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T.H. Huxley's Hideous Revolution in Science T.H. Huxley’s Hideous Revolution In Science by Paul Glumaz Introduction source of his concept of “natural selection.” June 4—A hideous revolution took place in the sci- Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was a British East ences and in our culture during the latter part of the India Company economist, and a professor at Hailey- Nineteenth Century, which had the aim of remaking the bury College, the British East India Company’s school self-conception of the human species from that of a in London. Malthus’s Essay on Population popularized cognitive and creative being made in the image of the the ideas of an earlier Venetian economist, Gianmaria Creator, to that of an instinct-driven ape-like creature. Ortes. This hideous cultural and scientific revolution has been Malthus and Ortes asserted that population always so successful, that while we live in a world of poten- increases at a greater rate than the material means to tially unlimited scientific progress, our descent into a sustain that population. Darwin, in turn, used this tenet totally bestial view of man has created both an inability to claim that this population pressure, of more individu- to realize this potential, and with it an existential crisis als being born than can survive within any species of for the human race. plant or animal, is the driver which causes nature to This hideous revolution was instigated and carried select out the “fittest.” This process of selection of the out by a core group of individuals who took over the “fittest,” is the reason that some traits survive in a spe- world’s scientific establish- cies, while others do not. This ments, first in Great Britain, idea of the “fittest” governs and then later the rest of the the outcome of the variability world. within a given species, and The principal organizer, the creation of new species, minister of propaganda, and or “evolution.” subsequent “pope” of this These “fittest” concepts group was Thomas H. Huxley that were developed in biol- (1825-1895). ogy by Charles Darwin to ex- The group based this rev- plain “natural selection,” olution on the work of Charles were then extended to the Darwin (1809-1882), and general scientific, social, eco- used his idea of “natural se- nomic, and cultural realms by lection,” to create a Thomas Huxley and his “religious”-like belief-sys- group. An associate of tem to explain “evolution,” Darwin and Huxley, Herbert based on competition, or the Spencer (1820-1903), ap- “struggle for survival” of the plied Darwinian “survival of fittest. This belief-system was the fittest” in the social and then extended to all areas of economic realms. It was culture, science, and religion. Spencer who developed the We call this revolution concept of “Social Darwin- “Malthusian,” because ism.” In the economic realm, Charles Darwin credited Thomas H. Huxley, depicted in an etching by Leopold the Darwinian view was used Thomas Malthus as the Flameng, 1885. to justify “free trade” ideol- 18 100 Years of Stupidity EIR June 12, 2015 ogy, and the brutal exploitation of subject populations. Although Huxley experienced a harsh and impover- This included justifying the deliberately-induced fam- ished early life, he was inducted into the most presti- ines imposed on colonies such as India and Ireland. gious scientific association in Great Britain, the British Later these Darwinian notions become the basis of Royal Society, at the age of twenty-five. This remark- the eugenics movement, that culminated with Adolf able change of fortune, in a society of rigid class barri- Hitler’s racial-hygiene approach to the slave labor ex- ers based on birth, attests that Huxley was supported by ploitation and mass murder of undesirables and captive powerful patrons. populations. By the time Thomas Huxley was seventeen years of age, he had developed a lacerating, scornful, and sar- Eliminate Plato and the ‘Augustans’ castic wit, accompanied by a deep pessimism about the At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, with the human condition. Unlike his well-educated peers, success of the American Revolution Huxley had only two years of and its implications, there was a formal grammar school education. profound optimism about what hu- He was apprenticed at age thirteen, manity could discover and develop. and again at fifteen, to two different On the continent of Europe and in surgeons. While his age-cohort at- the new American republic, there tended Oxford or Cambridge, was an explosion of scientific inves- Huxley attended to the most im- tigation and invention, accompa- poverished, who were dying of ty- nied by a growing interest in these phoid, venereal disease, malnutri- matters by the general population. tion, and alcoholism in the worst of At the same time, a global pri- London’s slums. Later, Huxley at- vate empire had emerged around tended medical school with funds the British East India Company, borrowed from his family, showing that had dominance over trade and great promise and winning prizes finance, based on colonies, planta- in Anatomy. However, his poverty tions, and slave labor. This empire prevented him from finishing his was threatened by the implications education to become a licensed of the growth of scientific progress, Physician. and its effects on their global system In early life, Huxley had devel- of slavery. It feared the emergence oped superb drawing skills, which of nation state-republics as vehicles Vatican Museum were useful for making accurate for expanding scientific progress. Huxley’s real enemy: Plato drawings from microscopic obser- This progress would give na- vations. This skill enabled him to tions the economic power to resist the empire. But most join the British Navy, as a surgeon’s assistant on the of all, the spirit of progress itself would ennoble the research vessel H.M.S. Rattlesnake. His work on draw- people, and make them unwilling to accept subservi- ing newly-discovered sea-organisms off the coast of ence to any system of tyranny. Australia, as part of the four-year expedition, placed How does an empire deal with this, if their leading Huxley in the elite of the emerging discipline of Com- families and their members are at best amateurs in sci- parative Anatomy. ence? By the 1830s and 1840s there was a desperate Upon returning from this expedition, Huxley was sense in Great Britain, the seat of the empire, that all allowed to leave the navy, without penalty, long before would be lost if no counter could be found to the spirit his term of service ended. Soon after, he became a lead- of scientific optimism. So a new pseudo-science was ing member of Britain’s scientific establishment. created to crush this spirit. To accomplish this, they re- Leonard Huxley, Thomas Huxley’s son, later re- cruited a group of intellectuals from the lower classes counts in the Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley, that who had the drive and the discipline that the leading his father told him: “Plato was the founder of all the families and their members lacked. Thomas H. Huxley vague and unsound thinking that has burdened philoso- (1825-1875) was the leader of this group. phy, deserting facts for the possibilities and then, after June 12, 2015 EIR 100 Years of Stupidity 19 long and beautiful stories of what might be, telling you Cuvier argued that the anatomy of an organism of he doesn’t quite believe them himself. The movement any species is so intricately coordinated functionally of modern philosophy is back to the position of the old and structurally that no part of an organism could Ionian philosophers, but strengthened and clarified by change without changing all the other parts of the or- sound scientific ideas. The thread of philosophical de- ganism. Such a change of one part by itself would result velopment is not the lines usually laid down for it. It in the death of the organism. This is known as Cuvier’s goes from Democritus and the rest to the Epicureans “correlation of parts” principle. and then to the Stoics, who tried to reconcile it with While Cuvier focused on “correlation of parts,” popular theological ideas.” Geoffroy focused on malformations and vestiges in bi- Huxley was clear that the Empire’s real enemy was ological organisms. These two areas were viewed by Plato, and that the Empire needs society’s world view Geoffroy as windows into the inherent potential for to revert to the materialism of Democritus, and the em- change in an organism. piricism of Epicurus. Huxley later developed the term Geoffroy’s view differed from Cuvier. For Geof- “agnosticism” to represent a key aspect of this return to froy, the anatomy of an organism determined a poten- materialism and empiricism. tial range of function. This range of potential function Thomas Huxley’s deeper intention was a revolution could be greater or different than the actual functions of against any system of thought which had any trace of an organism. For Geoffroy, the development of an or- Socratic or Platonic thinking, whether in science, reli- ganism’s anatomy determined its functional possibili- gion, culture, or philosophy. ties. Since Geoffroy thought that all animals exhibit the By the 1870s, Huxley had achieved much of this same fundamental plan, or “archetype,” he saw no revolution. He was the leader of a small group of nine, reason why all organisms could not have evolved from who met monthly and called themselves the “X-Club.” a single progenitor. They took over the institutions of science and education From the studies of embryos of vertebrates, Geof- in Great Britain, and later the world. froy came up with three parts of his “unity of composi- tion” principle.
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