Thomas Huxley
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley PC PRS FLSwas an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth4 May 1825
strong intelligent men
I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.
strong sex women
Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that many women are much better endowed in all these respects than many men, and I am at a loss to understand on what grounds of justice or public policy a career which is open to the weakest and most foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of vigor and capacity.
duty east hunger learn mental order satisfy unable wind
Learn what is true, in order to do what is right, is the summing up of the whole duty of man, for all who are unable to satisfy their mental hunger with the east wind of authority.
medicine woes
The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.
truth lying science
Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
inspiring freedom men
It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
harmful held truths
The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
begin fate
It is the customary fate of new truths, to begin as heresies, and to end as superstitions.
beautiful great hypothesis science tragedy ugly
The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
giving doubt unqualified
Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this first great commandment of science consecrated doubt.
truth ideas may
To say that an idea is necessary is simply to affirm that we cannot conceive the contrary; and the fact that we cannot conceive the contrary of any belief may be a presumption, but is certainly no proof, of its truth.
life-is-too-short slaying oneself
Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.
savages ghost without-god
There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts.
hard-work hands details
From the dawn of exact knowledge to the present day, observation, experiment, and speculation have gone hand in hand; and, whenever science has halted or strayed from the right path, it has been, either because its votaries have been content with mere unverified or unverifiable speculation (and this is the commonest case, because observation and experiment are hard work, while speculation is amusing); or it has been, because the accumulation of details of observation has for a time excluded speculation.