 1885 he
gave the Secular Review a new subtitle, A Journal of Agnosticism, and then four years later
renamed it the Agnostic Journal and Secular Review. Ross and Watts were aided by
Richard Bithell, Frederick James Gould and Samuel Laing, all of whom wrote books and
essays on agnosticism, many of which were published by Watts and Co. or appeared in
62 Anon., ‘ Christianity and the service of man ’, Church Quarterly Review (1888), 25, 268.
63 Anon., ‘ Ardent agnosticism ’, The Spectator (1888), 61, 299.
64 B. Lightman, ‘ ‘‘ Knowledge ’’ confronts ‘‘ nature ’’ : Richard Proctor and popular science periodicals ’,
Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical : An Interdisciplinary Conference Organized by the SciPer Project,
10–12 April 2000, University of Leeds.
65 R. Proctor, ‘ The unknowable ; or, the religion of science ’, Knowledge (1885), 9, 1–3.
66 R. Proctor, ‘ The unknowable ’, Knowledge (1885), 9, 37–9, 73–5, 105–7, 173–5, 201–3, 233–5, 265–6, 297–9,
321–2, 345–7.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 285
Watts’s periodicals. Spencer, not Huxley, was the master for these men, as they were
inspired by Spencer’s vision of an Unknowable deity. Watts was so taken by the religious
possibilities in agnosticism that he tried to establish an Agnostic Temple in south-west
London.'(
An article on ‘ Agnosticism ’ in the Westminster Review in 1889 pointed to a third group
who could be classified as agnostics. The anonymous author argued that the agnostic idea
had been ‘ floating about in the minds of thoughtful and pious men ’ for more than three
thousand years. However, until recently, it had been regarded as an intellectual curiosity.
‘ The progress of Biblical criticism, the break-up of the old theologies, the intense
dissatisfaction generally felt in regard to our social arrangements ’, the journalist observed,
have thrown us back to the reconsideration of first principles, and have forced us to inquire how
it has come about that so many things should be accepted as known, so many things believed for
which there is no rational foundation whatever.
Three groups now postulated the existence of an unknowable reality : the Positivists, the
Evolutionists (including Darwin, Spencer, Wallace and Fiske) and, surprisingly, Christian
ministers who adopted the views of Sir William Hamilton, Henry Mansel and German
metaphysicians.')
In his 1884 essay ‘ Agnostic metaphysics ’ Harrison pointed out that he had warned
Spencer ten years earlier that ‘ his Religion of the Unknowable was certain to lead him into
strange company ’. By invoking the Unknowable, Spencer reopened ‘ the whole range of
Metaphysics ’ and allowed ‘ the entire apparatus of Theology ’ to ‘ follow through the
breach ’.'* Harrison had only to point to an article on ‘ Christian agnosticism ’ by H. G.
Curteis in an earlier issue of the Nineteenth Century. Curteis denied that the title of his
essay was a contradiction in terms. ‘ No religious man ’, he declared, ‘ need shrink from
saying, ‘‘ I am a Christian Agnostic ’’ ’. The notion of the inscrutability of God could be
found in St Paul, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, St Augustine and other ancient Church
Fathers. Christian agnostics ‘ warmly welcome a powerful auxiliary like Mr Herbert
Spencer ’, Curteis affirmed, even though Spencer himself did not view his philosophy as
Christian. Before launching into a discussion of Spencer’s ‘ Religion : a retrospect and
prospect ’, published in the last month’s issue of the Nineteenth Century, Curteis stated
that he aimed to demonstrate ‘ how little there is to repudiate, how much to accept and be
sincerely grateful for, in his masterly speculations ’.(! Of course, not all Christians were so
keen on appropriating Spencer’s agnosticism. In the Dublin Review, William Barry
cautioned his readers that Spencer’s system was ‘ deadly ’, describing it as materialism
plus the Unknowable. Spencer was inconsistent, according to Barry, in embracing the
doctrine of the relativity of knowledge and affirming the existence of an Absolute.("
In 1888, just prior to Huxley’s first major intervention in the controversy over
agnosticism, it was still news to some that he had invented the term. The Spectator

67 B. Lightman, ‘ Ideology, evolution and late-Victorian agnostic popularizers ’, in History, Humanity and
Evolution : Essays for John C. Greene (ed. James R. Moore), Cambridge, 1989, 285–309.
68 Anon., ‘ Agnosticism ’, Westminster Review (1889), 132, 148, 153, 155.
69 F. Harrison, ‘ Agnostic metaphysics ’, Nineteenth Century (1884), 16, 353.
70 H. G. Curteis, ‘ Christian agnosticism ’, Nineteenth Century (1884), 15, 337–8.
71 W. Barry, ‘ Mr Herbert Spencer’s agnosticism ’, Dublin Review (1888), 102, 381, 397.
286 Bernard Lightman
reported on a paper by Wilfrid Ward on agnosticism delivered to the Catholic Truth
Society, where he began by giving a true account of the origin of the word, crediting
Huxley with the suggestion.(# Those who were unaware of Huxley’s role in the invention
of the term could be excused their ignorance. From 1884 to 1888 Huxley mentioned
agnosticism only three times in his published works. Two of these references were
inconsequential. In ‘ The evolution of theology ’ (1886) Huxley discussed Philo’s ‘ agnostic
theism ’ and his ‘ agnostic position ’, while in ‘ On the reception of the ‘‘ Origin of
Species ’’ ’(1887), Huxley asserted that in the 1850s he took an ‘ agnostic position ’ on the
validity of evolutionary theory.($ In his essay ‘ Science and morals ’ (Fortnightly Review,
1886), Huxley does discuss the origin of the term ‘ agnostic ’, though briefly. Offended by
the accusation of materialism, Huxley defended himself by saying that earlier in life he
could not find a label which suited him, so he ‘ invented ’ one, calling himself an
‘ Agnostic ’.(% But Huxley is so vague here as to when he coined the term and under what
specific circumstances, that it would have been easy for readers to overlook the significance
of his claim. In any event, the paragraph where he offered his account of the origins of the
term did not constitute a systematic exploration of the history, meaning and philosophical
basis of agnosticism. In his ‘ Unknowable ’, the opening section of First Principles (1862),
Spencer had a lucid, comprehensive statement of his agnostic position which came to be
considered by many to be an official handbook. Huxley did not offer anything remotely
comparable until 1889. Since Huxley spoke rarely about his invention of the term, since he
wrote so little about agnosticism as a philosophy, and since those groups who appropriated
the term to identify themselves looked to Spencer for their inspiration, especially after his
public defence of agnosticism against Harrison in 1884, it is understandable that Spencer
was widely considered to be the leading agnostic.

Conclusion : Huxley’s wager

The three essays which Huxley published in 1889 in the Nineteenth Century represented,
in part, a rather belated attempt to regain control of his coinage. Agnosticism had been
freighted with so many new ideas that he had to try in these articles to cleanse the term
of meanings he could not abide. Though Huxley was responding to Anglican opponents,
such as Henry Wace, Principal of King’s College, throughout these essays, fellow
unbelievers became targets as well. In ‘ Agnosticism ’, Harrison was taken to task for
presuming to pontificate about ‘ The future of agnosticism ’ in the Fortnightly Review.
Harrison believed that agnosticism was but a negative stage in the evolution of religion
which would prepare the way for the religion of Humanity. Agnostic logic would become
widely accepted, but agnosticism as a distinctive creed was fated to disappear.(& Huxley
denied that agnosticism was a creed or ‘ religious philosophy ’.(' Huxley’s contention, that
72 Anon., ‘ Roman Catholics on agnosticism ’, Spectator (1888), 61, 1502.
73 T. H. Huxley, ‘ The evolution of theology : an anthropological study ’, in Science and Hebrew Tradition,
London, 1893, 365–6 ; T. H. Huxley, ‘ On the reception of the ‘‘ Origin of Species ’’ ’, in The Life and Letters of
Charles Darwin (ed. Francis Darwin), 3rd edn., 2 vols., London, 1887, ii, 188.
74 T. H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays, London, 1911, 134.
75 F. Harrison, ‘ The future of agnosticism ’, Fortnightly Review (1889), 51, 154–5.
76 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 250.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 287
Harrison basically misunderstood agnosticism, points to a significant rift between Huxley
and the groups who in the mid-1880s tried to appropriate agnosticism for their own ends.
Indeed, in ‘ Agnosticism ’, Huxley singled out Samuel Laing, one of Watts’s allies, as an
agnostic who had taken on the absurd task of providing a list of eight articles for a
‘ negative creed ’. In Huxley’s opinion, agnostics could ‘ have no creed ’, they could not have
one ‘ by the nature of the case ’.(( Huxley’s irritation went beyond Laing, or even the group
of self-professed agnostics within Watts’s circle. Huxley was really trying to question the
authority of their master, Spencer. In ‘ Agnosticism and Christianity ’ Huxley declared that
he did not ‘ very much care to speak of anything as ‘‘ unknowable ’’ ’.()
Frederick Gould, who was busy preparing a pamphlet on agnosticism for Watts, noticed
the divergence between Spencer and Huxley after reading Hume and ‘ Agnosticism ’
carefully. Writing to Huxley on 23 December 1889, he asked if he was imagining a gap
between the two agnostics, ‘ namely, that you do not go so far as a positive affirmation of
the Unknowable Noumenon ’.(* Huxley’s reply revealed just how much he disagreed with
Spencer. There was ‘ an entire and complete divergence as soon as we leave the foundations
laid by Hume, Kant, and Hamilton ’. Huxley believed that Hamilton had destroyed all
philosophies of the Absolute, but Spencer’s Unknowable was ‘ merely the Absolute
‘‘ redivivus ’’, a sort of ghost of an extinct philosophy, the name of a negation hocus-
pocussed into a sham thing ’. Huxley accused Spencer of succumbing to idolatry, of
worshipping a negative abstraction. But the ‘ one object of the Agnostic (in the true sense)
is to knock this tendency on the head whenever or wherever it shows itself ’. In violating
the very essence of agnosticism, Huxley implied, Spencer was not really a true agnostic.
Huxley went on to explain to Gould that he had ‘ long been aware of the manner in which
my views have been confounded with those of Mr Spencer ’. ‘ Perhaps I have done wrongly
in letting the thing slide so long ’, Huxley stated regretfully, ‘ but I was anxious to avoid
a breach with an old friend ’.)! At first, Huxley had remained relatively silent after 1869 in
order to allow his coinage ‘ agnostic ’ to become part of intellectual discourse, but he later
had an additional reason for not speaking at length about the meaning of the term : he
would have had to reveal the significant gap between himself and his friend. Huxley
wanted to present a united front, until 1889 when he was in the middle of an acrimonious
quarrel with Spencer. Years of frustration over the identification of agnosticism with
Spencer’s Unknowable spilled out in his correspondence with Gould.)" In a sympathetic
response, Gould suggested that ‘ the best way out of the dilemma would be to invent
another name for Spencerian Agnosticism ’.)#
At almost the same time that he exchanged letters with Gould on his divergence from
Spencer, Huxley became involved with another correspondent who raised the same issue
in a more troubling manner. In the winter of 1889, James Skilton, a member of the
Brooklyn Ethical Association, wrote to both Spencer and Huxley, asking for their consent
77 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 245.
78 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 311.
79 Huxley Papers, op. cit. (35), Frederick James Gould to T. H. Huxley, 23 December 1889, HP 17n106.
Original emphasis.
80 E. Clodd, Thomas Henry Huxley, Edinburgh, 1902, 220–1.
81 Lightman, op. cit. (11), 138.
82 Huxley Papers, op. cit. (35), Frederick James Gould to T. H. Huxley, 2 January 1890, HP 17n108.
288 Bernard Lightman
to find replacements for the words agnostic and agnosticism so that the ‘ affirmative side
of the agnostic conception ’ could be made clearer in the effort to popularize evolutionary
views. Skilton recommended as affirmative substitutes the words ‘ metagnosticism and
metagnostic, or metanosticism and metanostic ’ which, he believed, involved ‘ no surrender
or concession, but, on the contrary, if adopted would mark an advance in the nomenclature
of the agnostic philosophy ’. Skilton was willing to leave the selection of the terms to
Spencer and Huxley, working ‘ in concert ’. Upon receiving approval from both of them,
Skilton intended to ‘ bring the matter before the public, through our Association, at one of
the meetings of the series now well commenced for the season, through The Popular
Science Monthly, and by other means within my present reach ’.
Spencer’s reply of 22 December 1889 was brief. He begged off responding to the issues
raised since he had been made ‘ ill by over-excitement ’ and he wanted to ‘ avoid every
mental tax ’. In his response, dated 10 December, Huxley regretted that he ‘ can discover
no good ground for the change of nomenclature ’ proposed. Moreover, in a thinly veiled
reference to Spencer’s worship of the Unknowable, Huxley attacked the notion that there
was an affirmative side to agnosticism. ‘ Your definition of ‘‘ metagnosticism ’’ says that it
‘‘ relates to beyond-knowledge ’’ ’, Huxley remarked. ‘ That is exactly what all the
‘‘ absolute ’’ philosophers profess the ‘‘ Absolute ’’ does ; and it is precisely that profession
which I consider to be futile and mischievous. ’ Huxley asked that his letter be made public
since there seemed to be a good deal of misconception as to his position. Skilton was
disappointed that he was unable to ‘ supply the missing word ’, but his attempt was bound
to fail.)$ He had anticipated that a consensus could be reached between Huxley and
Spencer, not realizing that Huxley was no longer willing to ignore the differences between
him and the old friend with whom he now quarrelled. But Skilton was in fact closer to
Spencer in his understanding of agnosticism than to Huxley.
Huxley’s critique of Spencer in his trilogy of essays on agnosticism was accompanied by
a detailed historical account of how he had coined the term and what it had originally
meant. Fearing at first to inhibit the acceptance of his neologism into common discourse,
and then later fearing to reveal the stunning disparity between his conception of
agnosticism and Spencer’s, Huxley had chosen to say little about his key role in the creation
of modern agnosticism until 1889. The words ‘ agnostic ’ and ‘ agnosticism ’ became a part
of common discourse largely due to journal editors such as Hutton and Knowles, who kept
the terms before the public eye throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Knowles opened the pages
of the Nineteenth Century throughout the 1880s to controversies involving agnosticism,
especially the Spencer–Harrison debate in 1884. When Huxley’s essay ‘ Agnosticism ’
pushed the Nineteenth Century through four editions, Knowles egged Huxley on to
continue the controversy with Wace. Knowles’s stage-managed confrontation paid off
handsomely in increased sales throughout 1889.)% But Huxley could no longer leave it to
83 J. Skilton, ‘ The affirmative side of agnosticism ’, Popular Science Monthly (1890), 31, 218, 220, 226–7, 232.
84 Desmond, op. cit. (9), 570–1. Even as late as 1895 Knowles believed that agnosticism was a hot topic which
boosted sales of the Nineteenth Century. Knowles convinced Huxley to write an article attacking A. J. Balfour’s
Foundation of Belief and suggested that the piece be entitled to include the word ‘ agnosticism ’. He wrote to
Huxley, ‘ I want to call the article ‘‘ Mr Balfour’s Attack on Agnosticism ’’ borrowing a phrase you use in the back
of the text. It will be far more rousing than his ‘‘ Foundations of Belief ’’ ’. See Huxley Papers, op. cit. (35), James
Knowles to T. H. Huxley, 22 February 1895, HP 20n178.
 Huxley and scientific agnosticism 289
journal editors, dissident secularists like Watts or even his old friend Spencer to determine
the fate of agnosticism. Now that Huxley wanted to re-establish control over the meaning
of agnosticism and cleanse it of distortions which had arisen over the years, he could no
longer afford to be coy about his invention of the term. His authority to define the true
meaning of agnosticism was justified by his role as neologist.
But Huxley’s claim of ownership came too late. He had waited for twenty years to
become involved in the public debates over the meaning and definition of agnosticism. As
Frederic Harrison remarked in 1892, ‘ agnosticism is not a patent medicine on which Mr
Huxley has a royalty ’.)& George Levine once portrayed Huxley as an ‘ intellectual risk-
taker ’.)' Huxley had gambled on a risky strategy and lost. Huxley’s silence on his role in
the invention of the term may have led to its acceptance as an influential term in intellectual
discourse, but not in the sense which reflected Huxley’s position. No doubt Huxley drew
on agnostic principles throughout his life in his published works, but he could not rely on
a coherent agnostic philosophy reflective of his own position until 1889. But his use of the
term from 1890 to his death was rather restricted. There are brief references to agnosticism
in three papers prior to the publication of his final essay, ‘ Mr Balfour’s attack on
agnosticism ’ (1895).)( In effect, Huxley dropped his emphasis on agnosticism until he was
attacked by Balfour in The Foundations of Belief and forced to defend his neologism. His
attempt in 1889 to disengage his brand of agnosticism from Spencer’s was not successful
and perhaps he was considering whether or not he should abandon the term, as he had
‘ Darwinism ’ in the late 1860s.)) By coining the term ‘ scientific naturalism ’ in 1892 in the
prologue to Controverted Questions, he actively experimented with a new term to describe
his position and distanced himself from Spencer.)*
Huxley literally went to his grave protesting at the identification of his position with
Spencer’s. The second part of his essay ‘ Mr Balfour’s attack on agnosticism ’ began with
a strenuous objection to the way that Balfour had lumped him together with Spencer.*!
This was the last piece which Huxley wrote before his death. He was unable to check the
proofs as he wasted away in the spring and summer of 1895. The early history of scientific
agnosticism contains a striking irony : Huxley derived little rhetorical mileage out of the
term he coined. Others were able to use it for their own purposes and endow it with
meanings which he could not accept. What began as a promising rhetorical strategy among
the members of the Metaphysical Society ended in failure when Huxley tried to ensure that
his neologism would become an accepted term within intellectual discourse.
85 F. Harrison, ‘ Mr Huxley’s controversies ’, Fortnightly Review (1892), 58, 422.
86 G. Levine, ‘ Scientific discourse as an alternative to faith ’, in Victorian Faith in Crisis (ed. R. J. Helmstadter
and B. Lightman), Basingstoke, Hampshire and London, 1990, 255.
87 In ‘ Possibilities and impossibilities ’ (1891) Huxley discusses the ‘ Agnostic view ’ of miracles, in ‘ Apologetic
Irenicon ’ (1892) he responds to Harrison’s onslaught on agnosticism and in ‘ Evolution and ethics ’ he refers to
the ‘ inverse agnosticism ’ of Socrates who taught that the problems of physics lie beyond the reach of the human
intellect. See Huxley, op. cit. (13), 194, 204 ; T. H. Huxley, ‘ An apologetic Irenicon ’, Fortnightly Review (1892),
58, 562, 571 ; T. H. Huxley, op. cit. (74), 70.
88 Moore, op. cit. (10), 353–408.
89 Huxley, op. cit. (13), 38.
90 T. H. Huxley, ‘ Mr Balfour’s attack on agnosticism 2 ’, in Peterson, op. cit. (7), 316 ; B. Lightman,
‘ ‘‘ Fighting even with death ’’ : Balfour, scientific naturalism, and Thomas Henry Huxley’s final battle ’, in Thomas
Henry Huxley’s Place in Science and Letters : Centenary Essays (ed. A. Barr), Athens and London, 1997, 341.