Thomas Huxley, as he appeared in Vanity Fair.
—Thomas Huxley debating with a Bishop who didn't understand evolution [1]
| “ | If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence & yet who employs these faculties & that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape. | ” |
Thomas Huxley was a 19th Century naturalist, a friend of Charles Darwin and the inventor of the term Agnostic. Huxley believed in the Theory of Evolution by Natural selection and as a powerful debater helped promote evolution. Huxley as a young man went on a long voyage as an assistant surgeon in the HMS Rattlesnake and Huxley studied natural history during that voyage in a similar way to how Darwin learnt and developed his theories in the Beagle.
Quotes
"The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the pope."
"Rome is the one great spiritual organization which is able to resist - and must, as a matter of life and death - the progress of science and modern civilization."
Protestantism according to Huxley lacks "a trace of any desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters. From being a slave to the papacy, the intellect was to become the serf of the Bible."
Huxley was also critical of Islam "Infidel is a term of reproach which Christians and Mohammedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from them." ''