Man without a Message

The obituary of Aldous Huxley’s wife, Laura, was in The Times on Monday, 17 December 2007. It ended with that quotation which Dr. Lloyd-Jones used to such effect showing that man’s abandonment of God inevitably results in losing the meaning of life.

Laura had been interviewed by a journalist in 1992 and asked what she had learned from being with Aldous. She replied by repeating what he had once said when addressing a conference hall of scientists. They had gathered to hear the author of Brave New World and were hoping to gain new insights from his drug taking and investigations into the nature of man during the latter half of his life. Huxley told them,

I’m very embarrassed because I’ve worked for 40 years, I studied everything around, I did experiments, went to several countries, but all I can tell you is to be just a little kinder to each other.