gravity beyond redemption, a man with opinions such as cannot be held
"without grave personal sin on his part" (as was once said of Mill by
W.G. Ward), the representative in his single person of rationalism,
materialism, atheism, or if there be any more abhorrent "ism"--in
token of which as late as 1892 an absurd zealot at the headquarters of
the Salvation Army crowned an abusive letter to him at Eastbourne by
the statement, "I hear you have a local reputation as a Bradlaughite."

But now official life began to lay closer hold upon him. He came
forward also as a leader in the struggle for educational reform,
seeking not only to perfect his own biological teaching, but to show,
in theory and practice, how scientific training might be introduced
into the general system of education. He was more than once asked to
stand for Parliament, but refused, thinking he could do more useful
work for his country outside.

The publication in 1870 of "Lay Sermons," the first of a series of
similar volumes, served, by concentrating his moral and intellectual
philosophy, to make his influence as a teacher of men more widely
felt. The "active scepticism," whose conclusions many feared, was yet
acknowledged as the quality of mind which had made him one of the
clearest thinkers and safest scientific guides of his time, while his
keen sense of right and wrong made the more reflective of those who
opposed his conclusions hesitate long before expressing a doubt as to
the good influence of his writings. This view is very clearly
expressed in a review of the book in the "Nation" (New York 1870 11
407).

And as another review of the "Lay Sermons" puts it ("Nature" 3 22), he
began to be made a kind of popular oracle, yet refused to prophesy