Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
figures in some realm of the new science, were concerned, as Ruth Barton
describes it, with the whole “infrastructure of research—that is with librar-
ies, journals, indexes to the literature, equipment, collection and publica-
tion of systematic data—and with the status and dignity of science.”
36
They
conspired to situate their own in the various presidencies of scientific societ-
ies and vital government committees that determined science's fate. None
from the applied sciences were included in the X-Club, and Huxley and
friends fought especially hard to ensure that the Royal Society would not
be “exploited by enterprising commercial gents who make their profit out of
the application of science.”
37
The technical professional class that was also
on the rise was trying to help itself by making applicability the criterion by
which patronage would be doled out, and this was merely a different version
of the same threat that Huxley had recognized in positivist social science.
Huxley could never dare to budge from the inflexible principle that
pure science must never take a secondary position behind the technical
knowledge that was driving industrialization, behind the supreme science
of sociology that the positivists sought to elevate, and certainly not in sub-
ordination to the traditions of classical education—an issue over which he
would cross swords with Matthew Arnold.
38
In spite of his private sympa-
thy for all of these enterprises and his willingness to let science feed upon
industrial wealth, no compromise of scientific independence could ever be
vouchsafed. The danger of scientific servitude was too well known to him
from the earliest stage of his career, from his fitful struggles for position
within a scientific establishment that had purchased its power in collusion
with nobles and Anglican elites.
Because of this, and in spite of obvious points in favor of the positivist posi-
tion, Huxley stuck to his policy of public denial with unwavering constancy,
upholding his claim that positivism was a scientific pretender and completely
unrelated to the movement he led. Such vociferous efforts of demarcation
freed him to advance similar ideas without putting himself in any danger of
creating an apparent alliance. Having fixed in the public consciousness the
understanding that his own version of scientific naturalism was the one true
basis of science, Huxley could advance scientism on his own terms.
This work of rhetorical demarcation began in earnest late in 1868 when
Huxley was invited by an Edinburgh clergyman to give a Sunday evening
address on a non-theological topic. The main purpose of this lecture, which
he entitled “The Physical Basis of Life,” was to declare victory for philo-
sophical naturalism in the arena of biology, and in doing so to envision
materialism's destined victories to come. In essence, in other words, he was
