Essays upon some Controverted Questions

A collection of lively and still-relevant essays by Thomas Huxley, 'Darwin's bulldog'.

Thomas Henry Huxley (Author)

9781108001557, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

640 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm, 0.93 kg

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) became known as 'Darwin's bulldog' because of his forceful and energetic support for Darwin's theory, most famously at the legendary British Association meeting in Oxford in 1860. In fact, Huxley had some reservations about aspects of the theory, especially the element of gradual, continuous progress, but in public he was unwavering in his allegiance, saying in a letter to Darwin 'As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite'. In his 1892 Essays upon Some Controverted Questions, Huxley collected some of his previously published writings, of which the titles alone give some flavour of his pugnacious stance in debate: 'The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature'; 'Science and pseudo-science'; 'Agnosticism and Christianity'. The passion for scientific truth which underlies everything he writes is well demonstrated in this lively and still-relevant collection.

Prologue
1. The rise and progress of palaeontology
2. The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature
3. Mr Gladstone and Genesis
4. The evolution of theology: an anthropological study
5. Science and morals
6. Scientific and pseudo-scientific realism
7. Science and pseudo-science
8. An episcopal trilogy
9. Agnosticism
10. The value of witness to the miraculous
11. Agnosticism: a rejoinder
12. Agnosticism and Christianity
13. The lights of the Church and the light of Science
14. The keepers of the herd of swine
15. Illustrations of Mr Gladstone's controversial methods
16. Hasisadra's adventure.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]