Thomas Henry Huxley was one of the few men in all history who successfully combined the careers of a man of letters and a man of science. Although he was trained as a physician, and made his living as a teacher of science, Huxley became one of the most influential essayists of nineteenth-century England. He is also remembered for being the grandfather of Aldous Huxley, the novelist, and Julian Huxley, the biologist.
Over the course of his career, Huxley wrote on a wide variety of subjects -- education, politics, theology, art and morality. As one of the few science-oriented essayists of his time, Huxley addressed himself to questions that most of his contemporaries ignored, with the result he is now recognized as one of Victorian England’s most original thinkers.
This book chronicles Huxley’s life and evaluates his achievements as a writer and as a thinker. It covers the significant early influences in his life -- his service as a young man in the Royal Navy, where he took part in one of the memorable scientific voyages of the nineteenth century, the cruise of the Rattlesnake to the Great Barrier Reef; his literary apprenticeship served as a writer of scientific articles and his early friendship with Charles Darwin. One of the primary focuses of this book is an analysis of Huxley’s attitude toward the relationship of the sciences and the humanities, a question we recognize to be of crucial importance today.