Frasi di Thomas Henry Huxley

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Origine: Citato in James Dewey Watson, In principio fu il Verbo o il Dna? http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Documento/2005/09_Settembre/28/index.shtml, Corriere della Sera, 2 gennaio 2006.

Origine: Citato in Augusto Camera e Renato Fabietti, Corso di storia.

Origine: Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the comparison of their modifications in the ape series leads to one and the same result—that the structural differences which separate Man from the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the lower apes. (da Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, cap. 2, § 123 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Evidence_as_to_Man%27s_Place_in_Nature/Chapter_2#123)

Origine: Da On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and Its History; citato in Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson e Susan McCarthy, Quando gli elefanti piangono, traduzione di Libero Sosio, Marco Tropea Editore, Milano, 2010, p. 288. ISBN 978-88-558-0143-0

Origine: Citato in Mario Livio, Cantonate, Rizzoli, Milano, 2013, p. 123. ISBN 978-88-17-06748-5

Evolution and Ethics (1893)
Contesto: The history of civilization details the steps by which men have succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed: there lies within him a fund of energy, operating intelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe, that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic process. In virtue of his intelligence the dwarf bends the Titan to his will. In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmic process in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law and custom; in surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by the art of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians.... a right comprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencing its manifestations is only just dawning upon us. We do not yet see our way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion of false analogies and crude anticipations. But Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before they reached the stage at which their influence became an important factor in human affairs. Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal. Yet it seems to me irrational to doubt that, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution in the sphere of practice.<!--pp.83-84

Origine: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 72
Contesto: Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth—tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors.

1860s, A Liberal Education and Where to Find It (1868)
Contesto: The life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated — without haste, but without remorse.

"Address on University Education" (1876) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/Ad-U-Ed.html, delivered at the formal opening of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, September 12, 1876. Huxley, American Addresses (1877), p. 125. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey used the same words in a commencement address at the Holton-Arms School, Bethesda, Maryland, June 1967; reported in The Washington Post (June 11, 1967), p. K3
1870s
Contesto: I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?

Letter to Herbert Spencer (22 March 1886); this is often quoted with a variant spelling as: I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.
1880s
Origine: Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley - Volume 1

1860s, Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)
Contesto: Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.
Contesto: Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

"The Darwin Memorial" (1885) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/DarM.html
1880s

As quoted in Nature Vol. 149 (Jan-Jun) 1942 p. 291, and A Philosophy for Our Time (1954) by Bernard Mannes Baruch, p. 13
1890s

1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)

1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)

Origine: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.1 (1884 edition) http://books.google.com/books?id=1Z9DGVKfXuQC p. 28
Contesto: The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

Universities, Actual and Ideal (1874)
1870s

Origine: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 128

Collected Essays vol 6, viii; quoted in T. H. Huxley: Scientist, Humanist, and Educator (1950) by Cyril Bibby, p. 257
1890s

p, 125
Evolution and Ethics (1893)

"On The Natural Inequality of Men" (January 1890) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/NatIneq.html
1890s

Presidential Address at the British Association, "Biogenesis and abiogenesis" (1870) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/B-Ab.html; later published in Collected Essays, Vol. 8, p. 229
1870s

1860s, On a Piece of Chalk (1868)

"On The Natural Inequality of Men" (January 1890)
1890s

Origine: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 129

Autobiography (1890) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE1/AutoB.html
1890s

1860s, A Liberal Education and Where to Find It (1868)

Origine: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 83

One of a series of exchanges when Richard Owen repeated generally repudiated claims about the Gorilla brain in a Royal Institution lecture. Athenaeum (13 April 1861) p. 498; Browne Vol 2, p. 159
1860s

1860s, A Liberal Education and Where to Find It (1868)

1860s, Criticisms on "The Origin of the Species" (1864)

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865)
1860s