ABSTRACT

In his defence of Charles Darwin after the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859), T. H. Huxley argued that the theory of evolution by natural selection had to be judged by scientific standards alone. Religious bigotry could play no role in a rigorous evaluation of the theory’s validity. Huxley compared Darwin to Galileo, and others like him, who had suffered at the hands of over-zealous Christians. ‘Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth’, Huxley declared, ‘from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered and their good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters?’ (Huxley 1898: 52). As Darwin’s bulldog, Huxley insisted that the pursuit of truth demanded openness to new ideas. Huxley was just as critical of unbelievers who, in his eyes, impeded the quest for scientific truth. Though attracted to Auguste Comte’s stress on adopting a scientific approach to social problems, Huxley condemned the elaborate set of dogmas that formed the articles of the Religion of Humanity. He once remarked, famously, that ‘Comte’s philosophy, in practice might be compendiously described as Catholicism minus Christianity’ (Huxley 1870: 140). To Huxley, Positivism was more a repressive pseudo-religion than a strictly scientific body of knowledge.