Thomas Henry Huxley

These two essays by the famous 19th-century champion of Darwin's theory of evolution tackle a subject that is still a major focus of ethical debates today: the relation of science as a whole, and specifically evolutionary ideas, to ethics and morality. Written toward the end of Huxley's career when he was already famous as a persuasive lecturer and a fascinating expositor of new ideas, these essays demonstrate his rhetorical gifts and talent for explaining the importance of science to a lay audience. "Evolution and Ethics," his last major talk delivered at Oxford in 1893, was written in response to the then fashionable "Social Darwinism" popularized by philosopher Herbert Spencer. Spencer and his followers had been labeling the poor, criminals, and other social undesirables as "unfit" and suggesting that society deal with them as harshly as nature deals with the physically unfit. Huxley found this approach both morally repugnant and a serious misapplication of Darwinian theory to the subject of ethics. Society progresses, Huxley maintained, through individuals who prove themselves to be ethically the best, not physically the most fit. Ethics is designed to curb our antisocial animal instincts and therefore must be detached from natural competition. In "Science and Morals," written some years earlier (1886), Huxley addresses three criticisms: namely, that he and his associates refuse to take seriously anything that (1) cannot be verified by the senses, that (2) is beyond the bounds of physical science, and that (3) cannot be subjected to laboratory experimentation and chemical analysis. To all of these criticisms Huxley replies that he takes very seriously a host of mental phenomena that do not, strictly speaking, fall within these narrow physical limits: the universal law of causation, or the esthetic pleasure of the arts, or the truths of mathematics, for example. He goes on to say that he repudiates the doctrine of Materialism as much as he does that of Spiritualism, and that he coined the term "Agnostic" to apply to his own particular philosophical viewpoint. He concludes with comments on the existence of God and free will, suggesting that science does not necessarily rule out either postulate. Students of ethics, the history of science, and the ongoing debates over evolution will welcome this new edition of two masterful essays by "Darwin's Bulldog."

Huxley was one of the first adherents to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and advanced its acceptance by scientists and the public. Man's Place in Nature was explicitly directed against Richard Owen, who had claimed that there were distinct differences between human brains and those of apes. Huxley demonstrated that ape and human brains were fundamentally similar in every anatomical detail, thus applying evolution to the human race.

CONTENTSPart I.- Hume's LifeEarly Life: Literary and Political WritingsLater Years: The History of EnglandPart II.- Hume's PhilosophyThe Object and Scope of PhilosophyThe Contents of the MindOrigin of the ImpressionsThe Classification and the Nomenclature of Mental OperationsMental Phenomena of AnimalsLanguage: Propositions Concerning Necessary TruthsOrder of Nature: MiraclesTheism: Evolution of TheologyThe Soul: The Doctrine of ImmortalityVolition: Liberty and NecessityThe Principles of Morals

In this selection of his most important writings, renowned scientist and philosopher Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) discusses his views on the demonstrative evidence of evolution, the physical basis of life, naturalism and supernaturalism, agnosticism and Christianity, and the Christian tradition in relation to Judaic Christianity.