Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
lacked an adequate theoretical basis, and it has ever since made it attractive
for the scientific culture to remember Huxley as “Darwin's bulldog.”
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In the 1892 “Prologue to Controverted Questions,” Huxley denied that he
had embraced any “philosophy of evolution,” or, for that matter, “any theory
of the 'Origin of Species,' much as I value that which is known as the Dar-
winian theory.” He goes on to caution that while it is quite true that “the
doctrine of natural selection presupposes evolution,” it is “not true that evo-
lution necessarily implies natural selection.”
4
With Darwin now entombed
beneath the floor of Westminster Abbey, just a stone's throw from Newton's
great monument, Huxley could profess what Peter Bowler has called his
“pseudo-Darwinian” stance without having to follow up with an apologetic
missive to the elder scientist.
5
This cautious refrain still echoed in the 1893
preface to his
Darwiniana
,
the volume of his collected works devoted to the
Darwinian hypothesis. Here Huxley requests that readers “do me the justice
to admit that my zeal to secure fair play for Mr. Darwin, did not drive me
into the position of a mere advocate; and that while doing justice to the
greatness of the argument I did not fail to indicate its weak points.”
6
Huxley in fact had never minced words on this subject. He had always
acknowledged his skepticism regarding natural selection as a viable mecha-
nism of evolution. The scientific bases of these doubts, now thoroughly
chronicled in a volume by Sherrie Lyons, were rooted in his commitment
to pre-Darwinian notions of type and to his belief that the phenomenon of
saltation, or the sudden transformation of species, had to be presumed in
order to reconcile an evolutionary model to a very spotty fossil record.
7
Both
of these reservations can be detected even in the congratulatory letter that
Huxley sent to Darwin in 1859 after reading
Origin of Species.
This letter is
frequently cited by popularizers because it contains Huxley's oath that he
was “prepared to go to the stake” for Darwin's thesis, but it is only by being
taken out of context that this phrase could suggest wholesale approval. A
closer examination will show that Huxley's oath was a gesture designed
to offset his criticisms. The unswerving loyalty expressed in this sentence
applies only to the contents of “chapter IX and most parts of Chapters X,
XI, XII”—the sections of
Origin of Species
addressing the geological record
and the variation of living species. The chapters on natural selection, Hux-
ley then goes on to declare, represent the “one or two points” upon which
“I enter a
caveat
until I can see further into all sides of the question.” This
