It leads us away, he says, from '_the rank and steaming valleys of sense_,' up to the '_highest good_,' which is '_discerned by reason_,' '_resting in eternal calm_.' And let us ask him again, what, as uttered by a positivist, these words can by any possibility mean.

'_The rank and steaming valleys of sense_'! Why are they rank and steaming?
Or, if they are, why is that any condemnation of them?
Or, if we do condemn them, what else are we to praise?
The entire raw material, not of our pleasures only, but of our knowledge also, is given us, say the positive school, by the senses.

Surely then to condemn the senses must be to condemn life.

Let us imagine Professor Huxley talking in this way to Theophile Gautier.

Let us imagine him frowning grimly at the licentious Frenchman, and urging him with all vehemence to turn to the _highest good_.