Huxley: From Devil's Disciple To Evolution's High Priest, Adrian J. Desmond, c. 1994, 1997.

This is "old school" biography. Whoo-hoo.

Huxley: From Devil's Disciple To Evolution's High Priest, Adrian J. Desmond, c. 1994, 1997. BHUX.

I was mostly interested in the Johns Hopkins connection: pp 95 - 7; and p. 463.

Unfortunately, it appears that the author mentions Johns Hopkins only in passing on page 463. The index reference to pp 95 - 7 are obviously in error.

Introduction

Darwin held back.

Thomas Henry Huxley lunged.

Huxley: 1825 - 1895.

Darwin: 1809 - 1882.

"Huxley was one of the founders of the sceptical (sic), scientific twentieth century. We owe to him that enduring military metaphor, the 'war" of science against theology. He coined the word 'agnostic' and contributed to the West's existential crisis.....Today his agnostic stand seems obvious. But yesterday it was an immensely daring, motivated, ideological position. That plodding zoological autocrat, Richard Owen, called him a pervert with 'some, perhaps congenital, defect of mind' for denying Divine will in Nature.

He remains a saint to some, a sinner to others. 

'Brilliant' was George Eliot's word for him."

1846: surgeon's mate. The Rattlesnake expedition to new Guinea.

• Captain Owen Stanley, the Arctic and Indo-China surveyor; 1811 - 1850.
• an old man for his 35 years, 1846
• at 15, hhe went to Patagonia, where he learned to survey; his ships brought back the Fuegian "savages" who were to return on the Beagle with Darwin and FitzRoy
• he had searched the North-West Passage, and sailed the Britomart to north Australia (1837 - 43), planting the flag to pre-empt the Dutch;
• helped secure New Zealand, seizing it from under the eyes of the French and out of the hands of the Maoris
• he had been crushed in the Arctic for ten months
• trapped in tropical Burma for longer

It looks like the voyage was 1846 - 1850.

John MacGillivray: the Navy's paid collector on the voyage

• three years older than Huxley
• Huxley in 1846: 21; MacGillivray: 24
• MacGillivray; a veteran; had just returned on the Fly
  

Others:

• James Wilcox: Stanley's personal collector, on board to stock the museums in the bishop's Norwich diocese.
• John Thomson: the ship's surgeon; whom Huxley immediately warmed up to
• a rucksack and a rifle man (think Daniel Boone)

Reminder: Irish potato famine intensifying in 1846

Returns 1850.

Next "chapter" of his life: 1850 - 1858.

When the ship returned, Huxley's main companion that night: Charles Lyell. Wow. Principles of Geology for 20 years the standard, the Bible.

Maybe more later.