HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY. — Naturalist and philosopher, b. 4 May 1825 at Ealing, d. 29 June 1885 at Eastbourne. He received no regular schooling but early read Hamilton’s Logic and the works of Carlyle; he studied medicine. As a naturalist he first followed Owen and Oken; later, after Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859), he adhered, with reservations, to Darwin’s system and did not accept Spencer’s doctrine of evolution, which he personally rejected.
He regarded embryology and paleontology as the foundations of organic evolution, but insisted on strict adherence to empirical evidence.
H. adhered to positivism and agnosticism; indeed, the word “agnosticism” appears to have been coined by him. Knowledge is confined to the facts of our experience; consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon (v.) of physiological processes, an “automatic accompaniment.” Yet if everything is to be interpreted in terms of matter and force, these are given only as objective contents of consciousness. H. did not resolve the contradiction between a consciousness that is merely an effect and a matter that is merely a symbol. Similarly, while he wished to uphold a living faith in the order of nature, he proclaimed agnosticism regarding the relation between cosmic order and moral order.
Principal works: Man’s Place in Nature (1864); Hume (1879); Science and Culture (1882); Evolution and Ethics (1893).