Ive had many people online ask why I champion Thomas Huxley - and I bring out quotes and concepts and I encourage them to read for themselves. Im convinced that the most mediocre mind can see this man was a most rare type of genius. Perhaps the worlds most accomplished know-it-all himself (well versed in so many subjects that history does not know the depths of his understanding) Huxley turned the tables and flipped the chairs on anyone who dared to mislead and misinform the public! By declaring himself an anti-know-it-all (A-Gnostic) he set logical and reasoned methodology and boundaries that exposed the bias and propaganda espoused by leaders and supporters found in theology, anti-theology, government and academia. We all just watched Bill Nye debate with Ken Ham, and the result was a general disappointment for everyone involved. When Huxley debated his Ken Ham (Gladstone), his opponent retired from public life, so crushed he didnt dare take the stage again in fear that others would simply quote Huxleys unanswerable words. Im not Huxleys the only champion, (I may infact be the worst) there is a long list - below is an excerpt from one of the best. ~ TJ Bradders --------------------------------------------------- H.L. Mencken May 4, 1925 ...All of us owe a vast debt to Huxley, especially all of us of English speech, for it was he, more than any other man, who worked that great change in human thought which marked the Nineteenth Century. All his life long he flung himself upon authority — when it was stupid, ignorant and tyrannical. He attacked it with every weapon in his rich arsenal — wit, scorn, and above all, superior knowledge. To it he opposed a single thing: the truth as it could be discovered and established — the plain truth that sets men free. It seems simple enough today, but it was not so simple when Huxley began. For years he was the target of assaults of almost unbelievable ferocity and malignancy. Every ecclesiastic in Christendom took a hack at him; he was denounced as the common enemy of God and man. Darwin, a mild fellow, threw The Origin of Species into the ring and then retired from the scene. It was Huxley who bore the brunt of the ensuing theological assault, and it was Huxley who finally beat it down, and forced the holy clerks to turn tail. It always amuses me today to read of intellectual clergymen championing what they call Modernism. Their predecessors of but two generations ago were unanimously engaged in trying to damn the first Modernist to hell. The row was over Darwinism, but before it ended Darwinism was almost forgotten. What Huxley fought for was something far greater: the right of civilized men to think freely and speak freely, without asking leave of authority, clerical or lay. How new that right is! And yet how firmly held! Today it would be hard to imagine living without it. No man of self-respect, when he has a thought to utter, pauses to wonder what the bishops will have to say about it. The views of bishops are simply ignored. Yet only sixty years ago they were still so powerful that they gave Huxley the battle of his life. IV He beat them — beat them badly, and all their champions with them. His debate with Gladstone remains the greatest intellectual combat of modern times. Gladstone had at him with all the arts of the mob orator — and to them was added the passionate sincerity of a genuinely religious man. Huxley won hands down. Defeat became a rout.Gladstone retired from the field completely undone, with his cause ruined forever. You will find the debate, in full, in the two volumes, Science and Hebrew Tradition and Science and Christian Tradition. Huxleys contribution to it constitutes one of the glories of the Nineteenth Century. Far more than forty wars, far more than all the politicians of the century, far more even than the work of Darwin, it liberated the mind of modern man. For Huxley was not only an intellectual colossus; he was also a great artist; he knew how to be charming. No man has ever written more nearly perfect English prose. There is a magnificent clarity in it; its meaning is never obscure for an instant. And it is adorned with a various and never-failing grace. It never struts like the prose of Macaulay; it never simpers like Paters. It is simple, precise, unpretentious — and yet there is fine music in every line of it. The effects it achieves are truly overwhelming. One cannot read it without succumbing to it. Again I point to the two volumes of the debate with Gladstone. If they dont thrill you, then go back to the sporting page.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:36:13 +0000
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