Thomas Huxley 1825 – 1895

Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist, philosopher of science, and public lecturer, famous in his lifetime as Darwin's bulldog for his vigorous defense of evolutionary theory after the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859. Largely self-taught, he rose from the British Navy's medical service to become the leading English popularizer of natural science and a fellow and President of the Royal Society. He coined the term agnosticism in 1869 to name his methodological refusal to assert claims that lacked sufficient evidence. His Evolution and Ethics, the Romanes Lecture of 1893, set out a celebrated argument that ethical progress works against, not with, the cosmic process.