Abstract

Thomas Huxley and the Victorian Mind

This article focuses on Thomas Henry Huxley, a typical example of the greatness and the limitations of the Victorian mind. To understand Huxley is to understand in a large measure the relation of his generation to modern thought. Huxley's great contribution was his absolutely uncompromising insistence upon the value of all truth. Huxley spoke for the leaders of the intellectual movement of his time but he never transcended its limitations. Hoping and believing that science and rationalism would not fundamentally modify either the social or ethical system in which he had been brought up, he never dreamed of the development which were impending. His attempt to consider the relationship between evolution and morality was singularly important.