The Huxleys: An Intimate History of Evolution

THE HUXLEYS: An Intimate History of Evolution by Alison Bashford. University of Chicago Press, 2022. 423 pages plus 60 pages of notes, 75 figures, index. Hardcover; 30. 00. ISBN: 9780226720111. *Alison Bashford is laureate professor in history and director of the Laureate Centre for History and Population at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She has held prior positions at the University of Cambridge and Harvard, and served as a trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich. Prior publications include a coauthored biography of Thomas Malthus; in 2021, she received the Dan David Prize for her contributions to the history of health and medicine. *The Huxleys represents an ambitious project: an intergenerational history of the Huxley family, 1825-1975, with major emphases on the biologists Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), hereafter, "Thomas"; and his grandson, Julian Sorell Huxley (1887-1975), hereafter, "Julian. " Other Huxleys are essential to the narrative, and these include Thomas's beloved wife, Henrietta Heathorn (1825-1914), and their son Leonard Huxley (1860-1933). Leonard and his wife Julia Arnold (1862-1908) were the progenitors of Julian and his acclaimed novelist brother, Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). Many other Huxley children and cousins populate the book. Julia Arnold, as daughter of Thomas Arnold and niece to Matthew Arnold, brought to the family a potent intellectual impetus of her own. Notable biologists who make appearances include, of course, Charles Darwin and Richard Owen; also Ernst Haeckel, J. B. S. Haldane, Hermann Muller, and Francis Galton. H. G. Wells figures prominently and, a revelation to this reviewer, also David Attenborough. *Rather than construct a single linear narrative, the author has split the history along topical themes. Each theme develops the narrative line and integrates it into the prior composite. The result is a multidimensional tapestry, brought to life by the characters themselves and by Bashford's wonderful prose. *Part I, "Genealogies, " presents an overview of the genealogy, social milieu, and family tragedies of the Huxley clan from its origins in poverty to its high social status. It begins with a chapter sketching the genealogy of the Huxley lineage, beginning with the parents of Thomas and Henrietta. Thankfully, a genealogical chart is provided. Thomas and Henrietta had eight children. Son Leonard and first wife Julia Arnold (died young, of breast cancer) had four and then Leonard with second wife Rosalind Bruce (1890-1994), another two. Among the latter was Andrew Fielding Huxley (1917-2012), half-brother to Aldous and Julian; Andrew would win a Nobel prize for his research on neurophysiology. *Chapter 2 provides an overview of the biological threads that would be woven into the thought of Thomas and Julian. Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel are both introduced as good friends of Thomas and Henrietta. Bashford concludes that Thomas at first accepted Darwinian evolution with certain qualifications, but that it was Haeckel's work which fully convinced him, as well as the data of paleontology. "It was only from 1868 that evolutionary concepts were directly applied by Huxley to his own research, and it was less Darwin than Haeckel's applications of Darwin's idea that finally convinced him. . . in 1866" (p. 65). The young Julian was tutored in developmental biology and rigorous materialism by Haeckel; both themes were incorporated into his zoological and popular writings. The discoveries of genetics during the 1890s-1930s period are presented well. Notably, Julian worked in both William Bateson's and Thomas Hunt Morgan's laboratories just prior to taking up his first real position at brand-new Rice University in Houston (1912). Julian shortly thereafter recruited Hermann Muller from Morgan's lab to Rice University. They formed a strong friendship which would later yield joint anti-Nazi and pro-eugenics tracts. *The third chapter details the trials and tragedies of the Huxley lineage. The family appears to have been predisposed to depression, which was particularly manifest in Thomas and Julian. Julian exacerbated his instability with protracted episodes of marital infidelity. He underwent hypnosis and Freudian psychoanalysis. "Julian's finely honed self-absorption plus his intelligence and conceptual sensibilities were made for Freud" (p 115). Later, he elected electroshock therapy, which left him unable to concentrate for periods of time. A devout familial commitment to reductionistic materialism, bequeathed by Thomas, left the family without spiritual resources to cope; this lacuna ironically became a trigger for a fascination for Julian with spiritualism late in life. *Part II, "Animals, " focuses on zoological achievements. Wonderful subject matter! One could wish for more, especially in view of the author's accessible prose. It details the insights provided by Thomas into such diverse organisms as cnidarians, crayfish, herring, and horses; by Julian into bird behavior; and by both into the biology and behavior of apes. Chapter 4, "Creatures of the Sea and Sky, " begins with an overview of Thomas's early research in marine biology. His expertise would earn him deserved positions on British governmental commissions charged with surveying its coastal biota and regulating fisheries. In 1854, Thomas would assume a professorship of comparative anatomy and paleontology at the Royal School of Mines. While there, he undertook signal studies of fossil vertebrates (an aspect of his life which unfortunately receives scant coverage in this book), including one of the first proposals that birds were simply feathered theropod dinosaurs. Julian initially studied ornithology and maintained a lifelong fascination for pied-billed grebes. However, during the late 1920s, he became sidetracked. H. G. Wells (a former student of Thomas), having completed his Outline of History (1920), persuaded Julian to collaborate on a sequel of sorts: an introduction to current biological knowledge. Their magisterial product, The Science of Life, was serialized and published in three volumes, 1929-1930. The effort was enormously successful, both in distribution and royalties. This marked a profound turning point in Julian's career, to science popularization. *Chapter 5, "Animal Politics, " details the involvement of the family, and particularly Julian, in conservation. The Science of Life catapulted Julian into the public eye, and he accepted the position of Secretary of the London Zoological Society, which ran the London Zoo. However, German bombing beginning in 1939 forced the relocation (or outright euthanasia) of the zoo's occupants. Huxley was given leave to come to America for a few months. This move resulted in his departure from the organization. Meanwhile, he became involved with many influential conservation groups. He was tapped as the first director-general of UNESCO, where, in 1948, he initiated the collaborative project that became the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). *"Of all orders of animals, primates were core Huxley business, their appreciation stretching from the wild to the captive, from the historical to the filmic" (p. 198). Chapter 6 focuses on primates, principally apes. Thomas was instrumental in applying Darwinian themes to the origin of humans, especially in his 1863 volume Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature. There were few fossils available for him to discuss, so his emphasis lay on the anatomy of contemporary monkeys and apes. Julian, in turn, became entranced with apes and particularly gorillas while with the London Zoo, and was in turn a tutor and promoter of the work of primate ethologists George Schaller and Jane Goodall. His collaborative work with the latter included publicity trips to East Africa to advocate for conservation of primates in the wild. *Part III, "Humans, " examines Thomas's and Julian's evolving perceptions of the role of humans in the history of life. Chapter 7 carries the story of the Huxley family's contributions to paleoanthropology forward, and the following chapter reviews the involvement of Thomas and then Julian in politics. Notably, Julian was a member of a select committee of geneticists, including Hermann Muller, J. B. S. Haldane, C. H. Waddington, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, who issued a (1939) manifesto controverting the overt racism of the Nazi regime and its purported biological basis. This manifesto for racial parity would later become known as the Humanist Manifesto. When Julian took on the directorship of UNESCO, in 1946, it became the template for its foundational document, UNESCO: Its Purpose and Philosophy. Julian made sure that the underlying philosophy was areligious, monistically evolutionary, and Freudian. *Chapter 9 tells a sad tale, interweaving the Huxleyan family preoccupations with Malthusian biology and with mental illness. Julian pondered what likely was a genetic predisposition to his own temperament, even as he took on leadership roles in the British and international eugenics movement. Along with geneticist R. A. Fisher and others, he served on the Committee of the Eugenics Society for Legalising Eugenic Sterilisation. He praised the efforts of states like California to implement mandatory sterilization policies. *Part IV, "Spirits, " is a dénouement of sorts, documenting the paradoxical return to a vague spiritualism on the part of Julian, prodded by his brother Aldous's experiments with mind-altering drugs and the research of his son, the ethnologist Francis Huxley (1923-2016). *This book comprises a magnificent narrative of a family marked by brilliance, accomplishment, and tragedy, and is highly recommended. It is symphonic in scope. Sadly, an underlying dirge is audible within the Huxleyan polyphony; perhaps it is a product of an insistent turning of the face away from the Almighty. *Reviewed by Ralph Stearley, professor of geology emeritus, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI 49546.