Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)

Some Victorians were really into the idea of a society run along evolutionary lines, and this is easy to criticize-- especially if that Victorian is Herbert Spencer-- but Thomas Henry Huxley laid out a more nuanced than most. To Huxley's credit is that though he wants science applied to human life (laid out more fully in his earlier essay "Science & Culture"), he doesn't appeal to "nature" as some kind of obvious model for human behavior. Rather he recognizes that things are more complicated show more than that; for example, in his declaration that "the 'points' of a good or bad citizen are really far harder to discern than those of a puppy or a short-horn calf" (23). And unlike Francis Galton, he doesn't believe in getting rid of the "unfit," because all humans have been unfit at some point! Huxley says that the very idea that humanity is evolving to perfection is a misleading illusion; even though evolution by natural selection is not teleological, a lot of people-- including actual evolutionary biologists!-- seem to often forget that and assume some kind of endgame. (Just today, actually, I was listening to an excellent Radiolab episode about an organism that challenges our typical teleological thinking in evolution.) Huxley's essay provides a nice warning against the legitimately dangerous kinds of eugenics thinking that would come in the early 20th century. It's no wonder that his student, H. G. Wells, published a number of novels that resisted evolutionary ethical justifications, most notably The War of the Worlds; it's also quite a shame that more people didn't listen to Huxley, and instead listened to hateful people like Galton. show less

This 1882 volume collects thirteen lectures by Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog," most of which aren't about scientific subjects, but about science as a discipline or epistemology. The most famous and most significant one is the first one, the title piece: "Science and Culture" was originally an address Huxley gave in October 1880, at the opening of Mason Science College in Birmingham; it was printed that same month in Nature. Huxley, a big advocate for scientific education in general, show more thought that the school had an "excellent scheme," but proposed one alteration:

"[I]n this country, practically governed as it is now by universal suffrage, every man who does his duty must exercise political functions. And if […] the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom; it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with the political, as they now deal with scientific questions […] and to believe that the machinery of society is at least as delicate as that of a spinning-jenny, and not more likely to be improved by the meddling of those who have not taken the trouble to master the principles of its action."

In other words, you wouldn't trust a layman untrained in mechanics to fix your machinery, so why should a layman untrained in the science of society work on your society? And in the democratic age, every man already is working on society! Seeing like a scientist is essential for social progress. (This inspired Matthew Arnold's July 1882 lecture, "Literature and Science," where he said that science only gives knowledge without context, that has nothing to do with the "sense for beauty" or the "sense for conduct.") Similarly, in his lecture "On Elementary Instruction in Physiology" (1877), Huxley argues everyone who has a body would benefit from physiology. Much of Huxley's work rails against the idea that a classical education is the only useful education, and that scientific thinking is narrow or restrictive.

Huxley is a pretty big scientific optimist, but more nuanced than many who shared his views, like Herbert Spencer, and these writings capture a moment in the cultural rise of science as an epistemology: a moment where it seemed like science might dominate the very way we run our government and society. Though Huxley definitely won the scientific education debate, as evidenced by the contemporary perspective that going to college for anything other than STEM is fundamentally worthless, contemporary politics clearly show you don't have to know anything about science to run a society, so he didn't quite win to the extent he wished. show less

Individual essays individually reviewed:

1. Joseph Priestley (1874)
This is an address given on the occasion of a statue of Priestley being set up in Birmingham. It is hilarious. I don't think any modern could be so incisive yet humorous about Priestley's scientific errors as well as his scientific accomplishments and theological preoccupations.

2. Emancipation - Black and White (1865)
This is probably the essay for which Huxley is being cancelled in 2021. In this essay, a brief one celebrating show more the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the former slaves in the southern United Stetes, he moves rather quickly to a call for increased rights and better education for women. What is getting him cancelled is that he states a belief that women and what he calls "negros" are inferior, while denying that that is justification for denying the people in these two groups equal rights. On the _most_ important point he was correct, at a time when many were wrong.

Overview: T. H. Huxley just couldn't resist snarking, in a Victorian way. Some of that has worn really well, like his remarks on Priestley. Some of it, like his remarks on "negroes" and women has worn less well. But it's important to remember that in his "Emancipation" speech he was not setting out to offend, _except_ by his anti-slavery stance and his support of womens' rights. As regards the rest, almost all of his hearers were probably not the least bit offended by his other remarks. You can't cancel the non-entities of the past, though, as they are already forgotten, only those of the present. show less

I am the first to admit, most of this goes right over my head. I read it because I love crayfish. I adore it because of the writing style. Science and eloquence so rarely go hand in hand. It is also so impressive that what Huxley wrote in 1881 is as relevant today as it was then. I should be so lucky!