Thomas Henry Huxley
Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664637666
Table of Contents
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PALÆONTOLOGY
THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE
THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY
SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM
THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS
THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE
THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE
ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S SCIENTIFIC BOOKS.
SOME VOLUMES OF "NATURE" SERIES.
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S BOOKS
ON BIOLOGY, ANATOMY, AND PHYSIOLOGY.
I am indebted to the Editors of the Nineteenth Century and of the Fortnightly Review for permission to reprint such of the following Essays as have appeared in the pages of those periodicals: and so large a proportion of the papers has been published in the Nineteenth Century that my acknowledgments are especially due to Mr. Knowles.
T. H. H.
May 4, 1892.
PROLOGUE
Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre à la science est d'y faire place nette avant d'y rien construire.—Cuvier.
Most of the Essays comprised in the present volume have been written during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which I hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which I believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the controversial tone which pervades them.
Of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, I think it may be said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or less of an evil. It is useful, when it attracts attention to topics which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. It is necessary, when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake. It is an evil, in so far as controversy