WHO would have thought that usage of the word “biology” could lead to much heated, partisan debate? Some zoologists in the 19th-century world of Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s “Bulldog”, wanted the term limited to mankind. It was a time when scientific thinking was beginning to swing from Genesis towards genetics; the boundary between human beings and other animals was being investigated; the nature of animal consciousness was being examined; and questions such as “Has a frog a soul?” were being considered.

Thomas, the great champion of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, vowed “to smite all humbug, however big, to give a nobler tone to science”. He founded a select dining club for like-minded liberal evolutionists and scientific naturalists, determined to understand and explain the world without any reference to a divine Creator. It was he who coined the term “agnostic”. Nevertheless, he was unable to avoid some of the racist prejudices of his time.

Alison Bashford has researched in depth the extraordinary lives of the large Huxley family: a dynasty, from grandfather Thomas to grandson Julian and beyond (Aldous, Francis, and others). Her intriguing book is steeped in fascinating detail about family relationships and painful affairs, illnesses, debates, and scientific researches.

We follow the evolution of ideas from Thomas’s preference for the dissection of dead creatures (from jellyfish collected on his voyages to Southern seas, to human skulls) to Julian’s obsession with living animal behaviour (such as “The courtship habits of the great crested grebe”) and his work with the London Zoo. Despite the different focus, the grandson inherited an insatiable curiosity about the natural world, its age and mechanisms, and, in particular, about our human place in nature.

AlamyThomas Huxley with his grandson Julian in 1895

But he also inherited an affliction: melancholy was interspersed with periods of paralysing depression. This was an intellectual period, when human feelings, emotions, and the psyche were coming under closer scrutiny and investigation. Freud was all the rage. Reflecting on evolution and ideas of progress, Julian flirted briefly, perhaps inevitably, with eugenics and the possibility of improving the human stock by selective breeding.

Both Julian and Thomas Huxley were expert communicators, and this was their great gift to a wider audience. Julian’s Modern Synthesis, combining Darwinism with genetic theory, established his scientific credentials, while his wife, Juliette, warned him against slipping into journalism. Thank God he did so. His influential work The Science of Life (aided in its writing by H. G. Wells) captivated many minds. “The volumes had a huge effect on me as a boy,” wrote Sir David Attenborough.
 

The Revd Adam Ford is a former Chaplain of St Paul’s School for Girls.

An Intimate History of Evolution: The story of the Huxley family
Alison Bashford
Allen Lane £30
(978-0-241-43432-1)
Church Times Bookshop £27