T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) was not only an active protagonist in
the religious and scientific upheaval that followed the publication
of Darwin's theory of evolution but also a harbinger of the
sociobiological debates about the implications of evolution that
are now going on. His seminal lecture Evolution and Ethics,
reprinted here with its introductory Prolegomena, argues that the
human psyche is at war with itself, that humans are alienated in a
cosmos that has no special reference to their needs, and that moral
societies are of necessity in conflict with the natural conditions
of their existence. Seen in the light of current understanding of
the mechanisms of evolution, these claims remain as controversial
today as they were when Huxley proposed them. In this volume George
Williams, one of the best-known evolutionary biologists of our
time, asserts that recent biological ideas and data justify a more
extreme condemnation of the "cosmic process" than Huxley advocated
and more extreme denial that the forces that got us here are
capable of maintaining a viable world. James Paradis, an expert in
Victorian studies, has written an introduction that sets the
celebrated lecture in the context of cultural history, revealing it
to be an impressive synthesis of Victorian thinking, as well as a
challenge to eighteenth-century assumptions about the harmony of of
nature. With Huxley's lecture as a focal point, the three parts of
this book unite philosophy and science in a shared quest that
recalls their common origins as systems of knowledge.
Originally published in 1989.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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