The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley

Book excerpt: Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) was one of the intellectual giants of Victorian England. A surgeon by training, he became the principal exponent of Darwinism and popularizer of "scientific naturalism." Huxley was a prolific essayist, and his writings put him at the center of intellectual debate in England during the later half of the nineteenth century. The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley fills a very real and pressing chasm in history of science books, bringing together almost all of Huxley's major nontechnical prose, including Man's Place in Nature and both "Evolution in Ethics" and its "Prolegomena."