Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
could be expected to rule over all human affairs—including the activities
of a “preliminary” science like biology. Huxley was ready to admit that a
science of human nature would have such a hierarchical position, but he
was unwilling to relinquish this domain to powers outside the control of
the corps of professionalized laborers he was raising up. His personal reflec-
tions show that he in fact shared the positivists' evolutionary view of history
as something destined to “organize itself into a coherent system, embracing
human life and the world as one harmonious whole.”
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But to allow an out-
side movement to theorize this evolutionary mechanism would also allow it
to determine the place of the natural sciences within this emerging world
order—and that he could not countenance.
In 1861 he had already outlined a similar social evolutionary vision in
a lecture, “On the Study of Biology,” given on his home turf at the South
Kensington Museum. The social sciences in this historical scheme were
merely immature sciences that were destined to come of age only in the
future, when they would be “merged into natural history.”
In strict logic it may be hard to object to this course, because no one can
doubt that the rudiments and outlines of our own mental phenomena
are traceable among the lower animals. They have their economy and
their polity, and if, as is always admitted, the polity of bees and the com-
monwealth of wolves fall within the purview of the biologist proper, it
becomes hard to say why we should not include therein human affairs,
which in so many cases resemble those of the bees in zealous getting, and
are not without a certain parity in the proceedings of the wolves.
Clearly already aware of the threat posed by the positivists' alternative nar-
rative, Huxley went on to remind his audience that biologists have thus far
merely “allowed that province of biology to become autonomous” which
“has constituted itself under the head of Sociology.” But naturalism dictates
that the social sciences should ultimately fall within the compass of biology.
The social realm is the scientist's “kingdom which he has only voluntarily
forsaken” and would one day fully reclaim.
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P
Rotestantism
minus
c
hRistianity
In light of the universal claims that Huxley was making in speeches like
this, it is not surprising that the English positivists would have coveted
his blessing. This emerging figurehead of science shared their vision of a
future in which the scope of science would expand without ceasing until it
