"Man's Place in Nature" (1863)
The anatomist Thomas Huxley (1822 - 1895)
first established the homology between structures of the Great
Apes and humans. Note that the left-to-right series anticipates
one of persistent memes of evolution, that evolution proceeds in
a linear fashion among living forms. Note also that Huxley
places the Gorilla between chimps and humans, on the theory that
the larger gorilla is the intermediate form. We know now that
chimps and humans are each others closest relatives.
Huxley was Darwin's greatest public advocate, and declared himself "Darwin's Bulldog": he relished the public debate that Darwin himself shunned. His most celebrated public encounter was with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at the British Association Meetings of 1860. When the Bishop asked sarcastically whether Huxley traced his ancestry to an ape on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's, Huxley rose and replied that, if asked ...
"If I would rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather, or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence, and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion - I unquestionably affirm my preference for the Ape."
Huxley was Darwin's greatest public advocate, and declared himself "Darwin's Bulldog": he relished the public debate that Darwin himself shunned. His most celebrated public encounter was with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at the British Association Meetings of 1860. When the Bishop asked sarcastically whether Huxley traced his ancestry to an ape on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's, Huxley rose and replied that, if asked ...
"If I would rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather, or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence, and yet who employs those faculties for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion - I unquestionably affirm my preference for the Ape."
Text material
© 2021 by Steven M. Carr