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Evolution and Ethics and Science and Morals
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 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 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 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."
151 pages, Paperback
First published May 31, 1970
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About the author
Thomas Henry Huxley
985 books189 followersThomas 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...
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...
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August 31, 2020
A general understanding of T.H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics seems to be that while the “cosmic process” was all about “the struggle for existence,” humans, through mind that is a product of that process, can exempt themselves from conditions where only the strong survive. They can, instead, strive for the ideal of promoting the good of the whole. In making this argument, Huxley is thought to have strongly countered the radical eugenic implications of Spencer’s (and to a significant degree, Darwin’s) highly competitive, win-lose notion of the “struggle for existence.” I don’t think that Huxley’s argument was quite so clear cut as that. Though he opposed hard-core eugenic practices (i.e., elimination-termination of the weak), he was nevertheless an advocate for encouraging human breeding practices that resulted in the “best” traits, which is a softer form of eugenics.
The key to understanding Huxley might not be in “Evolution and Ethics” (1893) but in the lecture, “Prolegomena” (1894) that precedes it in this book. In Prolegomena, Huxley notes that the “cosmic process” is about the survival of the fittest so, when it comes to human evolution, the fair question would be why not do what any good gardener would do and eliminate the “plants” with undesirable characteristics. From my reading, Huxley argued - he was being discreet - that we should encourage good breeding practices to get the qualities we want out of individuals. Part of being human is that we can practice the “art” of creating the type of “garden” we want. If guided by “purely scientific considerations,” he writes, the Administrator of “Eden” would eliminate the undesirable by “systematic extirpation, or exclusion, of the superfluous. The hopelessly diseased, the infirm aged, the weak or deformed in body or mind, the excess of infants born, would be put away, as the gardener pulls up defective and superfluous plants, or the breeder destroys undesirable cattle. Only the strong and healthy, carefully matched, with a view to the progeny best adapted to the purpose of the administrator, would be permitted to perpetuate their kind.” Well, as ideal as that might be (“this logical ideal of evolutionary regimentation”), Huxley says that this form of eugenics, a term Galton coined in 1883, is neither desirable nor attainable. Our understanding of “the principle of improvement by selection” is imperfect and such drastic measures would no doubt disrupt the order and cohesiveness that is necessary for a strong society to exist and compete effectively with other groups (this competitiveness relative to other groups was very much a concern of Darwin himself).
Huxley now sets out the ideal that breaks from the Spencerian cosmic process of survival of the fittest. Cooperation is what makes groups strong vis-a-vis competing groups and this is what society should encourage, but not mandate, via good breeding practices. Huxley is subtle and I think less than direct in his Evolution and Ethics lecture that lent itself to what he refers to as “errors” of understanding. But in the “Prolegomena,” and pulling from a then emerging principle of physics, he states that “the innate tendency to self-assertion, or natural liberty” that was common to the “semi-human” and “brutal” origins of human society leads to disorder. But humans have evolved to a point that they can counter this entropic principle that results from self-assertion. Now humans can develop the “cooperative” side, which is characterized by self-restraint. The “state of nature,” he summarizes, is to be contrasted with the “state of art produced by human intelligence and energy.”
But Huxley tends to hide his tracks. He writes that restraining self-assertion can equally go too far. What does this mean? “Human intelligence” means we know what to do and “energy” means that we have the “will” to follow through and do what mind says we must do, which is to create “the ideal of usefulness, or of pleasantness, to man of which the state of nature knows nothing.” This means to discourage breeding of those who are unfit for civilized society. That cannot be done by various social programs that prop up those who are lower in civilized traits, who propagate their brutish nature without restraint, who have low intelligence, and who are void of a capacity to self-sustain without dependency. It means doing away with “those artificial arrangements by which fools and knaves are kept at the top of society instead of sinking to their natural place at the bottom.” To drive this nail down further, his footnote adds that, “I have elsewhere lamented the absence from society of a machinery for facilitating the descent of incapacity.” And, in the reverse, Huxley’s program of encouragement means to promote programs that support the breeding of good cooperative beings who are intelligent and adept at civilized life. The qualities to be promoted are “energy, industry, intellectual capacity, tenacity of purpose, and, at least, as much sympathy as is necessary to make man understand the feelings of his fellows.” That this would lead to the unequal possession of the means of enjoyment - “wealth and influence” - is of little concern to Huxley as this “is a process which tends to the good of society.”
Huxley’s genetics is, without attribution, Frances Galton. While it does not purely reflect the Administrator of Eden's dictates, it does involve a strong dose of discouraging bad breeding and encouraging good breeding. It’s also the the progressive evolution of Darwin. While strictly speaking adaptation does not involve progression, Darwin saw an evolutionary progression leading to the superiority of white, Western humans in the struggle for existence over non-white, non-Western humans. The flaw in Huxley’s argument is two-fold: It presumes that the propensity for social cooperation lies with the upper social-economic echelons when neither history nor genetics supports this. Where is the evidence that those with the most capacity are exclusively the most socially cooperative? It presumes that the mind is in control, but in control to do what? That “what” comes from deep motivation, which can just as soon serve the self only as well as others. Do we really want to encourage the breeding of self-serving individuals who are in the top-tier in terms of capacity? Huxley is fond of those who are intellectually capable, believing that they are the most capable of the self-restraint that is necessary for a cooperative society. And these two points are now joined: Why would self-serving, capable, individuals engage in self-restraint if there is no motivation to do so? Why not indulge in the privileges of “natural liberty,” cloak it in Orwellian mistruth, and enforce one's evolutionarily given rights with power? Again, why in our right mind would we want to encourage the breeding of such individuals?
In time, Huxley sees the fruition of an ethical vision about “the gradual strengthening of the human bond, which, though it arrests the struggle for existence inside society, up to a certain point improves the chances of society as a whole, in the cosmic struggle - the ethical process.” Evolution is about the struggle for existence. It’s about our “natural liberty.” Though formed by that process, and thus consistent with evolutionary theory that way, humans can transcend it by following the ethical principle of “pleasantness” that allows societies to thrive and out compete other groups. This is how Huxley ties together “evolution” and “ethics” in the lecture of that name. The most interesting part of that essay is his extensive and well-informed discussion of the integral connections between Eastern and Western thought. On the surface, the reader might wonder what the connection is to evolution and ethics, but Huxley is providing the philosophical and theological backdrop to countering the problem of “evil,” as exemplified by the “cosmic process” of survival of the fittest. Those in the East (Hindus, Buddhists) deny the bodily passions that are the source of conflict. The Stoics, secularizing Plato perhaps, do a Buddhist mind-control thing and deny the bad, and via reason, concentrate on the good. But Huxley is having none of this. Neither approach to denying our natural liberty will work. It has to be, rather, bred out of the genes - out with the bad ones, and in with the good ones. A problem with this is that Huxley presumes the intellectually capable and gifted are the ones that get us there - by nature, which includes not only the intellectual capacity for self-restraint but also the motivation to do so. But without such motivation the intellect serves the self only, regardless of others or the whole and that leads in time to Hobbesian chaos where the common people are pawns in the war of all against all created by self-aggrandizing elites.
In the last lecture in this book, Science and Morals, Huxley claims that he is not a pure “materialist” that reduces everything to matter and force. Huxley says he believes in a third thing that is neither matter or force. It’s the consciousness that emerged from the evolutionary process that has given us mind, as we know it today, and it is this that allows us to create “art,” including our vision for an ethical society that promotes those best fit for a cooperative humanity. Thus, Huxley emancipates humanity from evolution. Mind is in control. The body is not.
It’s a nice try, but there’s no cigar. To say the mind is in control presumes a motive force that lies behind choosing one thing and not another. It’s Schopenhauer’s question: On what basis do we choose? Mind doesn’t float around in the ether. It rests on the body; mental goals, ideals, are instrumental but in the end, they can always be traced back to the body and what it wants. This is survival and the core needs that support survival. This includes a natural liberty to serve our self interest, but that self-interest includes, as Darwin discussed, our cooperative disposition to be good tribal members for that too serves our self-interest. The body is the source of motivation, just like Hume argued. Biologically, evolution is not emancipated from physics after all. The body is “matter” and its survival is its motivation “force.”
The key to understanding Huxley might not be in “Evolution and Ethics” (1893) but in the lecture, “Prolegomena” (1894) that precedes it in this book. In Prolegomena, Huxley notes that the “cosmic process” is about the survival of the fittest so, when it comes to human evolution, the fair question would be why not do what any good gardener would do and eliminate the “plants” with undesirable characteristics. From my reading, Huxley argued - he was being discreet - that we should encourage good breeding practices to get the qualities we want out of individuals. Part of being human is that we can practice the “art” of creating the type of “garden” we want. If guided by “purely scientific considerations,” he writes, the Administrator of “Eden” would eliminate the undesirable by “systematic extirpation, or exclusion, of the superfluous. The hopelessly diseased, the infirm aged, the weak or deformed in body or mind, the excess of infants born, would be put away, as the gardener pulls up defective and superfluous plants, or the breeder destroys undesirable cattle. Only the strong and healthy, carefully matched, with a view to the progeny best adapted to the purpose of the administrator, would be permitted to perpetuate their kind.” Well, as ideal as that might be (“this logical ideal of evolutionary regimentation”), Huxley says that this form of eugenics, a term Galton coined in 1883, is neither desirable nor attainable. Our understanding of “the principle of improvement by selection” is imperfect and such drastic measures would no doubt disrupt the order and cohesiveness that is necessary for a strong society to exist and compete effectively with other groups (this competitiveness relative to other groups was very much a concern of Darwin himself).
Huxley now sets out the ideal that breaks from the Spencerian cosmic process of survival of the fittest. Cooperation is what makes groups strong vis-a-vis competing groups and this is what society should encourage, but not mandate, via good breeding practices. Huxley is subtle and I think less than direct in his Evolution and Ethics lecture that lent itself to what he refers to as “errors” of understanding. But in the “Prolegomena,” and pulling from a then emerging principle of physics, he states that “the innate tendency to self-assertion, or natural liberty” that was common to the “semi-human” and “brutal” origins of human society leads to disorder. But humans have evolved to a point that they can counter this entropic principle that results from self-assertion. Now humans can develop the “cooperative” side, which is characterized by self-restraint. The “state of nature,” he summarizes, is to be contrasted with the “state of art produced by human intelligence and energy.”
But Huxley tends to hide his tracks. He writes that restraining self-assertion can equally go too far. What does this mean? “Human intelligence” means we know what to do and “energy” means that we have the “will” to follow through and do what mind says we must do, which is to create “the ideal of usefulness, or of pleasantness, to man of which the state of nature knows nothing.” This means to discourage breeding of those who are unfit for civilized society. That cannot be done by various social programs that prop up those who are lower in civilized traits, who propagate their brutish nature without restraint, who have low intelligence, and who are void of a capacity to self-sustain without dependency. It means doing away with “those artificial arrangements by which fools and knaves are kept at the top of society instead of sinking to their natural place at the bottom.” To drive this nail down further, his footnote adds that, “I have elsewhere lamented the absence from society of a machinery for facilitating the descent of incapacity.” And, in the reverse, Huxley’s program of encouragement means to promote programs that support the breeding of good cooperative beings who are intelligent and adept at civilized life. The qualities to be promoted are “energy, industry, intellectual capacity, tenacity of purpose, and, at least, as much sympathy as is necessary to make man understand the feelings of his fellows.” That this would lead to the unequal possession of the means of enjoyment - “wealth and influence” - is of little concern to Huxley as this “is a process which tends to the good of society.”
Huxley’s genetics is, without attribution, Frances Galton. While it does not purely reflect the Administrator of Eden's dictates, it does involve a strong dose of discouraging bad breeding and encouraging good breeding. It’s also the the progressive evolution of Darwin. While strictly speaking adaptation does not involve progression, Darwin saw an evolutionary progression leading to the superiority of white, Western humans in the struggle for existence over non-white, non-Western humans. The flaw in Huxley’s argument is two-fold: It presumes that the propensity for social cooperation lies with the upper social-economic echelons when neither history nor genetics supports this. Where is the evidence that those with the most capacity are exclusively the most socially cooperative? It presumes that the mind is in control, but in control to do what? That “what” comes from deep motivation, which can just as soon serve the self only as well as others. Do we really want to encourage the breeding of self-serving individuals who are in the top-tier in terms of capacity? Huxley is fond of those who are intellectually capable, believing that they are the most capable of the self-restraint that is necessary for a cooperative society. And these two points are now joined: Why would self-serving, capable, individuals engage in self-restraint if there is no motivation to do so? Why not indulge in the privileges of “natural liberty,” cloak it in Orwellian mistruth, and enforce one's evolutionarily given rights with power? Again, why in our right mind would we want to encourage the breeding of such individuals?
In time, Huxley sees the fruition of an ethical vision about “the gradual strengthening of the human bond, which, though it arrests the struggle for existence inside society, up to a certain point improves the chances of society as a whole, in the cosmic struggle - the ethical process.” Evolution is about the struggle for existence. It’s about our “natural liberty.” Though formed by that process, and thus consistent with evolutionary theory that way, humans can transcend it by following the ethical principle of “pleasantness” that allows societies to thrive and out compete other groups. This is how Huxley ties together “evolution” and “ethics” in the lecture of that name. The most interesting part of that essay is his extensive and well-informed discussion of the integral connections between Eastern and Western thought. On the surface, the reader might wonder what the connection is to evolution and ethics, but Huxley is providing the philosophical and theological backdrop to countering the problem of “evil,” as exemplified by the “cosmic process” of survival of the fittest. Those in the East (Hindus, Buddhists) deny the bodily passions that are the source of conflict. The Stoics, secularizing Plato perhaps, do a Buddhist mind-control thing and deny the bad, and via reason, concentrate on the good. But Huxley is having none of this. Neither approach to denying our natural liberty will work. It has to be, rather, bred out of the genes - out with the bad ones, and in with the good ones. A problem with this is that Huxley presumes the intellectually capable and gifted are the ones that get us there - by nature, which includes not only the intellectual capacity for self-restraint but also the motivation to do so. But without such motivation the intellect serves the self only, regardless of others or the whole and that leads in time to Hobbesian chaos where the common people are pawns in the war of all against all created by self-aggrandizing elites.
In the last lecture in this book, Science and Morals, Huxley claims that he is not a pure “materialist” that reduces everything to matter and force. Huxley says he believes in a third thing that is neither matter or force. It’s the consciousness that emerged from the evolutionary process that has given us mind, as we know it today, and it is this that allows us to create “art,” including our vision for an ethical society that promotes those best fit for a cooperative humanity. Thus, Huxley emancipates humanity from evolution. Mind is in control. The body is not.
It’s a nice try, but there’s no cigar. To say the mind is in control presumes a motive force that lies behind choosing one thing and not another. It’s Schopenhauer’s question: On what basis do we choose? Mind doesn’t float around in the ether. It rests on the body; mental goals, ideals, are instrumental but in the end, they can always be traced back to the body and what it wants. This is survival and the core needs that support survival. This includes a natural liberty to serve our self interest, but that self-interest includes, as Darwin discussed, our cooperative disposition to be good tribal members for that too serves our self-interest. The body is the source of motivation, just like Hume argued. Biologically, evolution is not emancipated from physics after all. The body is “matter” and its survival is its motivation “force.”
November 17, 2007
I think Huxley's 'Evolution and Ethics' essay is one of the best defenses of Darwin's theory I've ever read, even today. Huxley goes beyond just trying to prove the validity of the theory of evolution, and anticipates and rebuts many of the more pernicious interpretations of Darwin's discovery made by people already trying to solidify their own case for ethnic and racial superiority. As Darwin himself shrank from the controversy that his theory inevitably brought, it was Huxley who got his hands dirty defending the new scientific outlook and trying to reach a wider audience. There's plenty to disagree with in his work, but it's worth reading as one of the few really beautiful early defenses of the Theory of Natural Selection.
August 6, 2018
This book consists of a brief introduction (supplied by the publisher, apparently - there is no authorship claimed) a preface by Mr. Huxley, two lectures, and a longish section of Notes appended to the first lecture, which also includes a Prolegomena that appears before the lecture itself. Huxley was certainly graced with a felicitous turn of phrase and excellent logical reasoning. However, this is not an easily accessible book for the 21st C reader - the English language has changed since the 19th C, and there are some references here and there that will remain obscure to most (unless a reader assiduously decides to research them on Google). I kept reading and despite probably not getting or understanding everything, because of a lack of context as to what exactly were the burning questions of the day in late 19th C English intellectual circles, I did get enough out of the book to make it worth it. So I would recommend it as a sort of source material, or glimpse into controversies of the era. Huxley was obviously quite gifted as an author, and it's also fun being exposed to obscure or possibly words that are not in use today, but must have been apt/appreciated in those days (100+ years ago) since Huxley used them in these lectures. Finding out new words is always a treat, a fun discovery like unwrapping an antique candy and discovering it still is sweet.
Mr. Huxley was a famous 19th C thinker who was a great defender of Darwin & his theory of evolution. These lectures, which were given toward the end of Mr. Huxley's life, convey his notion that despite the Darwinian theory, ethics is at the heart of what makes us human, and that it could not be any other way in a social organism. The second lecture that appears in the book, which was given some years earlier that the first one, is a rebuttal of some critical essay or writing by a Mr. Lilly - evidently another intellectual of the era, who was trying to paint Mr. Huxley as a materialist - in those days evidently an insult. Huxley's retort was that he can't be categorized as one thing or another, he can't be labeled (as an idealist, materialist, communist, etc). He goes on to explain similar to the way he argued in the first lecture, why and how evolution is not incompatible with ethics for humankind.
Some comments in the first lecture (that is, the later lecture chronologically) if taken out of context are rather shocking, since he is theoretically stating ideas that were taken up by the eugenics movement later, and unfortunately, also picked up by Nazi murderers in "justifying" the mass killing of disabled individuals and members of various ethnic groups or nationalities they branded as "inferior" or indeed "diseased." We see a similar dynamic even today when Trump speaks of immigrants "infesting" the border area along the Rio Grande - falsely suggesting disfavored minorities are vermin, so as to convince the citizenry that it's "OK" to deport them (since they are "no good"). However, Huxley doesn't advocate such a system. He never advocates "eugenic" policies, and he makes it clear that such a system is impossible given that humans are not "herded" or "owned." Moreover, Huxley repeatedly states that the "survival of the fittest" isn't the key to humankind's survival - since humans aren't solitary beings and cannot survive without cooperating with their neighbor (instead of fighting them). However, I thought I should mention the above since it did strike me as the sort of comments about "treating humans like farm animals" that could be taken out of context and used to "justify" the sort of garbage the "eugenics" movement espoused.
This is an interesting volume that offers a glimpse into controversies of Victorian era Britain; the speeches are also extremely erudite and well-written. For example, there are tons of Latin quotes by Huxley in the Notes - for those who don't know Latin, it's best to simply skip over those sections. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a look at controversies of the era, which indeed also reference ongoing philosophical debates, in an older form of English, beautifully written, albeit not "snappy" or easy to read.
The quotes:
From the Introduction:
"Thomas Henry Huxley was born on May 4, 1825, in Ealing, England."
"... in 1846, Huxley was appointed assistant surgeon aboard the HMS Rattlesnake on its four-year scientific exploration of the southern seas around Australia. During that time, Huxley made extensive studies of the local marine life, which were later published to great acclaim. These marine studies, as well as Huxley's detailed investigations into comparative anatomy, paleontology, and evolution, confirmed forever his reputation as one of England's foremost scientists and controversial figures."
"Huxley met Charles Darwin in 1851... [and] became Darwin's principal defender against the anti-evolutionists..."
"[Huxley:] ..."... clericalism ... the deadly enemy of science.""
"Huxley denounced orthodoxy and biblical infallibility..."
"...Huxley espoused a healthy agnosticism concerning the supernatural."
"A tireless popularizer of science as well as a specialist, Huxley served from 1870 to 1872 on the first London school board, and did much to promote educational techniques and the study of biology. ... Huxley died on June 29, 1895..."
From the Preface:
"Unless the arguments set forth in the Prolegomena, in the simplest language at my command, have some flaw which I am unable to discern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as great as it is plain, the recognition of which is fundamental for the ethical philosopher. We cannot do without our inheritance from the forefathers who were the puppets of the cosmic process [that is, survival of the fittest]; the society which renounces it must be destroyed from without. Still less can we do with too much of it; the society in which it dominates must be destroyed from within."
From the Prolegomena of the Lecture "Evolution and Ethics" [1894]:
"Compared with the long past of this humble plant [Amarella Gentians], all the history of civilized men is but an episode."
"That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions."
"The faith which is born of knowledge, finds its object in an eternal order, bringing forth ceaseless change, through endless time, in endless space... "
"In order to attain his ends, the administrator would have to avail himself of the courage, industry, and co-operative intelligence of the settlers; and it is plain that the interest of the community would be best served by increasing the proportion of persons who possess such qualities, and diminishing that of persons devoid of them."
"...this logical ideal of evolutionary regimentation -- this pigeon-fanciers' polity - is unattainable."
"...human society is kept together by bonds of such a singular character, that the attempt to perfect society after his fashion would run serious risk of loosening them."
"...societies...have...arisen out of the advantage of cooperation in the struggle for existence..."
"...the greatest restrainer of the anti-social tendencies of men is fear, not of the law, but of the opinion of their fellows."
"We come to think in the acquired dialect of morals."
"...the...interests of society...should be in the hands of those who are endowed with the largest share of energy, of industry, of intellectual capacity, of tenacity of purpose, while they are not devoid of sympathetic humanity... But the process...has no real resemblance ... to the artificial selection of the horticulturist."
"That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of Nature, the Sate of Art of an organized polity; in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface of or planet."
From the lecture "Evolution and Ethics" [The Romanes Lecture, 1893]:
"If there is a generalization from the facts of human life which has the assent of thoughtful men in every age and country, it is that the violator of ethical rules constantly escapes the punishment which he deserves; that the wicked flourishes like a green bay tree, while the righteous begs his bread; that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children; that, in the realm of nature, ignorance is punished just as severely as willful wrong; and that thousands upon thousands of innocent beings suffer for the crime, or the unintentional trespass of one."
"In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahminical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man."
"Every sentient being is reaping as it has sown; if not in this life, then in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent existences of which it is the latest term."
"The Indian philosophers called character, as thus defined, 'karma.'"
"They were...strong believers in the theory...of the hereditary transmission of acquired characters."
"...what seem individual existences are mere temporary association of phenomena ..."
"...there is nothing permanent, no eternal substance either of mind or of matter."
"...all things, in the worlds without end of the cosmic phantasmagoria, are such stuff as dreams are made of."
"...Gautama declared extreme ascetic practices to be useless and indeed harmful."
"The appetites and the passions are...to be abolished...by steady cultivation of he mental habits which oppose them; by universal benevolence; by the return of good for evil; by humility; by abstinence from evil thought; in short, by total renunciation of that self-assertion which is the essence of the cosmic process."
"....Buddhism.... A system which knows no God in the western sense; which denies a soul to man; which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin; which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice; which bids men look to nothing but hie own efforts for salvation; which in its original purity, knew nothing of vows of obedience, abhorred intolerance, and never sought the aid of the secular arm....
"...why, among the endless possibilities open to omnipotence -- that of sinless, happy existence among the rest -- the actuality in which sin and misery abound should be that selected."
"It is [pure reason] ... which commands all men to love one another, to return good for evil, to regard one another as fellow-citizens of one great state."
"...cosmic nature is no school of virtue, but the headquarters of the enemy of ethical nature."
"Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best."
"...what we call goodness or virtue...is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence."
"It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence."
"...the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."
"The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men."
From the Notes:
"...although Gautama appears not to have meddled with the caste system, he refused to recognize any distinction, save that of perfection in the way of salvation, among his followers..."
"The Ionian intellectual movement does not stand alone. It is only one of several sporadic indications of he working o some powerful mental ferment over the whole of the area comprised between the Aegean and Northern Hindustan during the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries before our era. In these three hundred years, prophet-ism attained its apogee among the Semites of Palestine; Zoroaster-ism grew and became the creed of a conquering race, the Iranian Aryans; Buddhism rose and spread with marvelous rapidity among the Aryans of Hindustan ; while scientific naturalism took its rise among the Aryans of Ionia."
"The individual soul is an efflux of this world-spirit [Brahma, or the Logos] and returns to it."
"To the man with an ethical ideal, the world, including himself, will always seem full of evil."
"...of all gentile philosophies, Stoicism exhibits the highest ethical development, is animated by the most religious spirit, and has exerted the profoundest influence upon the moral and religious development not merely of the best men among the Romans, but among the moderns down to our own day."
"It is surprising that a writer of Dr. Lightfoot's stamp should speak of Stoicism as a philosophy of 'despair.""
"There is no note of despair int he stoical declaration that the perfected 'wise man' is the equal of Zeus in everything but the duration of his existence."
"Grant that the stoical postulate that there is no good except virtue; grant that the perfected wise man is altogether virtuous, in consequence of being guided in all things by the reason, which is an effluence of Zeus, and there seems no escape from the stoical conclusion."
From the lecture "Science and Morals" [1886]:
"...one of the arguments in favor of the use of physical science as an instrument of education which I have oftenest used is that, in my opinion, it exercises young minds in the appreciation of inductive evidence better than any other study. ...the physical sciences probably furnish the best and most easily appreciable illustrations of the one and indivisible mode of ascertaining truth by the use of reason, I....have never thought of suggesting that other branches of knowledge may not afford the same discipline; and ...have never given the slightest ground for the attribution to me of the ridiculous contention that there is nothing true outside the bounds of physical science."
"I have always entertained a strong suspicion that the sage who maintained that man is the measure of the universe was sadly in the wrong..."
"...the progress of science means the extension of the province of what we call matter and force, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity."
"Societies of men are fermenting masses, and, as beer has what the Germans call "Oberhefe" and "Unterhefe," so every society that has existed has had its scum at hte top and its dregs at the bottom..."
"...but, says Mr. Lilly, these [virtues of social duty, the sense of justice, and the obligation of mutual help] are all products of our Christian inheritance; when Christian dogmas vanish virtue will disappear too, and the ancestral ape and tiger will have full play. But there are a good many people who think it obvious that Christianity also inherited good deal from Paganism and from Judaism; and that, if the Stoics and the Jews revoked their bequest, the moral property of Christianity would realize very little."
"But in her garret, [Cinderella] ...has fairy visions out of the ken of the pair of shews who are quarreling downstairs. She sees the order which pervades the seeming disorder of the world; the great drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, but also with abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself before her eyes; and she learns, in her heart of hearts, the lesson, that the foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge. She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the adoption of this or that philosophical speculation, or this or that theological creed, but in a real and living belief in that fixed order of nature which sends social disorganization upon the track of immorality, as surely as it sends physical disease after physical trespasses. And of that firm and lively faith it is her high mission to be the priestess."
Mr. Huxley was a famous 19th C thinker who was a great defender of Darwin & his theory of evolution. These lectures, which were given toward the end of Mr. Huxley's life, convey his notion that despite the Darwinian theory, ethics is at the heart of what makes us human, and that it could not be any other way in a social organism. The second lecture that appears in the book, which was given some years earlier that the first one, is a rebuttal of some critical essay or writing by a Mr. Lilly - evidently another intellectual of the era, who was trying to paint Mr. Huxley as a materialist - in those days evidently an insult. Huxley's retort was that he can't be categorized as one thing or another, he can't be labeled (as an idealist, materialist, communist, etc). He goes on to explain similar to the way he argued in the first lecture, why and how evolution is not incompatible with ethics for humankind.
Some comments in the first lecture (that is, the later lecture chronologically) if taken out of context are rather shocking, since he is theoretically stating ideas that were taken up by the eugenics movement later, and unfortunately, also picked up by Nazi murderers in "justifying" the mass killing of disabled individuals and members of various ethnic groups or nationalities they branded as "inferior" or indeed "diseased." We see a similar dynamic even today when Trump speaks of immigrants "infesting" the border area along the Rio Grande - falsely suggesting disfavored minorities are vermin, so as to convince the citizenry that it's "OK" to deport them (since they are "no good"). However, Huxley doesn't advocate such a system. He never advocates "eugenic" policies, and he makes it clear that such a system is impossible given that humans are not "herded" or "owned." Moreover, Huxley repeatedly states that the "survival of the fittest" isn't the key to humankind's survival - since humans aren't solitary beings and cannot survive without cooperating with their neighbor (instead of fighting them). However, I thought I should mention the above since it did strike me as the sort of comments about "treating humans like farm animals" that could be taken out of context and used to "justify" the sort of garbage the "eugenics" movement espoused.
This is an interesting volume that offers a glimpse into controversies of Victorian era Britain; the speeches are also extremely erudite and well-written. For example, there are tons of Latin quotes by Huxley in the Notes - for those who don't know Latin, it's best to simply skip over those sections. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a look at controversies of the era, which indeed also reference ongoing philosophical debates, in an older form of English, beautifully written, albeit not "snappy" or easy to read.
The quotes:
From the Introduction:
"Thomas Henry Huxley was born on May 4, 1825, in Ealing, England."
"... in 1846, Huxley was appointed assistant surgeon aboard the HMS Rattlesnake on its four-year scientific exploration of the southern seas around Australia. During that time, Huxley made extensive studies of the local marine life, which were later published to great acclaim. These marine studies, as well as Huxley's detailed investigations into comparative anatomy, paleontology, and evolution, confirmed forever his reputation as one of England's foremost scientists and controversial figures."
"Huxley met Charles Darwin in 1851... [and] became Darwin's principal defender against the anti-evolutionists..."
"[Huxley:] ..."... clericalism ... the deadly enemy of science.""
"Huxley denounced orthodoxy and biblical infallibility..."
"...Huxley espoused a healthy agnosticism concerning the supernatural."
"A tireless popularizer of science as well as a specialist, Huxley served from 1870 to 1872 on the first London school board, and did much to promote educational techniques and the study of biology. ... Huxley died on June 29, 1895..."
From the Preface:
"Unless the arguments set forth in the Prolegomena, in the simplest language at my command, have some flaw which I am unable to discern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as great as it is plain, the recognition of which is fundamental for the ethical philosopher. We cannot do without our inheritance from the forefathers who were the puppets of the cosmic process [that is, survival of the fittest]; the society which renounces it must be destroyed from without. Still less can we do with too much of it; the society in which it dominates must be destroyed from within."
From the Prolegomena of the Lecture "Evolution and Ethics" [1894]:
"Compared with the long past of this humble plant [Amarella Gentians], all the history of civilized men is but an episode."
"That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions."
"The faith which is born of knowledge, finds its object in an eternal order, bringing forth ceaseless change, through endless time, in endless space... "
"In order to attain his ends, the administrator would have to avail himself of the courage, industry, and co-operative intelligence of the settlers; and it is plain that the interest of the community would be best served by increasing the proportion of persons who possess such qualities, and diminishing that of persons devoid of them."
"...this logical ideal of evolutionary regimentation -- this pigeon-fanciers' polity - is unattainable."
"...human society is kept together by bonds of such a singular character, that the attempt to perfect society after his fashion would run serious risk of loosening them."
"...societies...have...arisen out of the advantage of cooperation in the struggle for existence..."
"...the greatest restrainer of the anti-social tendencies of men is fear, not of the law, but of the opinion of their fellows."
"We come to think in the acquired dialect of morals."
"...the...interests of society...should be in the hands of those who are endowed with the largest share of energy, of industry, of intellectual capacity, of tenacity of purpose, while they are not devoid of sympathetic humanity... But the process...has no real resemblance ... to the artificial selection of the horticulturist."
"That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of Nature, the Sate of Art of an organized polity; in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface of or planet."
From the lecture "Evolution and Ethics" [The Romanes Lecture, 1893]:
"If there is a generalization from the facts of human life which has the assent of thoughtful men in every age and country, it is that the violator of ethical rules constantly escapes the punishment which he deserves; that the wicked flourishes like a green bay tree, while the righteous begs his bread; that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children; that, in the realm of nature, ignorance is punished just as severely as willful wrong; and that thousands upon thousands of innocent beings suffer for the crime, or the unintentional trespass of one."
"In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahminical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man."
"Every sentient being is reaping as it has sown; if not in this life, then in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent existences of which it is the latest term."
"The Indian philosophers called character, as thus defined, 'karma.'"
"They were...strong believers in the theory...of the hereditary transmission of acquired characters."
"...what seem individual existences are mere temporary association of phenomena ..."
"...there is nothing permanent, no eternal substance either of mind or of matter."
"...all things, in the worlds without end of the cosmic phantasmagoria, are such stuff as dreams are made of."
"...Gautama declared extreme ascetic practices to be useless and indeed harmful."
"The appetites and the passions are...to be abolished...by steady cultivation of he mental habits which oppose them; by universal benevolence; by the return of good for evil; by humility; by abstinence from evil thought; in short, by total renunciation of that self-assertion which is the essence of the cosmic process."
"....Buddhism.... A system which knows no God in the western sense; which denies a soul to man; which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin; which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice; which bids men look to nothing but hie own efforts for salvation; which in its original purity, knew nothing of vows of obedience, abhorred intolerance, and never sought the aid of the secular arm....
"...why, among the endless possibilities open to omnipotence -- that of sinless, happy existence among the rest -- the actuality in which sin and misery abound should be that selected."
"It is [pure reason] ... which commands all men to love one another, to return good for evil, to regard one another as fellow-citizens of one great state."
"...cosmic nature is no school of virtue, but the headquarters of the enemy of ethical nature."
"Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best."
"...what we call goodness or virtue...is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence."
"It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence."
"...the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."
"The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men."
From the Notes:
"...although Gautama appears not to have meddled with the caste system, he refused to recognize any distinction, save that of perfection in the way of salvation, among his followers..."
"The Ionian intellectual movement does not stand alone. It is only one of several sporadic indications of he working o some powerful mental ferment over the whole of the area comprised between the Aegean and Northern Hindustan during the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries before our era. In these three hundred years, prophet-ism attained its apogee among the Semites of Palestine; Zoroaster-ism grew and became the creed of a conquering race, the Iranian Aryans; Buddhism rose and spread with marvelous rapidity among the Aryans of Hindustan ; while scientific naturalism took its rise among the Aryans of Ionia."
"The individual soul is an efflux of this world-spirit [Brahma, or the Logos] and returns to it."
"To the man with an ethical ideal, the world, including himself, will always seem full of evil."
"...of all gentile philosophies, Stoicism exhibits the highest ethical development, is animated by the most religious spirit, and has exerted the profoundest influence upon the moral and religious development not merely of the best men among the Romans, but among the moderns down to our own day."
"It is surprising that a writer of Dr. Lightfoot's stamp should speak of Stoicism as a philosophy of 'despair.""
"There is no note of despair int he stoical declaration that the perfected 'wise man' is the equal of Zeus in everything but the duration of his existence."
"Grant that the stoical postulate that there is no good except virtue; grant that the perfected wise man is altogether virtuous, in consequence of being guided in all things by the reason, which is an effluence of Zeus, and there seems no escape from the stoical conclusion."
From the lecture "Science and Morals" [1886]:
"...one of the arguments in favor of the use of physical science as an instrument of education which I have oftenest used is that, in my opinion, it exercises young minds in the appreciation of inductive evidence better than any other study. ...the physical sciences probably furnish the best and most easily appreciable illustrations of the one and indivisible mode of ascertaining truth by the use of reason, I....have never thought of suggesting that other branches of knowledge may not afford the same discipline; and ...have never given the slightest ground for the attribution to me of the ridiculous contention that there is nothing true outside the bounds of physical science."
"I have always entertained a strong suspicion that the sage who maintained that man is the measure of the universe was sadly in the wrong..."
"...the progress of science means the extension of the province of what we call matter and force, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity."
"Societies of men are fermenting masses, and, as beer has what the Germans call "Oberhefe" and "Unterhefe," so every society that has existed has had its scum at hte top and its dregs at the bottom..."
"...but, says Mr. Lilly, these [virtues of social duty, the sense of justice, and the obligation of mutual help] are all products of our Christian inheritance; when Christian dogmas vanish virtue will disappear too, and the ancestral ape and tiger will have full play. But there are a good many people who think it obvious that Christianity also inherited good deal from Paganism and from Judaism; and that, if the Stoics and the Jews revoked their bequest, the moral property of Christianity would realize very little."
"But in her garret, [Cinderella] ...has fairy visions out of the ken of the pair of shews who are quarreling downstairs. She sees the order which pervades the seeming disorder of the world; the great drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, but also with abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself before her eyes; and she learns, in her heart of hearts, the lesson, that the foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge. She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the adoption of this or that philosophical speculation, or this or that theological creed, but in a real and living belief in that fixed order of nature which sends social disorganization upon the track of immorality, as surely as it sends physical disease after physical trespasses. And of that firm and lively faith it is her high mission to be the priestess."
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May 16, 2022so laughable to read nowadays, but it was a big hit back then … interesting.
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