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THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY (1825–1895)
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That peculiarity has been passed on to me in full strength " (Essays, i
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4)
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One of the not least striking facts in Huxley's life is that of See also:education in the formal sense he received none
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" I had two years of a pandemonium of a school (between eight and ten), and after that neither help nor sympathy in any intellectual direction till I reached manhood " (Life, ii
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145)
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After the See also:death of Dr Nicholas the Ealing school See also:broke up, and Huxley's father returned about 1835 to his native See also:town, See also:Coventry, where he had obtained a small See also:appointment
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Huxley was See also:left to his own devices; few histories of boyhood could offer any parallel
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At twelve he was sitting up in See also:bed to read See also:Hutton's See also:Geology
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His great See also:desire was to be a See also:mechanical engineer; it ended in his devotion to " the mechanical See also:engineering of living
1 Nature, lxiii
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127.See also:machines." His curiosity in this direction was nearly fatal; a See also:post-mortem he was taken to between thirteen and fourteen was followed by an illness which seems to have been the starting-point of the See also:ill-See also:health which pursued him all through life
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At fifteen he devoured See also:Sir William See also:
At seventeen he came under the See also:influence of See also:
He passed the necessary examination, and at the same See also:time obtained the qualification of the Royal See also:College of Surgeons
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He was " entered on the books of See also:Nelson's old See also:ship, the ` Victory,' for See also:duty at Haslar Hospital." Its See also:chief, Sir See also: Cuvier's See also:groups, without their theoretical basis, were accepted by K . E. von See also:Baer (1792–1876) . The " idea " of the See also:group, or archetype, admitted of endless variation within it; but this was subordinate to essential conformity with the archetype, and hence Cuvier deduced the important principle of the " correlation of parts," of which he made such conspicuous use in palaeontological reconstruction . Meanwhile the " Naturphilosophen," with J . W . See also:Goethe (1749–1832) and L . See also:Oken (1779–1851), had in effect grasped the under-lying principle of correlation, and so far anticipated See also:evolution by asserting the possibility of deriving specialized from simpler structures . Though they were still hampered by idealistic conceptions, they established See also:morphology . Cuvier's four great groups were See also:Vertebrata, See also:Mollusca, See also:Articulata and See also:Radiata . It was amongst the members of the last class that Huxley found most material ready to his See also:hand in the seas of the tropics . It included organisms of the most varied See also:kind, with nothing more in common than that their parts were more or less distributed See also:round a centre . Huxley sent home "communication after communication to the Linnean Society," then a somewhat somnolent See also:body, " with the same result as that obtained by See also:Noah when he sent the See also:raven out of the See also:ark " (Essays, i . 13) . His important paper, On the Anatomy and the See also:Affinities of the See also:Family of Medusae, met with a better See also:fate . It was communicated by the bishop of Norwich to the Royal Society, and printed by it in the Philosophical Transactions in 1849 . Huxley See also:united, with the Medusae, the Hydroid and Sertularian polyps, to See also:form a class to which he subsequently gave the name of See also:Hydrozoa . This alone was no inconsiderable feat for a See also:young surgeon who had only had the training of the medical school . But the ground on which it was done has led to far-reaching theoretical developments . Huxley realized that something more than superficial characters were necessary in determining the affinities of animal organisms . He found that all the members of the class consisted of two membranes enclosing a central cavity or See also:stomach . This is characteristic of what are now called the Coelenterata . All animals higher than these have been termed Coelomata; they possess a distinct body-cavity in addition to the stomach . Huxley went further than this, and the most profound suggestion in his paper is the comparison of the two layers with those which appear in the germ of the higher animals . The consequences which have flowed from this prophetic generalization of the ectoderm and endoderm are See also:familiar to every student of evolution .
The conclusion was the more remarkable as at the time he was not merely See also:free from any evolutionary belief, but actually rejected it
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The value of Huxley's work was immediately recognized
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On returning to England in 185o he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
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In the following See also:year, at the See also:age of twenty-six, he not merely received the Royal medal, but was elected on the See also:council
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With absolutely no aid from any one he had placed himself in the front See also:rank of English scientific men
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He secured the friendship of Sir J
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See also: Imbued with the methods of von Baer and Johannes Muller, his methods were purely inductive . He would not See also:hazard any statement beyond what the facts revealed . He retained, however, as has been done by his successors, the use of archetypes, though they no longer represented fundamental " ideas " but generalizations of the essential points of structure common to the individuals of each class . He had not wholly freed himself, however, from archetypal trammels . " The See also:doctrine," he says, " that every natural group is organized after a definite archetype . . . seems to me as important for See also:zoology as the doctrine of definite pro-portions for See also:chemistry." This was in 1853 . He further stated: " There is no progression from a See also:lower to a higher type, but merely a more or less See also:complete evolution of one type " (Phil . Trans., 18J3, p . 63) . As See also:Chalmers See also:Mitchell points out, this statement is of great See also:historical See also:interest . Huxley definitely uses the word " evolution," and admits its existence within the great groups . He had not, however, rid himself of the notion that the archetype was a See also:property inherent in the group . See also:Herbert See also:Spencer, whose acquaintance he made in 1852, was unable to convert him toevolution in its widest sense (Life, i . 168) . He could not bring himself to See also:acceptance of the theory—owing, no doubt, to his rooted aversion from a priori reasoning—without a mechanical conception of its mode of operation . In his first interview with See also:Darwin, which seems to have been about the same time, he expressed his belief " in the sharpness of the lines of demarcation between natural groups," and was received with a humorous smile (Life, i . 169) . The See also:naval medical service exists for See also:practical purposes . It is not surprising, therefore, that after his three years' nominal employment Huxley was ordered on active service . Though without private means of any kind, he resigned . The navy, however, retains the See also:credit of having started his scientific career as well as that of Hooker and Darwin . Huxley was now thrown on his own resources, the immediate prospects of which were slender enough . As a See also:matter of fact, he had not to wait many months . His friend, See also:Edward See also:Forbes, was appointed to the See also:chair of natural See also:history in See also:Edinburgh, and in See also:July 18J4 he succeeded him as lecturer at the School of Mines and as naturalist to the See also:Geological Survey in the following year . The latter post he hesitated at first to accept, as he " did not care for fossils " (Essays, i . 15) . In 1855 he married See also:Miss H . A . Heathorn, whose acquaintance he had made in Sydney . They were engaged when Huxley could offer nothing but the future promise of his ability . The confidence of his devoted helpmate was not misplaced, and her See also:affection sustained him to the end, after she had seen him the recipient of every See also:honour which English science could bestow . His most important See also:research belonging to this See also:period was the Croonian Lecture delivered before the Royal Society in 1858 on " The Theory of the Vertebrate See also:Skull." In this he completely and finally demolished, by applying as before the inductive method, the idealistic, if in some degree evolutionary, views of its origin which Owen had derived from Goethe and Oken . This finally disposed of the " archetype," and may be said once for all to have liberated the English anatomical school from the deductive method . In 1859 The Origin of See also:Species was published . This was a momentous event in the history of science, and not least for Huxley . Hitherto he had turned a See also:deaf See also:ear to evolution . " I took my stand," he says, " upon two grounds: firstly, that . . the See also:evidence in favour of transmutation was wholly insufficient; and secondly, that no suggestion respecting the causes of the transmutation assumed, which had been made, was in any way adequate to explain the phenomena " (Life, i . 168) . Huxley had studied See also:Lamarck " attentively," but to no purpose . Sir Charles See also:Lyell " was the chief See also:agent in smoothing the road for Darwin . For consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic See also:world " (l.c.); and Huxley found in Darwin what he had failed to find in Lamarck, an intelligible See also:hypothesis good enough as a working basis . Yet with the transparent candour which was characteristic of him, he never to the end of his life concealed the fact that he thought it wanting in rigorous See also:proof . Darwin, however, was a naturalist; Huxley was not . He says: " I am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me . I never collected anything, and species-work was always a See also:burden to me; what I cared for was the architectural and engineering See also:part of the business " (Essays, i. q) . But the See also:solution of the problem of organic evolution must work upwards from the initial stages, and it is precisely for the study of these that " species-work " is necessary . Darwin, by observing the peculiarities in the See also:distribution of the See also:plants which he had collected in the Galapagos, was started on the path that led to his theory . Anatomical research had only so far led to transcendental hypothesis, though in Huxley's hands it had cleared the decks of that See also:lumber . He quotes with approval Darwin's remark that " no one has a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many " (Essays, ii . 283) . The rigorous proof which Huxley demanded was the See also:production of species sterile to one another by selective breeding (Life, i . 193) . But this was a misconception of the question . Sterility is a physiological See also:character, and the specific See also:differences which the theory undertook to See also:account for are morphological; there is no necessary nexus between the two. have perhaps ever fallen to the See also:lot of a scientific See also:man in England . Huxley, however, felt that he had at last a secure grip of evolution . From 1871 to 188o he was a secretary of the Royal Society . He warned Darwin: " I will stop at no point as See also:long as clear From 1881 to 1885 he was See also:president . For honours he cared reasoning will carry me further" (Life, i . 172) . Owen, who had some evolutionary tendencies, was at first favourably disposed to Darwin's theory, and even claimed that he had to some extent anticipated it in his own writings . But Darwin, though he did not thrust it into the foreground, never flinched from recognizing that man could not be excluded from his theory . " See also:Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history " (Origin, ed. i . 488) . Owen could not See also:face the wrath of fashionable orthodoxy . In his Rede Lecture he endeavoured to See also:save the position by asserting that man was clearly marked off from all other animals by the anatomical structure of his See also:brain . This was actually inconsistent with known facts, and was effectually refuted by Huxley in various papers and lectures, summed up in 1863 in Man's Place in Nature . This " See also:monkey damnification " of mankind was too much even for the " veracity " of Carlyle, who is said to have never forgiven it . Huxley had not the smallest respect for authority as a basis for belief, scientific or other-See also:wise . He held that scientific men were morally See also:bound " to try all things and hold fast to that which is good " (Life, ii . 161) . Called upon in 1862, in the See also:absence of the president, to deliver the presidential address to the Geological Society, he disposed once for all of one of the principles accepted by geologists, that similar fossils in distinct regions indicated that the strata containing them were contemporary . All that could be concluded, he pointed out, was that the See also:general order of See also:succession was the same . In 1854 Huxley had refused the post of palaeontologist to the Geological Survey; but the fossils for which he then said that he " did not care " soon acquired importance in his eyes, as supplying evidence for the support of the evolutionary theory . The See also:thirty-one years during which he occupied the chair of natural history at the School of Mines were largely occupied with palaeontological research . Numerous memoirs on fossil fishes established many far-reaching morphological facts . The study of fossil See also:reptiles led to his demonstrating, in the course of lectures on birds, delivered at the College of Surgeons in 1867, the fundamental See also:affinity of the two groups which he united under the See also:title of See also:Sauropsida . An incidental result of the same course was his proposed rearrangement of the zoological regions into which P . L . Sclater had divided the world in 1857 . Huxley anticipated, to a large extent, the results at which botanists have since arrived: he proposed as See also:primary divisions, Arctogaeato include the See also:land areas of the See also:northern hemisphere—and Notogaea for the See also:remainder . Successive waves of life originated in and spread from the northern See also:area, the survivors of the more See also:ancient types finding successively a See also:refuge in the south . Though Huxley had accepted the Darwinian theory as. a working hypothesis, he never succeeded in firmly grasping it in detail . He thought " evolution might conceivably have taken place without the development of groups possessing the characters of species " (Essays, v . 
41) . His palaeontological researches ultimately led him to dispense with Darwin . In 1892 he wrote: " The doctrine of evolution is no See also:speculation, but a generalization of certain facts . . . classed by biologists under the heads of See also:Embryology and of Palaeontology " (Essays, v . 42) . Earlier in 1881 he had asserted even more emphatically that if the hypothesis of evolution " had not existed, the palaeontologist would have had to invent it " (Essays, iv . 44) . From 1870 onwards he was more and more See also:drawn away from scientific research by the claims of public duty . Some men yield the more readily to such demands, as their fulfilment is not unaccompanied by public esteem . But he felt, as he himself said of Joseph See also:Priestley, " that he was a man and a See also:citizen before he was a philosopher, and that the duties of the two former positions are at least as imperative as those of the latter " (Essays, iii . 13) . From 1862 to 1884 he served on no less than ten Royal Commissions, dealing in every case with subjects of great importance, and in many with matters of the gravest moment to the community . He held and filled with invariable dignity and distinction more public positions thanlittle, though they were within his reach; it is said that he might have received a See also:peerage . He accepted, however, in 1892, a Privy Councillorship, at once the most democratic and the most aristocratic honour accessible to an English citizen . In 187o he was president of the See also:British Association at See also:Liverpool, and in the same year was elected a member of the newly constituted London School See also:Board . He resigned the latter position in 1872, but in the brief period during which he acted, probably more than any man, he left his See also:mark on the See also:foundations of See also:national elementary education . He made See also:war on the scholastic methods which wearied the mind in merely taxing the memory; the See also:children were to be prepared to take their place worthily in the community . See also:Physical training was the basis; domestic See also:economy, at any rate for girls, was insisted upon, and for all some development of the aesthetic sense by means of See also:drawing and singing . See also:Reading, See also:writing and See also:arithmetic were the in-dispensable tools for acquiring knowledge, and intellectual discipline was to be gained through the rudiments of physical science . He insisted on the teaching of the See also:Bible partly as a great See also:literary heritage, partly because he was " seriously perplexed to know by what practical See also:measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the See also:present utterly chaotic See also:state of See also:opinion in these matters, without its use " (Essays, iii . 397) . In 1872 the School of Mines was moved to South See also:Kensington, and Huxley had, for the first time after eighteen years, those appliances for teaching beyond the lecture See also:room, which to the lasting injury of the interests of biological science in Great Britain had been withheld from him by the See also:short-sightedness of See also:government . Huxley had only been able to bring his influence to See also:bear upon his pupils by oral teaching, and had had no opportunity by See also:personal intercourse in the laboratory of forming a school . He was now able to organize a See also:system of instruction for classes of elementary teachers in the general principles of See also:biology, which indirectly affected the teaching of the subject throughout the See also: |