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Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English
biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize in ...
and
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...
specialising in
comparative anatomy Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in ...
. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
's theory of evolution. The stories regarding Huxley's famous
1860 Oxford evolution debate The 1860 Oxford evolution debate took place at the Oxford University Museum in Oxford, England, on 30 June 1860, seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species''. Several prominent British scientists and philo ...
with Samuel Wilberforce were a key moment in the wider acceptance of evolution and in his own career, although some historians think that the surviving story of the debate is a later fabrication. Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the previous day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers, the author of '' Vestiges'', he changed his mind and decided to join the debate. Wilberforce was coached by
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
, against whom Huxley also debated about whether humans were closely related to apes. Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwin's ideas, such as
gradualism Gradualism, from the Latin ''gradus'' ("step"), is a hypothesis, a theory or a tenet assuming that change comes about gradually or that variation is gradual in nature and happens over time as opposed to in large steps. Uniformitarianism, incrementa ...
, and was undecided about natural selection, but despite this he was wholehearted in his public support of Darwin. Instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, he fought against the more extreme versions of religious tradition. Huxley coined the term "
agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
" in 1869 and elaborated on it in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley had little formal schooling and was virtually self-taught. He became perhaps the finest
comparative anatomist Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...
of the later 19th century. He worked on
invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
, clarifying relationships between groups previously little understood. Later, he worked on
vertebrates Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...
, especially on the relationship between apes and humans. After comparing ''
Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather ...
'' with ''
Compsognathus ''Compsognathus'' (; Greek ''kompsos''/κομψός; "elegant", "refined" or "dainty", and ''gnathos''/γνάθος; "jaw") is a genus of small, bipedal, carnivorous theropod dinosaur. Members of its single species ''Compsognathus longipes'' c ...
'', he concluded that
birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight ...
evolved from small carnivorous
dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the ...
, a belief still widely held today. The tendency has been for this fine anatomical work to be overshadowed by his energetic and controversial activity in favour of evolution, and by his extensive public work on scientific education, both of which had significant effects on society in Britain and elsewhere. Huxley's 1893 Romanes Lecture, "Evolution and Ethics", is exceedingly influential in China; the Chinese translation of Huxley's lecture even transformed the Chinese translation of Darwin's ''Origin of Species''.


Early life

Thomas Henry Huxley was born in
Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was hist ...
, then a village in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbouri ...
. He was the second youngest of eight children of George Huxley and Rachel Withers. His parents were members of the Church of England but he sympathized with nonconformists. Like some other British scientists of the nineteenth century such as
Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural sele ...
, Huxley was brought up in a literate middle-class family which had fallen on hard times. His father was a mathematics teacher at
Great Ealing School Great Ealing School was situated on St Mary's Road, Ealing W5 London and was founded in 1698. In its heyday of the 19th century, it was as famous as Eton or Harrow, being considered ''"the best private school in England"''. History The schoo ...
until it closed, putting the family into financial difficulties. As a result, Thomas left school at the age of 10, after only two years of formal schooling. Despite this unenviable start, Huxley was determined to educate himself. He became one of the great
autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individua ...
s of the nineteenth century. At first he read
Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
,
James Hutton James Hutton (; 3 June O.S.172614 June 1726 New Style. – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the father of modern geology, he played a key role ...
's ''Geology'', and Hamilton's ''Logic''. In his teens he taught himself
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
, eventually becoming fluent and used by
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
as a translator of scientific material in German. He learned Latin, and enough Greek to read Aristotle in the original. Later on, as a young adult, he made himself an expert, first teaching himself about
invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
, and later on
vertebrates Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...
. He did many of the illustrations for his publications on marine invertebrates. In his later debates and writing on science and religion, his grasp of theology was better than many of his clerical opponents. He was apprenticed for short periods to several medical practitioners: at 13 to his brother-in-law John Cooke in Coventry, who passed him on to Thomas Chandler, notable for his experiments using
mesmerism Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...
for medical purposes. Chandler's practice was in London's Rotherhithe amidst the squalor endured by the
Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
ian poor. After, another brother-in-law took him on: John Salt, his eldest sister's husband. Now 16, Huxley entered Sydenham College (behind
University College Hospital University College Hospital (UCH) is a teaching hospital in the Fitzrovia area of the London Borough of Camden, England. The hospital, which was founded as the North London Hospital in 1834, is closely associated with University College Lon ...
), a cut-price anatomy school. All this time Huxley continued his programme of reading, which more than made up for his lack of formal schooling. A year later, buoyed by excellent results and a silver medal prize in the Apothecaries' yearly competition, Huxley was admitted to study at
Charing Cross Hospital Charing Cross Hospital is an acute general teaching hospital located in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom. The present hospital was opened in 1973, although it was originally established in 1818, approximately five miles east, in central Lon ...
, where he obtained a small scholarship. At Charing Cross, he was taught by Thomas Wharton Jones, Professor of Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...
. Jones had been
Robert Knox Robert Knox (4 September 1791 – 20 December 1862) was a Scottish anatomist and ethnologist best known for his involvement in the Burke and Hare murders. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Knox eventually partnered with anatomist and former teach ...
's assistant when Knox bought cadavers from
Burke and Hare The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissectio ...
. The young Wharton Jones, who acted as go-between, was exonerated of crime, but thought it best to leave Scotland. In 1845, under Wharton Jones' guidance, Huxley published his first scientific paper demonstrating the existence of a hitherto unrecognised layer in the inner sheath of hairs, a layer that has been known since as
Huxley's layer Huxley's layer is the second layer of the inner root sheath of the hair and consists of one or two layers of horny, flattened, nucleated cells. It lies between Henle's layer and the cuticle. The layer is named after English biologist Thomas Henry ...
. No doubt remembering this, later in life Huxley organised a pension for his old tutor. At twenty he passed his First M.B. examination at the University of London, winning the gold medal for
anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
and physiology. However, he did not present himself for the final (Second M.B.) exams and consequently did not qualify with a university degree. His apprenticeships and exam results formed a sufficient basis for his application to the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
.


Voyage of the ''Rattlesnake''

Aged 20, Huxley was too young to apply to the
Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...
for a licence to practise, yet he was 'deep in debt'. So, at a friend's suggestion, he applied for an appointment in the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
. He had references on character and certificates showing the time spent on his apprenticeship and on requirements such as dissection and pharmacy.
William Burnett Sir William Burnett, KCB, FRS (16 January 1779 – 16 February 1861) was a British physician who served as Physician-General of the Royal Navy. Early life Burnett was born in Montrose, Scotland on 16 January 1779 and attended Montrose Gramm ...
, the Physician General of the Navy, interviewed him and arranged for the College of Surgeons to test his competence (by means of a ''
viva voce ''Viva voce'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "with living voice" but most often translated as "by word of mouth." It may refer to: *Word of mouth *A voice vote in a deliberative assembly *An oral exam **Thesis defence, in academia *Spoken evi ...
''). Finally Huxley was made Assistant Surgeon ('surgeon's mate', but in practice marine naturalist) to HMS ''Rattlesnake'', about to set sail on a voyage of discovery and surveying to New Guinea and Australia. The ''Rattlesnake'' left England on 3 December 1846 and, once it arrived in the southern hemisphere, Huxley devoted his time to the study of marine invertebrates. He began to send details of his discoveries back to England, where publication was arranged by Edward Forbes FRS (who had also been a pupil of Knox). Both before and after the voyage Forbes was something of a mentor to Huxley. Huxley's paper "On the anatomy and the affinities of the family of Medusae" was published in 1849 by the Royal Society in its ''Philosophical Transactions''. Huxley united the Hydroid and Sertularian polyps with the Medusae to form a class to which he subsequently gave the name of '' Hydrozoa''. The connection he made was that all the members of the class consisted of two cell layers, enclosing a central cavity or stomach. This is characteristic of the phylum now called the ''
Cnidaria Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that th ...
''. He compared this feature to the serous and mucous structures of embryos of higher animals. When at last he got a grant from the Royal Society for the printing of plates, Huxley was able to summarise this work in ''The Oceanic Hydrozoa'', published by the
Ray Society The Ray Society is a scientific text publication society that publishes works devoted principally to British flora and fauna. As of 2019, it had published 181 volumes. Its publications are predominantly academic works of interest to naturalists, zo ...
in 1859. The value of Huxley's work was recognised and, on returning to England in 1850, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In the following year, at the age of twenty-six, he not only received the Royal Society Medal but was also elected to the Council. He met
Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...
and John Tyndall, who remained his lifelong friends. The Admiralty retained him as a nominal assistant-surgeon, so he might work on the specimens he collected and the observations he made during the voyage of the ''Rattlesnake''. He solved the problem of '' Appendicularia'', whose place in the animal kingdom Johannes Peter Müller had found himself wholly unable to assign. It and the
Ascidians Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians, tunicates (in part), and sea squirts (in part), is a polyphyletic class in the subphylum Tunicata of sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. Ascidians are characterized by a tough outer "tunic ...
are both, as Huxley showed,
tunicates A tunicate is a marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata (). It is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time cal ...
, today regarded as a sister group to the vertebrates in the phylum ''
Chordata A chordate () is an animal of the phylum Chordata (). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five synapomorphies, or primary physical characteristics, that distinguish them from all the other taxa. These five ...
''. Other papers on the
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
of the
cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, a ...
s and on
brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of trochozoan animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, wh ...
s and
rotifer The rotifers (, from the Latin , "wheel", and , "bearing"), commonly called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera ) of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals. They were first described by Rev. John Ha ...
s are also noteworthy.


Later life

Huxley effectively resigned from the navy by refusing to return to active service, and in July 1854 he became professor of natural history at the
Royal School of Mines The Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London. The Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and parts of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Bi ...
and naturalist to the
British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS he ...
in the following year. In addition, he was Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution 1855–58 and 1865–67; Hunterian Professor at the
Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...
1863–69; president of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
1869–1870; president of the Quekett Microscopical Club 1878; president of the Royal Society 1883–85; Inspector of Fisheries 1881–85; and president of the
Marine Biological Association The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel Hil ...
1884–1890. He was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1869. The thirty-one years during which Huxley occupied the chair of natural history at the Royal School of Mines included work on vertebrate palaeontology and on many projects to advance the place of science in British life. Huxley retired in 1885, after a bout of depressive illness which started in 1884. He resigned the presidency of the Royal Society in mid-term, the Inspectorship of Fisheries, and his chair (as soon as he decently could) and took six months' leave. His pension was £1200 a year. Huxley's London home, in which he wrote many of his works, was at 4 Marlborough Place, St John's Wood. The house was extended in the early 1870s to include a large drawing and dining room at which he held informal Sunday gatherings. In 1890, he moved from London to Eastbourne, where he had purchased land in the Staveley Road upon which a house was built, 'Hodeslea', under the supervision of his son-in-law F. Waller. Here Huxley edited the nine volumes of his ''Collected Essays''. In 1894 he heard of Eugene Dubois' discovery in Java of the remains of ''Pithecanthropus erectus'' (now known as '' Homo erectus''). He died of a heart attack (after contracting influenza and pneumonia) in 1895 in Eastbourne, and was buried in London at
East Finchley Cemetery East Finchley Cemetery is a cemetery and crematorium in East End Road, East Finchley. Although it is in the London Borough of Barnet, it is owned and managed by the City of Westminster.Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...
, William Henry Flower, Mulford B. Foster,
Edwin Lankester Edwin Lankester FRS, FRMS, MRCS (23 April 1814 – 30 October 1874) was an English surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera in London: he was the first public analyst in England. Life Edwin Lankester ...
, Joseph Lister and, apparently,
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
. The family plot had been purchased upon the death of his eldest son Noel, who died of
scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...
in 1860; Huxley's wife Henrietta Anne and son Noel are also buried there.


Family

Huxley and his wife had five daughters and three sons:


Public duties and awards

From 1870 onwards, Huxley was to some extent drawn away from scientific research by the claims of public duty. He served on eight Royal Commissions, from 1862 to 1884. From 1871 to 1880 he was a Secretary of the Royal Society and from 1883 to 1885 he was president. He was president of the Geological Society from 1868 to 1870. In 1870, he was president of the
British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
at Liverpool and, in the same year was elected a member of the newly constituted London School Board. He was president of the Quekett Microscopical Club from 1877 to 1879. He was the leading person amongst those who reformed the Royal Society, persuaded government about science, and established scientific education in British schools and universities. He was awarded the highest honours then open to British men of science. The Royal Society, who had elected him as Fellow when he was 25 (1851), awarded him the Royal Medal the next year (1852), a year before Charles Darwin got the same award. He was the youngest biologist to receive such recognition. Then later in life he received the
Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...
in 1888 and the Darwin Medal in 1894; the Geological Society awarded him the
Wollaston Medal The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London. The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831. It was originally made of gold (1831–1845), t ...
in 1876; the Linnean Society awarded him the Linnean Medal in 1890. There were many other elections and appointments to eminent scientific bodies; these and his many academic awards are listed in the ''Life and Letters''. He turned down many other appointments, notably the Linacre chair in zoology at Oxford and the Mastership of
University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...
. In 1873 the King of Sweden made Huxley, Hooker and Tyndall Knights of the Order of the Polar Star: they could wear the insignia but not use the title in Britain. Huxley collected many honorary memberships of foreign societies, academic awards and honorary doctorates from Britain and Germany. He also became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892. As recognition of his many public services he was appointed Privy Councillor in 1892. Despite his many achievements he was given no award by the British state until late in life. In this he did better than Darwin, who got no award of any kind from the state. (Darwin's proposed knighthood was vetoed by ecclesiastical advisers, including Wilberforce) Perhaps Huxley had commented too often on his dislike of honours, or perhaps his many assaults on the traditional beliefs of organised religion made enemies in the establishment—he had vigorous debates in print with
Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
,
William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
and
Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the L ...
, and his relationship with Lord Salisbury was less than tranquil. Huxley was for about thirty years evolution's most effective advocate, and for some Huxley was "''the'' premier advocate of science in the nineteenth century orthe whole English-speaking world". Though he had many admirers and disciples, his retirement and later death left British zoology somewhat bereft of leadership. He had, directly or indirectly, guided the careers and appointments of the next generation. Huxley thought he was "the only man who can carry out my work": the deaths of Balfour and
W. K. Clifford William Kingdon Clifford (4 May 18453 March 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his ...
were "the greatest losses to science in our time".


Vertebrate palaeontology

The first half of Huxley's career as a palaeontologist is marked by a rather strange predilection for 'persistent types', in which he seemed to argue that evolutionary advancement (in the sense of major new groups of animals and plants) was rare or absent in the Phanerozoic. In the same vein, he tended to push the origin of major groups such as birds and mammals back into the
Palaeozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ''z ...
era, and to claim that no order of plants had ever gone extinct. Much paper has been consumed by historians of science ruminating on this strange and somewhat unclear idea. Huxley was wrong to pitch the loss of
orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...
in the Phanerozoic as low as 7%, and he did not estimate the number of new orders which evolved. Persistent types sat rather uncomfortably next to Darwin's more fluid ideas; despite his intelligence, it took Huxley a surprisingly long time to appreciate some of the implications of evolution. However, gradually Huxley moved away from this conservative style of thinking as his understanding of palaeontology, and the discipline itself, developed. Huxley's detailed anatomical work was, as always, first-rate and productive. His work on
fossil fish The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early chordates developed the skull and the vertebral column, leading to the first craniates and vertebrates. The first fis ...
shows his distinctive approach: whereas pre-Darwinian naturalists collected, identified and classified, Huxley worked mainly to reveal the evolutionary relationships between groups. The lobed-finned fish (such as
coelacanths The coelacanths ( ) are fish belonging to the order Actinistia that includes two extant species in the genus ''Latimeria'': the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (''Latimeria chalumnae''), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast ...
and lung fish) have paired appendages whose internal skeleton is attached to the shoulder or pelvis by a single bone, the humerus or femur. His interest in these fish brought him close to the origin of tetrapods, one of the most important areas of vertebrate palaeontology. The study of fossil reptiles led to his demonstrating the fundamental affinity of birds and reptiles, which he united under the title of ''
Sauropsida Sauropsida ("lizard faces") is a clade of Amniote, amniotes, broadly equivalent to the Class (biology), class Reptile, Reptilia. Sauropsida is the Sister group, sister taxon to Synapsid, Synapsida, the other clade of amniotes which includes Mammal ...
''. His papers on ''
Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather ...
'' and the
origin of birds The scientific question of within which larger group of animals birds evolved has traditionally been called the "origin of birds". The present scientific consensus is that birds are a group of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs that originated du ...
were of great interest then and still are. Apart from his interest in persuading the world that man was a primate, and had descended from the same stock as the apes, Huxley did little work on mammals, with one exception. On his tour of America Huxley was shown the remarkable series of fossil horses, discovered by O. C. Marsh, in
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...
's Peabody Museum. An Easterner, Marsh was America's first professor of palaeontology, but also one who had come west into hostile Indian territory in search of fossils, hunted buffalo, and met Red Cloud (in 1874). Funded by his uncle
George Peabody George Peabody ( ; February 18, 1795 – November 4, 1869) was an American financier and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as the father of modern philanthropy. Born into a poor family in Massachusetts, Peabody went into business in dry g ...
, Marsh had made some remarkable discoveries: the huge Cretaceous aquatic bird ''
Hesperornis ''Hesperornis'' (meaning "western bird") is a genus of cormorant-like bird that spanned the first half of the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period (83.5–78 mya). One of the lesser-known discoveries of the paleontologist O. C. Marsh i ...
'', and the dinosaur footprints along the Connecticut River were worth the trip by themselves, but the horse fossils were really special. After a week with Marsh and his fossils, Huxley wrote excitedly, "The collection of fossils is the most wonderful thing I ever saw." The collection at that time went from the small four-toed forest-dwelling '' Orohippus'' from the Eocene through three-toed species such as ''
Miohippus ''Miohippus'' (meaning "small horse") was a genus of prehistoric horse existing longer than most Equidae. ''Miohippus'' lived in what is now North America from 32 to 25 million years ago, during the late Eocene to late Oligocene. ''Miohippus'' w ...
'' to species more like the modern horse. By looking at their teeth he could see that, as the size grew larger and the toes reduced, the teeth changed from those of a browser to those of a grazer. All such changes could be explained by a general alteration in habitat from forest to grassland. And, it is now known, that is what did happen over large areas of North America from the Eocene to the Pleistocene: the ultimate causative agent was global temperature reduction (see Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum). The modern account of the
evolution of the horse The evolution of the horse, a mammal of the family Equidae, occurred over a geologic time scale of 50 million years, transforming the small, dog-sized, forest-dwelling '' Eohippus'' into the modern horse. Paleozoologists have been able to piece ...
has many other members, and the overall appearance of the tree of descent is more like a bush than a straight line. The horse series also strongly suggested that the process was gradual, and that the origin of the modern horse lay in North America, not in Eurasia. If so, then something must have happened to horses in North America, since none were there when Europeans arrived. The experience with Marsh was enough for Huxley to give credence to Darwin's gradualism, and to introduce the story of the horse into his lecture series.Plate, Robert. ''The Dinosaur Hunters: Othniel C. Marsh and Edward D. Cope,'' p. 204, David McKay Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1964. Marsh's and Huxley's conclusions were initially quite different. However, Marsh carefully showed Huxley his complete sequence of fossils. As Marsh put it, Huxley "then informed me that all this was new to him and that my facts demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and for the first time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing animal. With the generosity of true greatness, he gave up his own opinions in the face of new truth, and took my conclusions as the basis of his famous New York lecture on the horse."


Support of Darwin

Huxley was originally not persuaded of "development theory", as evolution was once called. This can be seen in his savage review of Robert Chambers' '' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'', a book which contained some quite pertinent arguments in favour of evolution. Huxley had also rejected Lamarck's theory of transmutation, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to support it. All this scepticism was brought together in a lecture to the Royal Institution, which made Darwin anxious enough to set about an effort to change young Huxley's mind. It was the kind of thing Darwin did with his closest scientific friends, but he must have had some particular intuition about Huxley, who was from all accounts a most impressive person even as a young man. Huxley was therefore one of the small group who knew about Darwin's ideas before they were published (the group included
Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...
and
Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known as the author of ''Principles of Geolo ...
). The first publication by Darwin of his ideas came when Wallace sent Darwin his famous paper on natural selection, which was presented by Lyell and Hooker to the Linnean Society in 1858 alongside excerpts from Darwin's notebook and a Darwin letter to
Asa Gray Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His ''Darwiniana'' was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually excl ...
. Huxley's famous response to the idea of natural selection was "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!" However, he never conclusively made up his mind about whether natural selection was the main method for evolution, though he did admit it was a hypothesis which was a good working basis. Logically speaking, the prior question was whether evolution had taken place at all. It is to this question that much of Darwin's ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' was devoted. Its publication in 1859 completely convinced Huxley of evolution and it was this and no doubt his admiration of Darwin's way of amassing and using evidence that formed the basis of his support for Darwin in the debates that followed the book's publication. Huxley's support started with his anonymous favourable review of the ''Origin'' in the ''Times'' for 26 December 1859, and continued with articles in several periodicals, and in a lecture at the Royal Institution in February 1860. At the same time,
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
, whilst writing an extremely hostile anonymous review of the ''Origin'' in the '' Edinburgh Review'', also primed Samuel Wilberforce who wrote one in the '' Quarterly Review'', running to 17,000 words. The authorship of this latter review was not known for sure until Wilberforce's son wrote his biography. So it can be said that, just as Darwin groomed Huxley, so Owen groomed Wilberforce; and both the proxies fought public battles on behalf of their principals as much as themselves. Though we do not know the exact words of the Oxford debate, we do know what Huxley thought of the review in the ''Quarterly'':
Since Lord Brougham assailed Dr Young, the world has seen no such specimen of the insolence of a shallow pretender to a Master in Science as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors, of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a "flighty" person, who endeavours "to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of guess and speculation," and whose "mode of dealing with nature" is reprobated as "utterly dishonourable to Natural Science."
If I confine my retrospect of the reception of the ''Origin of Species'' to a twelvemonth, or thereabouts, from the time of its publication, I do not recollect anything quite so foolish and unmannerly as the ''Quarterly Review'' article...
Since his death, Huxley has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog", taken to refer to his pluck and courage in debate, and to his perceived role in protecting the older man. The sobriquet appears to be Huxley's own invention, although of unknown date, and it was not current in his lifetime. While the second half of Darwin's life was lived mainly within his family, the younger and combative Huxley operated mainly out in the world at large. A letter from Huxley to Ernst Haeckel (2 November 1871) states: "The dogs have been snapping at arwin'sheels too much of late."


Debate with Wilberforce

Famously, Huxley responded to Wilberforce in the debate at the
British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
meeting, on Saturday 30 June 1860 at the Oxford University Museum. Huxley's presence there had been encouraged on the previous evening when he met Robert Chambers, the Scottish publisher and author of ''Vestiges'', who was walking the streets of Oxford in a dispirited state, and begged for assistance. The debate followed the presentation of a paper by John William Draper, and was chaired by Darwin's former botany tutor
John Stevens Henslow John Stevens Henslow (6 February 1796 – 16 May 1861) was a British priest, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin. Early life Henslow was born at Rochester, Kent, the son of a solicit ...
. Darwin's theory was opposed by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and those supporting Darwin included Huxley and their mutual friends Hooker and
Lubbock Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the north ...
. The platform featured Brodie and Professor Beale, and Robert FitzRoy, who had been captain of HMS ''Beagle'' during Darwin's voyage, spoke against Darwin. Wilberforce had a track record against evolution as far back as the previous Oxford B.A. meeting in 1847 when he attacked Chambers' ''Vestiges''. For the more challenging task of opposing the ''Origin'', and the implication that man descended from apes, he had been assiduously coached by
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
Owen stayed with him the night before the debate. On the day, Wilberforce repeated some of the arguments from his ''Quarterly Review'' article (written but not yet published), then ventured onto slippery ground. His famous jibe at Huxley (as to whether Huxley was descended from an ape on his mother's side or his father's side) was probably unplanned, and certainly unwise. Huxley's reply to the effect that he would rather be descended from an ape than a man who misused his great talents to suppress debatethe exact wording is not certainwas widely recounted in pamphlets and a spoof play. The letters of
Alfred Newton Alfred Newton FRS HFRSE (11 June 18297 June 1907) was an English zoologist and ornithologist. Newton was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University from 1866 to 1907. Among his numerous publications were a four-volume ''Dictionar ...
include one to his brother giving an eyewitness account of the debate, and written less than a month afterwards. Other eyewitnesses, with one or two exceptions (Hooker especially thought ''he'' had made the best points), give similar accounts, at varying dates after the event. The general view was and still is that Huxley got much the better of the exchange, though Wilberforce himself thought he had done quite well. In the absence of a verbatim report, differing perceptions are difficult to judge fairly; Huxley wrote a detailed account for Darwin, a letter which does not survive; however, a letter to his friend Frederick Daniel Dyster does survive with an account just three months after the event. p. 313–330. A pro-Wilberforce account; lists many sources, but ''not'' Alfred Newton's letter to his brother. Many of Lucas's points are treated adversely in Jensen 1991, for example, note 77, p. 209. One effect of the debate was to hugely increase Huxley's visibility amongst educated people, through the accounts in newspapers and periodicals. Another consequence was to alert him to the importance of public debate: a lesson he never forgot. A third effect was to serve notice that Darwinian ideas could not be easily dismissed: on the contrary, they would be vigorously defended against orthodox authority. A fourth effect was to promote professionalism in science, with its implied need for scientific education. A fifth consequence was indirect: as Wilberforce had feared, a defence of evolution did undermine literal belief in the Old Testament, especially the
Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning"). ...
. Many of the liberal clergy at the meeting were quite pleased with the outcome of the debate; they were supporters, perhaps, of the controversial ''
Essays and Reviews ''Essays and Reviews'', edited by John William Parker, published in March 1860, is a broad-church volume of seven essays on Christianity. The topics covered the biblical research of the German critics, the evidence for Christianity, religious th ...
''. Thus, both on the side of science and on that of religion, the debate was important and its outcome significant. (see also
below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname *Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general *Fred Below ...
) That Huxley and Wilberforce remained on courteous terms after the debate (and able to work together on projects such as the Metropolitan Board of Education) says something about both men, whereas Huxley and Owen were never reconciled.


Man's place in nature

For nearly a decade his work was directed mainly to the relationship of man to the apes. This led him directly into a clash with
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
, a man widely disliked for his behaviour whilst also being admired for his capability. The struggle was to culminate in some severe defeats for Owen. Huxley's
Croonian Lecture The Croonian Medal and Lecture is a prestigious award, a medal, and lecture given at the invitation of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians. Among the papers of William Croone at his death in 1684, was a plan to endow a single ...
, delivered before the Royal Society in 1858 on ''The Theory of the Vertebrate Skull'' was the start. In this, he rejected Owen's theory that the bones of the skull and the spine were homologous, an opinion previously held by
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tre ...
and
Lorenz Oken Lorenz Oken (1 August 1779 – 11 August 1851) was a German naturalist, botanist, biologist, and ornithologist. Oken was born Lorenz Okenfuss (german: Okenfuß) in Bohlsbach (now part of Offenburg), Ortenau, Baden, and studied natural history and ...
. From 1860–63 Huxley developed his ideas, presenting them in lectures to working men, students and the general public, followed by publication. Also in 1862 a series of talks to working men was printed lecture by lecture as pamphlets, later bound up as a little green book; the first copies went on sale in December. Other lectures grew into Huxley's most famous work ''Evidence as to Man's place in Nature'' (1863) where he addressed the key issues long before
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
published his ''
Descent of Man ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biolo ...
'' in 1871. Although Darwin did not publish his ''Descent of Man'' until 1871, the general debate on this topic had started years before (there was even a precursor debate in the 18th century between
Monboddo James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (baptised 25 October 1714; died 26 May 1799) was a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics. In 176 ...
and Buffon). Darwin had dropped a hint when, in the conclusion to the ''Origin'', he wrote: "In the distant future... light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history". Not so distant, as it turned out. A key event had already occurred in 1857 when
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
presented (to the Linnean Society) his theory that man was marked off from all other mammals by possessing features of the brain peculiar to the genus ''Homo''. Having reached this opinion, Owen separated man from all other mammals in a subclass of its own. No other biologist held such an extreme view. Darwin reacted "Man...as distinct from a chimpanzee san ape from a platypus... I cannot swallow that!" Neither could Huxley, who was able to demonstrate that Owen's idea was completely wrong. The subject was raised at the 1860 BA Oxford meeting, when Huxley flatly contradicted Owen, and promised a later demonstration of the facts. In fact, a number of demonstrations were held in London and the provinces. In 1862 at the Cambridge meeting of the B.A. Huxley's friend William Flower gave a public dissection to show that the same structures (the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle and hippocampus minor) were indeed present in apes. The debate was widely publicised, and parodied as the ''
Great Hippocampus Question The Great Hippocampus Question was a 19th-century scientific controversy about the anatomy of ape and human uniqueness. The dispute between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen became central to the scientific debate on human evolution that follow ...
''. It was seen as one of Owen's greatest blunders, revealing Huxley as not only dangerous in debate, but also a better anatomist. Owen conceded that there was something that could be called a hippocampus minor in the apes, but stated that it was much less developed and that such a presence did not detract from the overall distinction of simple brain size. Huxley's ideas on this topic were summed up in January 1861 in the first issue (new series) of his own journal, the ''Natural History Review'': "the most violent scientific paper he had ever composed". This paper was reprinted in 1863 as chapter 2 of ''
Man's Place in Nature ''Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature'' is an 1863 book by Thomas Henry Huxley, in which he gives evidence for the evolution of humans and apes from a common ancestor. It was the first book devoted to the topic of human evolution, and discussed ...
'', with an addendum giving his account of the Owen/Huxley controversy about the ape brain. In his ''Collected Essays'' this addendum was removed. The extended argument on the ape brain, partly in debate and partly in print, backed by dissections and demonstrations, was a landmark in Huxley's career. It was highly important in asserting his dominance of comparative anatomy, and in the long run more influential in establishing evolution amongst biologists than was the debate with Wilberforce. It also marked the start of Owen's decline in the esteem of his fellow biologists. The following was written by Huxley to
Rolleston Rolleston may refer to: Places * Rolleston, Queensland, Australia * Rolleston, Leicestershire, England * Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, England ** Rolleston railway station * Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire, England ** Rolleston Hall * Rollesto ...
before the BA meeting in 1861: :"My dear Rolleston... The obstinate reiteration of erroneous assertions can only be nullified by as persistent an appeal to facts; and I greatly regret that my engagements do not permit me to be present at the British Association in order to assist personally at what, I believe, will be ''the seventh public demonstration during the past twelve months'' of the untruth of the three assertions, that the posterior lobe of the cerebrum, the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor, are peculiar to man and do not exist in the apes. I shall be obliged if you will read this letter to the Section" Yours faithfully, Thos. H. Huxley. During those years there was also work on human fossil anatomy and anthropology. In 1862 he examined the Neanderthal skull-cap, which had been discovered in 1857. It was the first pre-''sapiens'' discovery of a fossil man, and it was immediately clear to him that the brain case was surprisingly large. Huxley also started to dabble in
physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
, and classified the human races into nine categories, along with placing them under four general categorisations as Australoid, Negroid, Xanthochroic and Mongoloid. Such classifications depended mainly on physical appearance and certain anatomical characteristics.


Natural selection

Huxley was certainly not slavish in his dealings with Darwin. As shown in every biography, they had quite different and rather complementary characters. Important also, Darwin was a field naturalist, but Huxley was an anatomist, so there was a difference in their experience of nature. Lastly, Darwin's views on science were different from Huxley's views. For Darwin, natural selection was the best way to explain evolution because it explained a huge range of natural history facts and observations: it solved problems. Huxley, on the other hand, was an empiricist who trusted what he could see, and some things are not easily seen. With this in mind, one can appreciate the debate between them, Darwin writing his letters, Huxley never going quite so far as to say he thought Darwin was right. Huxley's reservations on natural selection were of the type "until selection and breeding can be seen to give rise to varieties which are infertile with each other, natural selection cannot be proved". Huxley's position on selection was agnostic; yet he gave no credence to any other theory. Despite this concern about evidence, Huxley saw that if evolution came about through variation, reproduction and selection then other things would also be subject to the same pressures. This included ideas because they are invented, imitated and selected by humans: ‘The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.’ This is the same idea as meme theory put forward by Richard Dawkins in 1976. Darwin's part in the discussion came mostly in letters, as was his wont, along the lines: "The empirical evidence you call for is both impossible in practical terms, and in any event unnecessary. It's the same as asking to see every step in the transformation (or the splitting) of one species into another. My way so many issues are clarified and problems solved; no other theory does nearly so well". Huxley's reservation, as Helena Cronin has so aptly remarked, was contagious: "it spread itself for years among all kinds of doubters of Darwinism". One reason for this doubt was that comparative anatomy could address the question of descent, ''but not the question of mechanism''.


Pallbearer

Huxley was a pallbearer at the funeral of
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
on 26 April 1882.


The X Club

In November 1864, Huxley succeeded in launching a dining club, the
X Club The X Club was a dining club of nine men who supported the theories of natural selection and academic liberalism in late 19th-century England. Thomas Henry Huxley was the initiator; he called the first meeting for 3 November 1864. The club met ...
, composed of like-minded people working to advance the cause of science; not surprisingly, the club consisted of most of his closest friends. There were nine members, who decided at their first meeting that there should be no more. The members were: Huxley, John Tyndall, J. D. Hooker, John Lubbock (banker, biologist and neighbour of Darwin), Herbert Spencer (social philosopher and sub-editor of the Economist), William Spottiswoode ( mathematician and the Queen's Printer),
Thomas Hirst Thomas Henry Hirst (21 May 1865 – 3 April 1927) was an English first-class cricketer, who played against Somerset for Yorkshire County Cricket Club, in a drawn match at The Circle, Kingston upon Hull, in 1899. Hirst was born in Lockwood ...
(Professor of Physics at University College London), Edward Frankland (the new Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution) and
George Busk George Busk FRS FRAI (12 August 1807 – 10 August 1886) was a British naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist. Early life, family and education Busk was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of the merchant Robert Busk and his ...
, zoologist and palaeontologist (formerly surgeon for HMS ''Dreadnought''). All except Spencer were
Fellows of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...
. Tyndall was a particularly close friend; for many years they met regularly and discussed issues of the day. On more than one occasion Huxley joined Tyndall in the latter's trips into the Alps and helped with his investigations in glaciology. There were also some quite significant X-Club satellites such as William Flower and
George Rolleston George Rolleston MA MD FRCP FRS (30 July 1829 – 16 June 1881) was an English physician and zoologist. He was the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1860 until ...
, (Huxley protegés), and liberal clergyman Arthur Stanley, the Dean of Westminster. Guests such as
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
and
Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...
were entertained from time to time. They would dine early on first Thursdays at a hotel, planning what to do; high on the agenda was to change the way the Royal Society Council did business. It was no coincidence that the Council met later that same evening. First item for the Xs was to get the
Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...
for Darwin, which they managed after quite a struggle. The next step was to acquire a journal to spread their ideas. This was the weekly ''
Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...
'', which they bought, revamped and redirected. Huxley had already become part-owner of the ''
Natural History Review ''The Natural History Review'' was a short-lived, quarterly journal devoted to natural history. It was published in Dublin and London between 1854 and 1865. The ''Natural History Review'' included the transactions of the Belfast Natural History ...
'' bolstered by the support of Lubbock, Rolleston, Busk and Carpenter (X-clubbers and satellites). The journal was switched to pro-Darwinian lines and relaunched in January 1861. After a stream of good articles the ''NHR'' failed after four years; but it had helped at a critical time for the establishment of evolution. The ''Reader'' also failed, despite its broader appeal which included art and literature as well as science. The periodical market was quite crowded at the time, but most probably the critical factor was Huxley's time; he was simply over-committed, and could not afford to hire full-time editors. This occurred often in his life: Huxley took on too many ventures, and was not so astute as Darwin at getting others to do work for him. However, the experience gained with the ''Reader'' was put to good use when the X Club put their weight behind the founding of ''
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
'' in 1869. This time no mistakes were made: above all there was a permanent editor (though not full-time),
Norman Lockyer Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (17 May 1836 – 16 August 1920) was an English scientist and astronomer. Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen, he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer also is remembered for being the ...
, who served until 1919, a year before his death. In 1925, to celebrate his centenary, ''Nature'' issued a supplement devoted to Huxley. The peak of the X Club's influence was from 1873 to 1885 as Hooker, Spottiswoode and Huxley were
Presidents of the Royal Society The president of the Royal Society (PRS) is the elected Head of the Royal Society of London who presides over meetings of the society's council. After informal meetings at Gresham College, the Royal Society was officially founded on 28 November ...
in succession. Spencer resigned in 1889 after a dispute with Huxley over state support for science. After 1892 it was just an excuse for the surviving members to meet. Hooker died in 1911, and Lubbock (now Lord Avebury) was the last surviving member. Huxley was also an active member of the
Metaphysical Society The Metaphysical Society was a famous British debating society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles, who acted as Secretary. Membership was by invitation only, and was exclusively male. Many of its members were prominent clergymen, philosophers, and ...
, which ran from 1869 to 1880. It was formed around a nucleus of clergy and expanded to include all kinds of opinions. Tyndall and Huxley later joined The Club (founded by Dr. Johnson) when they could be sure that Owen would not turn up.


Educational influence

When Huxley himself was young there were virtually no degrees in British universities in the biological sciences and few courses. Most biologists of his day either were self-taught or took medical degrees. When he retired there were established chairs in biological disciplines in most universities, and a broad consensus on the curricula to be followed. Huxley was the single most influential person in this transformation.


School of Mines and Zoology

In the early 1870s the Royal School of Mines moved to new quarters in South Kensington; ultimately it would become one of the constituent parts of Imperial College London. The move gave Huxley the chance to give more prominence to laboratory work in biology teaching, an idea suggested by practice in German universities. In the main, the method was based on the use of carefully chosen types, and depended on the dissection of anatomy, supplemented by microscopy, museum specimens and some elementary physiology at the hands of Foster. The typical day would start with Huxley lecturing at 9am, followed by a program of laboratory work supervised by his demonstrators. Huxley's demonstrators were picked men—all became leaders of biology in Britain in later life, spreading Huxley's ideas as well as their own. Michael Foster became Professor of Physiology at Cambridge; Ray Lankester became Jodrell Professor of Zoology at University College London (1875–91), Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford (1891–98) and Director of the Natural History Museum (1898–1907); S.H. Vines became Professor of Botany at Cambridge; W.T. Thiselton-Dyer became Hooker's successor at Kew (he was already Hooker's son-in-law!); T. Jeffery Parker became Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at
University College, Cardiff , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...
; and William Rutherford became the Professor of Physiology at Edinburgh. William Flower, Conservator to the Hunterian Museum, and THH's assistant in many dissections, became Sir William Flower, Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and, later, Director of the Natural History Museum. It's a remarkable list of disciples, especially when contrasted with Owen who, in a longer professional life than Huxley, left no disciples at all. "No one fact tells so strongly against Owen... as that he has never reared one pupil or follower". Huxley's courses for students were so much narrower than the man himself that many were bewildered by the contrast: "The teaching of zoology by use of selected animal types has come in for much criticism"; Looking back in 1914 to his time as a student, Sir
Arthur Shipley Sir Arthur Everett Shipley GBE FRS (10 March 1861 – 22 September 1927) was an English zoologist and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Biography Shipley was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey on 10 March 1861. He was brought up in ...
said "Darwin's later works all dealt with living organisms, yet our obsession was with the dead, with bodies preserved, and cut into the most refined slices". E.W MacBride said "Huxley... would persist in looking at animals as material structures and not as living, active beings; in a word... he was a necrologist. To put it simply, Huxley preferred to teach what he had actually seen with his own eyes. This largely morphological program of
comparative anatomy Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in ...
remained at the core of most biological education for a hundred years until the advent of cell and molecular biology and interest in evolutionary ecology forced a fundamental rethink. It is an interesting fact that the methods of the field naturalists who led the way in developing the theory of evolution ( Darwin, Wallace, Fritz Müller, Henry Bates) were scarcely represented at all in Huxley's program. Ecological investigation of life in its environment was virtually non-existent, and theory, evolutionary or otherwise, was at a discount. Michael Ruse finds no mention of evolution or Darwinism in any of the exams set by Huxley, and confirms the lecture content based on two complete sets of lecture notes. Since Darwin, Wallace and Bates did not hold teaching posts at any stage of their adult careers (and Műller never returned from Brazil) the imbalance in Huxley's program went uncorrected. It is surely strange that Huxley's courses did not contain an account of the evidence collected by those naturalists of life in the tropics; evidence which they had found so convincing, and which caused their views on evolution by natural selection to be so similar.
Adrian Desmond Adrian John Desmond (born 1947) is an English writer on the history of science and author of books about Charles Darwin. Life He studied physiology at London University and went on to study history of science and vertebrate palaeontology at Univ ...
suggests that " iologyhad to be simple, synthetic and assimilable ecauseit was to train teachers and had no other heuristic function". That must be part of the reason; indeed it does help to explain the stultifying nature of much school biology. But zoology as taught at all levels became far too much the product of one man. Huxley was comfortable with comparative anatomy, at which he was the greatest master of the day. He was not an all-round naturalist like Darwin, who had shown clearly enough how to weave together detailed factual information and subtle arguments across the vast web of life. Huxley chose, in his teaching (and to some extent in his research) to take a more straightforward course, concentrating on his personal strengths.


Schools and the Bible

Huxley was also a major influence in the direction taken by British schools: in November 1870, he was elected to the London School Board in its first elections. In primary schooling, he advocated a wide range of disciplines, similar to what is taught today: reading, writing, arithmetic, art, science, music, etc. In secondary education he recommended two years of basic liberal studies followed by two years of some upper-division work, focusing on a more specific area of study. A practical example of the latter is his famous 1868 lecture '' On a Piece of Chalk'' which was first published as an essay in '' Macmillan's Magazine'' in London later that year. The piece reconstructs the geological history of Britain from a simple piece of chalk and demonstrates science as "organized common sense". Huxley supported the reading of the Bible in schools. This may seem out of step with his agnostic convictions, but he believed that the Bible's significant moral teachings and superb use of language were relevant to English life. "I do not advocate burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches". However, what Huxley proposed was to create an ''edited version'' of the Bible, shorn of "shortcomings and errors... statements to which men of science absolutely and entirely demur... These tender children houldnot be taught that which you do not yourselves believe". The Board voted against his idea, but it also voted against the idea that public money should be used to support students attending church schools. Vigorous debate took place on such points, and the debates were minuted in detail. Huxley said "I will never be a party to enabling the State to sweep the children of this country into denominational schools". p. 155. The Act of Parliament which founded board schools permitted the reading of the Bible, but did not permit any denominational doctrine to be taught. It may be right to see Huxley's life and work as contributing to the secularisation of British society which gradually occurred over the following century. Ernst Mayr said "It can hardly be doubted that iologyhas helped to undermine traditional beliefs and value systems"—and Huxley more than anyone else was responsible for this trend in Britain. Some modern
Christian apologists Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
consider Huxley the father of
antitheism Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed. The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity. Etymology The ...
, though he himself maintained that he was an agnostic, not an atheist. He was, however, a lifelong and determined opponent of almost all organised religion throughout his life, especially the " Roman Church ... carefully calculated for the destruction of all that is highest in the moral nature, in the intellectual freedom, and in the political freedom of mankind". In the same line of thought, in an article in '' Popular Science'', Huxley used the expression "the so-called Christianity of Catholicism", explaining: "I say 'so-called' not by way of offence, but as a protest against the monstruous assumption that Catholic Christianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any trust-worthy record of the teaching of
Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
." Originally coining the term in 1869, Huxley elaborated on "
agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
" in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley states
Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle... the fundamental axiom of modern science... In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration... In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
Use of that term has continued to the present day (see
Thomas Henry Huxley and agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
). Much of Huxley's agnosticism is influenced by Kantian views on human perception and the ability to rely on rational evidence rather than belief systems. In 1893, during preparation for the second Romanes Lecture, Huxley expressed his disappointment at the shortcomings of 'liberal' theology, describing its doctrines as 'popular illusions', and the teachings they replaced 'faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth'. Vladimir Lenin remarked that for Huxley "agnosticism serves as a fig-leaf for materialism". (See also the Debate with Wilberforce above.)


Adult education

Huxley's interest in education went still further than school and university classrooms; he made a great effort to reach interested adults of all kinds: after all, he himself was largely self-educated. There were his lecture courses for working men, many of which were published afterwards, and there was the use he made of journalism, partly to earn money but mostly to reach out to the literate public. For most of his adult life he wrote for periodicals—the ''
Westminster Review The ''Westminster Review'' was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal unti ...
'', the ''Saturday Review'', the ''Reader'', the ''
Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed i ...
'', ''Macmillan's Magazine'', the ''Contemporary Review''. Germany was still ahead in formal science education, but interested people in Victorian Britain could use their initiative and find out what was going on by reading periodicals and using the lending libraries. In 1868 Huxley became Principal of the South London Working Men's College in
Blackfriars Road Blackfriars Road is a road in Southwark, SE1. It runs between St George's Circus at the southern end and Blackfriars Bridge over the River Thames at the northern end, leading to the City of London. Halfway up on the west side is Southwark Und ...
. The moving spirit was a portmanteau worker, Wm. Rossiter, who did most of the work; the funds were put up mainly by F.D. Maurice's
Christian Socialists Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe capi ...
. At sixpence for a course and a penny for a lecture by Huxley, this was some bargain; and so was the free library organised by the college, an idea which was widely copied. Huxley thought, and said, that the men who attended were as good as any country squire. The technique of printing his more popular lectures in periodicals which were sold to the general public was extremely effective. A good example was "The Physical Basis of Life", a lecture given in Edinburgh on 8 November 1868. Its theme—that vital action is nothing more than "the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays it"—shocked the audience, though that was nothing compared to the uproar when it was published in the '' Fortnightly Review'' for February 1869. John Morley, the editor, said "No article that had appeared in any periodical for a generation had caused such a sensation". The issue was reprinted seven times and protoplasm became a household word; '' Punch'' added 'Professor Protoplasm' to his other soubriquets. The topic had been stimulated by Huxley seeing the
cytoplasmic streaming Cytoplasmic streaming, also called protoplasmic streaming and cyclosis, is the flow of the cytoplasm inside the cell, driven by forces from the cytoskeleton. It is likely that its function is, at least in part, to speed up the transport of mo ...
in plant cells, which is indeed a sensational sight. For these audiences Huxley's claim that this activity should not be explained by words such as vitality, but by the working of its constituent chemicals, was surprising and shocking. Today we would perhaps emphasise the extraordinary structural arrangement of those chemicals as the key to understanding what cells do, but little of that was known in the nineteenth century. When the Archbishop of York thought this 'new philosophy' was based on
Auguste Comte Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of ...
's
positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...
, Huxley corrected him: "Comte's philosophy s justCatholicism minus Christianity" (Huxley 1893 vol 1 of Collected Essays ''Methods & Results'' 156). A later version was " ositivism issheer Popery with M. Comte in the chair of St Peter, and with the names of the saints changed". (lecture o
''The scientific aspects of positivism''
Huxley 1870 ''Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews'' p. 149). Huxley's dismissal of positivism damaged it so severely that Comte's ideas withered in Britain.


Huxley and the humanities

During his life, and especially in the last ten years after retirement, Huxley wrote on many issues relating to the humanities. Perhaps the best known of these topics is ''Evolution and Ethics'', which deals with the question of whether biology has anything particular to say about moral philosophy. Both Huxley and his grandson
Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...
gave Romanes Lectures on this theme. For a start, Huxley dismisses religion as a source of
moral authority Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the princi ...
. Next, he believes the mental characteristics of man are as much a product of evolution as the physical aspects. Thus, our emotions, our intellect, our tendency to prefer living in groups and spend resources on raising our young are part and parcel of our evolution, and therefore inherited. Despite this, the ''details'' of our values and ethics are not inherited: they are partly determined by our culture, and partly chosen by ourselves. Morality and duty are often at war with natural instincts; ethics cannot be derived from the ''struggle for existence'': "Of moral purpose I see not a trace in nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture." It is therefore our responsibility to make ethical choices (see Ethics and Evolutionary ethics). This seems to put Huxley as a compatibilist in the Free Will vs Determinism debate. In this argument Huxley is diametrically opposed to his old friend Herbert Spencer. Huxley's dissection of Rousseau's views on man and society is another example of his later work. The essay undermines Rousseau's ideas on man as a preliminary to undermining his ideas on the ownership of property. Characteristic is: "The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction." Huxley's method of argumentation (his strategy and tactics of persuasion in speech and print) is itself much studied. His career included controversial debates with scientists, clerics and politicians; persuasive discussions with Royal Commissions and other public bodies; lectures and articles for the general public, and a mass of detailed letter-writing to friends and other correspondents. A large number of textbooks have excerpted his prose for anthologies.


Royal and other commissions

Huxley worked on ten Royal and other commissions (titles somewhat shortened here). The Royal Commission is the senior investigative forum in the British constitution. A rough analysis shows that five commissions involved science and scientific education; three involved medicine and three involved fisheries. Several involve difficult ethical and legal issues. All deal with possible changes to law and/or administrative practice.


Royal Commissions

*1862: Trawling for herrings on the coast of Scotland. *1863–65: Sea fisheries of the United Kingdom. *1870–71: The
Contagious Diseases Acts The Contagious Diseases Acts (CD Acts) were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. 85), with alterations and additions made in 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 35) and 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 96). In 1862, a com ...
. *1870–75: Scientific instruction and the advancement of science. *1876: The practice of subjugating live animals to scientific experiments ( vivisection). *1876–78: The universities of Scotland. *1881–82: The Medical Acts. .e. the legal framework for medicine*1884: Trawl, net and beam trawl fishing.


Other commissions

*1866: On the
Royal College of Science for Ireland The Royal College of Science for Ireland (RCScI) was an institute for higher education in Dublin which existed from 1867 to 1926, specialising in physical sciences and applied science. It was originally based on St. Stephen's Green, moving in ...
. *1868: On science and art instruction in Ireland.


Family

In 1855, he married Henrietta Anne Heathorn (1825–1915), an English émigrée whom he had met in Sydney, Australia. They kept correspondence until he was able to send for her. They had five daughters and three sons: * Noel Huxley (1856–60), died of
scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...
. * Jessie Oriana Huxley (1858 −1927), married architect Fred Waller in 1877. *
Marian Huxley Marian "Mady" Collier (née Marian Huxley; 1859–1887) also spelled as Marion Huxley, was a British 19th-century painter and is associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Biography Marian Huxley was born in 1859 in London, to father Thoma ...
(1859–87), married artist John Collier in 1879. * Leonard Huxley, (1860–1933) author, father of Julian, Aldous and
Andrew Huxley Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley (22 November 191730 May 2012) was an English physiologist and biophysicist. He was born into the prominent Huxley family. After leaving Westminster School in central London, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge on ...
. * Rachel Huxley (1862–1934) married civil engineer Alfred Eckersley in 1884; he died 1895. They were parents of the physicist Thomas Eckersley and the first BBC Chief Engineer Peter Eckersley. * Henrietta (Nettie) Huxley (1863–1940), married Harold Roller, travelled Europe as a singer. * Henry Huxley (1865–1946), became a fashionable general practitioner in London. * Ethel Huxley (1866–1941), married her sister's widower John Collier in 1889. Huxley's relationships with his relatives and children were genial by the standards of the day—so long as they lived their lives in an honourable manner, which some did not. After his mother, his eldest sister Lizzie was the most important person in his life until his own marriage. He remained on good terms with his children, more than can be said of many Victorian fathers. This excerpt from a letter to Jessie, his eldest daughter is full of affection: *"Dearest Jess, You are a badly used young person—you are; and nothing short of that conviction would get a letter out of your still worse used Pater, the bête noir of whose existence is letter-writing. Catch me discussing the Afghan question with you, you little pepper-pot! No, not if I know it..." oes on nevertheless to give strong opinions of the Afghans, at that time causing plenty of trouble to the British Raj—see Second Anglo-Afghan War] "There, you plague—ever your affec. Daddy, THH." (letter 7 December 1878, Huxley L 1900) Huxley's descendants include children of Leonard Huxley: * Julian Huxley, Sir Julian Huxley FRS was the first Director of UNESCO and a notable evolutionary biologist and humanist. *
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley ...
was a famous author (''
Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a Utopian and dystopian fiction#Dystopian fiction, dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engi ...
'' 1932, '' Eyeless in Gaza'' 1936, '' The Doors of Perception'' 1954). *
Sir Andrew Huxley Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley (22 November 191730 May 2012) was an English physiologist and biophysicist. He was born into the prominent Huxley family. After leaving Westminster School in central London, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge ...
OM PRS won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963. He was the second Huxley to become President of the Royal Society. Other significant descendants of Huxley, such as Sir
Crispin Tickell Sir Crispin Charles Cervantes Tickell (25 August 1930 – 25 January 2022) was a British diplomat, environmentalist, and academic. Background Tickell was the son of writer Jerrard Tickell and Renée ( Haynes), a great-granddaughter of Thoma ...
, are treated in the Huxley family.


Mental problems in the family

Biographers have sometimes noted the occurrence of mental illness in the Huxley family. His father became "sunk in worse than childish imbecility of mind", and later died in Barming Asylum; brother George suffered from "extreme mental anxiety" and died in 1863 leaving serious debts. Brother James, a well known psychiatrist and Superintendent of Kent County Asylum, was at 55 "as near mad as any sane man can be". His favourite daughter, the artistically talented Mady (Marian), who became the first wife of artist John Collier, was troubled by mental illness for years. She died of pneumonia in her mid-twenties. About Huxley himself we have a more complete record. As a young apprentice to a medical practitioner, aged thirteen or fourteen, Huxley was taken to watch a post-mortem dissection. Afterwards he sank into a "deep lethargy" and, though Huxley ascribed this to dissection poisoning, Bibby and others may be right to suspect that emotional shock precipitated the depression. Huxley recuperated on a farm, looking thin and ill. The next episode we know of in Huxley's life when he suffered a debilitating depression was on the third voyage of HMS ''Rattlesnake'' in 1848. Huxley had further periods of depression at the end of 1871, and again in 1873. Finally, in 1884 he sank into another depression, and this time it precipitated his decision to retire in 1885, at the age of 60. This is enough to indicate the way depression (or perhaps a moderate
bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
) interfered with his life, yet unlike some of the other family members, he was able to function extremely well at other times. The problems continued sporadically into the third generation. Two of Leonard's sons suffered serious depression: Trevennen committed suicide in 1914 and Julian suffered a breakdown in 1913, and five more later in life.


Satires

Darwin's ideas and Huxley's controversies gave rise to many cartoons and satires. It was the debate about man's place in nature that roused such widespread comment: cartoons are so numerous as to be almost impossible to count; Darwin's head on a monkey's body is one of the visual clichés of the age. The "
Great Hippocampus Question The Great Hippocampus Question was a 19th-century scientific controversy about the anatomy of ape and human uniqueness. The dispute between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen became central to the scientific debate on human evolution that follow ...
" attracted particular attention: * "Monkeyana" (''Punch'' vol. 40, 18 May 1861). Signed 'Gorilla', this turned out to be by Sir Philip Egerton MP, amateur naturalist, fossil fish collector and Richard Owen's patron. The last two stanzas include a reference to Huxley's comment that "Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.":
Next HUXLEY replies
That OWEN he lies
And garbles his Latin quotation;
That his facts are not new,
His mistakes not a few,
Detrimental to his reputation.

To twice slay the slain
By dint of the Brain
(Thus HUXLEY concludes his review)
Is but labour in vain,
unproductive of gain,
And so I shall bid you "Adieu"!
* "The Gorilla's Dilemma" (''Punch'' 1862, vol. 43, p. 164). First two lines:
Say am I a man or a brother,
Or only an anthropoid ape?
* ''Report of a sad case recently tried before the Lord Mayor, Owen versus Huxley''. Lord Mayor asks whether either side is known to the police:
Policeman X—Huxley, your Worship, I take to be a young hand, but very vicious; but Owen I have seen before. He got into trouble with an old bone man, called Mantell, who never could be off complaining as Owen prigged his bones. People did say that the old man never got over it, and Owen worritted him to death; but I don't think it was so bad as that. Hears as Owen takes the chair at a crib in Bloomsbury. I don't think it will be a harmonic meeting altogether. And Huxley hangs out in Jermyn Street.
Huxley's low set included Hooker "in the green and vegetable line" and "Charlie Darwin, the pigeon-fancier"; Owen's "crib in Bloomsbury" was the British Museum, of which Natural History was but one department. Jermyn Street is known for its shops of men's clothing, possibly implying that Huxley was a dandy. * '' The Water Babies, a fairy tale for a land baby'' by
Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the working ...
(serialised in ''Macmillan's Magazine'' 1862–63, published in book form, with additions, in 1863). Kingsley had been among first to give a favourable review to Darwin's ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'', having "long since... learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species", and the story includes a
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
on the
reaction to Darwin's theory :''This article covers the time period from November 1859 to April 1861. The immediate reactions to ''On the Origin of Species'', the book in which Charles Darwin described evolution by natural selection, included international debate, though t ...
, with the main scientific participants appearing, including
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. ...
and Huxley. In 1892 Thomas Henry Huxley's five-year-old grandson Julian saw the illustration by Edward Linley Sambourne (right) and wrote his grandfather a letter asking:
Dear Grandpater—Have you seen a Waterbaby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Could I see it some day?—Your loving Julian.
Huxley wrote back:
My dear Julian—I could never make sure about that Water Baby... My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as much in the water as he did—There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things.

When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal seers, and see things more wonderful than the Water Babies where other folks can see nothing.


Racism debate

In October 2021, a Far-Left history group reviewing colonial links told Imperial College London that, because Huxley "might now be called racist", it should remove a bust of him and rename its Huxley Building. The group of 21 academics had been launched in the wake of
Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brutali ...
protests in 2020 to address Imperial's "links to the British Empire" and build a "fully inclusive organisation". It reported that Huxley's paper ''Emancipation – Black and White'' "espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence" that helped feed ideas around eugenics, which "falls far short of Imperial's modern values", and that his theories "might now be called 'racist' in as much as he used racial divisions and hierarchical categorisation in his attempt to understand their origins in his studies of human evolution". Imperial's provost
Ian Walmsley Ian Alexander Walmsley FRS is Provost of Imperial College London where he is also Chair of Experimental Physics. He was previously pro-vice-chancellor for research and Hooke Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Oxford, and a ...
responded that Imperial would "confront, not cover up, uncomfortable or awkward aspects of our past" and this was "very much not a '
cancel culture Cancel culture, or rarely also known as call-out culture, is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles—whether it be online, on ...
' approach". Students would be consulted before management decided on any action to be taken. A critical response by Nick Matzke said that Huxley was a public, longstanding
abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...
who wrote "the most complete demonstration of the specific diversity of the types of mankind will nowise constrain science to spread her ægis over their laveholders'atrocities" and "the North is justified in any expenditure of blood or of money, which shall eradicate a system hopelessly inconsistent with the moral elevation, the political freedom, or the economical progress of the American people"; a major opponent of the racist position of polygenism, as well as the position that some human races were transitional (in 1867 Huxley said "there was no shade of justification for the assertion that any existing modification of mankind now known was to be considered as an intermediate form between man and the animals next below him in the scale of the fauna of the world"); a vehement opponent of the scientific racist James Hunt; and a political radical who believed in granting equal rights and the vote to both Blacks and women.


Cultural references

* Huxley appears alongside Charles Darwin and Samuel Wilberforce in the play '' Darwin in Malibu'', written by Crispin Whittell, and is portrayed by
Toby Jones Tobias Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. Jones made his film debut in Sally Potter's period drama ''Orlando'' in 1992. He ...
in the 2009 film '' Creation''. * Huxley is referred to as the tutor of the main character, Edward Prendick, in H. G. Wells' science fiction novel '' The Island of Dr Moreau'', published in 1896. * ''
Horse Feathers ''Horse Feathers'' is a 1932 pre-Code comedy film starring the Marx Brothers. It stars the Four Marx Brothers ( Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo), Thelma Todd and David Landau. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, a ...
'' (1932
Marx Brothers The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
film)—
Groucho Marx Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...
is Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff, Dean of Huxley College, while its rival team is Darwin College.


See also

*
European and American voyages of scientific exploration The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment. Maritime expeditions in the Age of Discovery were ...


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . (despite its chaotic organisation, this little book contains some nuggets that are well worth sifting) * * * * * * * * . * .(Chapter 18 deals with Huxley and natural selection) * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

Biographies * Ashforth, Albert. ''Thomas Henry Huxley''. Twayne, New York 1969. * Ayres, Clarence. ''Huxley''. Norton, New York 1932. * Bibby, Cyril. ''T.H. Huxley: scientist, humanist and educator''. Watts, London 1959. * Bibby, Cyril. ''Scientist Extraordinary: the life and work of Thomas Henry Huxley 1825–1895''. Pergamon, Oxford 1972. * Clodd, Edward. ''Thomas Henry Huxley''. Blackwood, Edinburgh 1902. * Desmond, Adrian. ''Huxley: vol 1 and 2''. Penguin, London 1998. * Huxley, Leonard. ''Thomas Henry Huxley: a character sketch''. Watts, London 1920. * Irvine, William. ''Thomas Henry Huxley''. Longmans, London 1960. * Jensen, J. Vernon. ''Thomas Henry Huxley: Communicating for Science''. University of Delaware, Newark 1991. * Lyons, Sherrie L. ''Thomas Henry Huxley: The Evolution of a Scientist''. New York 1999. * Mitchell, P. Chalmers. ''Thomas Henry Huxley: a sketch of his life and work'' London 1901. Available a
Project Gutenberg
* Voorhees, Irving Wilson. ''The teachings of Thomas Henry Huxley''. Broadway, New York 1907.


External links

*
Thomas H. Huxley
on the Embryo Project Encyclopedia

��Lists his publications, contains much of his writing. *
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825–1895)
National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for Thomas Huxley *
Science in the Making
Huxley's papers in the Royal Society's archives * * * Huxley review
Darwin on the origin of species
'' The Times'', 26 December 1859, p. 8–9. * Huxley review
Time and life: Mr Darwin's "Origin of species."
''Macmillan's Magazine'' 1: 1859 p. 142–148. * Huxley review
Darwin on the origin of Species
''
Westminster Review The ''Westminster Review'' was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal unti ...
'', 17 (n.s.) April 1860 p. 541–570. {{DEFAULTSORT:Huxley, Thomas Henry 1825 births 1895 deaths 19th-century anthropologists 19th-century British zoologists 19th-century English non-fiction writers 19th-century British translators Academics of Imperial College London Alumni of Charing Cross Medical School Alumni of University College London Biological evolution British anthropologists British carcinologists British evolutionary biologists Burials at East Finchley Cemetery Charles Darwin Comparative anatomy Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences English agnostics English anthropologists English anatomists English palaeontologists English sceptics English taxonomists English translators English zoologists Thomas Henry Knights of the Order of the Polar Star Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Fullerian Professors of Physiology Members of the London School Board Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Paleozoologists People from Ealing Presidents of the Royal Society Recipients of the Copley Medal Rectors of the University of Aberdeen Royal Medal winners Translators from German Victorian writers Wollaston Medal winners Deans of the Royal College of Science