Thomas Henry Huxley
He coined the word 'agnostic': not claiming to know what cannot be known.
Life
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) was an English biologist and a great defender of Darwin, hence the nickname "Darwin's bulldog". He coined the word "agnostic" in 1869 to say that one should assert nothing that cannot be proved. In his lecture Evolution and Ethics (1893) he argues that moral progress runs against the struggle for existence that rules in nature. He also held that consciousness accompanies brain processes without causing them.
Main works
Shows through comparative anatomy how close humans are to the great apes.
Animals, and we with them, would be conscious automata: consciousness does not cause our acts.
Agnosticism is a method: follow reason as far as it goes, without claiming to know what is not demonstrated.
The ethical process of society runs against the cosmic process, that is, the struggle for existence.
In his own words
« Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. »
« In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. »
« We are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the only intelligible sense of that much-abused term — inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we like — but none the less parts of the great series of causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has been, and shall be — the sum of existence. »
« But it is none the less true that, since law and morals are restraints upon the struggle for existence between men in society, the ethical process is in opposition to the principle of the cosmic process, and tends to the suppression of the qualities best fitted for success in that struggle. »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe coined "agnostic" for himself: the existence of God can neither be asserted nor denied.
Huxley, "Agnosticism" (1889)
Knowledge rests on experience; he follows Hume in tracing ideas to sensation.
Huxley, Hume (1879)
The agnostic principle: do not claim as certain what cannot be shown by evidence.
Huxley, "Agnosticism" (1889)
Consciousness accompanies bodily states without causing them; animals, and we, are conscious automata.
Huxley, "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata" (1874)
Follow reason as far as it goes and accept only what evidence supports.
Huxley, "Agnosticism" (1889)