and to see how all that it does is to reveal confusion. In the first
place, Professor Huxley's comparisons really illustrate the very fact
that he designs them to invalidate. It is precisely on his theory of
vision that a man's sight practically does depend. All sight, so far as
it conveys any meaning to him, is an act of inference; and though
generally this process may be so rapid that it is not perceived by him,
yet the doubt often felt about distant or unusual objects will make him
keenly conscious of it. Whilst as to ginger and the taste produced by
it, the moral question is not whether it is hot or not; but whether or
no it will be for our advantage to eat it; and this resolves itself into
two further questions; firstly, whether its heat is pleasant, and
secondly whether its heat is wholesome. On the first of these Professor
Huxley throws no light whatever; whilst as to the second, it really
hangs entirely on the very point that he cited as indifferent. We must
have some knowledge, even though it be only vague and negative, of the
nature of a food, before we know whether it will be well for us in the
long run to habitually eat it, or to abstain from it.

Let us apply this illustration to love. Professor Huxley's ginger shall
stand for the sort of love he would most approve of; and love, as a
whole, will be represented by a varied dessert, of which ginger is one
of the dishes. Now what Professor Huxley has to do is to recommend this
ginger, and to show that it is divided by an infinite gulf--say from
prunes or from Huntley and Palmer's biscuits. But how is he to do this?
To say that ginger is hot is to say nothing. To many, that may condemn
instead of recommending it: and they will have as much to say for their
own tastes if they rejoin that prunes and biscuits are sweet. If he can
prove to them that what they choose is unwholesome, and that if they eat
it they will be too unwell to say their prayers, then, supposing they
want to say their prayers, he will have gained his point. But if he