Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)

huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley, the distinguished zoologist and advocate of
Darwinism, made several incursions into philosophy. From his youth he
had studied its problems unsystematically; he had a way of going
straight to the point in any discussion; and, judged by a literary
standard, he was a great master of expository and argumentative prose.
Apart from his special work in science, he had an important influence
upon English thought through his numerous addresses and essays on the
topics of science, philosophy, religion, and politics. Among the most
important of his papers relevant here are those entitled 'The Physical
Basis of Life' (1868), and 'On the Hypothesis that Animals are
Automata' (1874), along with a monograph on Hume (1879) and the
Romanes lecture Ethics and Evolution (1893). Huxley is credited with
the invention of the term 'agnosticism' to describe his philosophical
position: it expresses his attitude towards certain traditional
questions without giving any clear delimitation of the frontiers of
the knowable. He regards consciousness as a collateral effect of
certain physical causes, and only an effect–never also a cause. But,
on the other hand, he holds that matter is only a symbol, and that all
physical phenomena can be analyzed into states of consciousness. This
leaves mental facts in the peculiar position of being collateral
effects of something that, after all, is only a symbol for a mental
fact; and the contradiction is left without remark.

His contributions to ethics are still more remarkable. In a paper
entitled 'Science and Morals' (1888), he concluded that the safety of
morality lay "in a real and living belief in that fixed order of
nature which sends social disorganization on the track of immorality."
His Romanes lecture reveals a different tone. In it the moral order is
contrasted with the cosmic order; evolution shows constant struggle;
instead of looking to it for moral guidance, he "repudiates the
gladiatorial theory of existence." He saw that the facts of historical
process did not constitute validity for moral conduct; and his plain
language compelled other to see the same truth. But he exaggerated the
opposition between them and did not leave room for the influence of
moral ideas as a factor in the historical process.

Another man of science, William Kingdon Clifford, professor of
mathematics in London, dealt in occasional essays with some central
points in the theory of knowledge, ethics, and religion. In these
essays he aimed at an interpretation of life in the light of the new
science. There was insight as well as courage in all he wrote, and it
was conveyed in a brilliant style. But his work was cut short by his
early death in 1879, and his contributions to philosophy remain
suggestions only.