Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays

by Thomas Henry Huxley, Sherrie Lyons (Introduction)

Let us now imagine that some administrative authority, as far superior in power and intelligence to men, as men are to their cattle, is set over the colony, charged to deal with its human elements in such a manner as to assure the victory of the settlement over the antagonistic influences of the state of nature in which it is set down. He would proceed in the same fashion as that in which the gardener dealt with his garden.

Contents:
Introduction
Preface
Evolution and ethics: Prolegomena
Evolution and ethics: The Romanes lecture
Science and morals
Capital
the mother of labor
Social diseases and worse remedies
Introductory essay
Letters to the Times on the Darkest England scheme
Legal opinions respecting "General" Booth's acts
The Salvation Army
Endnotes
Suggested reading

Genres: Philosophy, Evolution, Science, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Biology

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1893

About the author

Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS HonFRSE FLS was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

In 1825, Thomas Henry Huxley was born in England. Huxley coined the term "agnostic" (although George Holyoake also claimed that honor). Huxley defined agnosticism as a method, "the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle . . . the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him." Huxley elaborated: "In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without any other consideration. And negatively, in matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable" (from his essay "Agnosticism").

Huxley received his medical degree from Charing Cross School of Medicine, becoming a physiologist, and was awarded many other honorary degrees. He spent his youth exploring science, especially zoology and anatomy, lecturing on natural history, and writing for scientific publications. He was president of the Royal Society, and was elected to the London School Board in 1870, where he championed a number of common-sense reforms. Huxley earned the nickname "Darwin's Bulldog" when he debated Darwin's On the Origin of Species with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in Oxford in 1860. When Wilberforce asked him which side of his family contained the ape, Huxley famously replied that he would prefer to descend from an ape than a human being who used his intellect "for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into grave scientific discussion." Thereafter, Huxley devoted his time to the defense of science over religion. His essays included "Agnosticism and Christianity" (1889). His three rationalist grandsons were Sir Julian Huxley, a biologist, novelist Aldous Huxley, and Andrew Huxley, co-winner of a 1963 Nobel Prize. Huxley, appropriately, received the Darwin Medal in 1894. D. 1895.

More: http://freethoughtalmanac.com/?p=2093

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...

http://www.iep.utm.edu/huxley/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/lib...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/ev...

Reviews

[Teddy Dodger]

Little prone to quoting aincents/Indians to knowledge-flex but other than that, interesting.

[Keith]

Cited in Magick: Liber ABA p.707