Professor Huxley
President of the British Royal Society
President of the British Geological Society
President of the British Association at Liverpool
member of the London School Board
Fellow of The Royal Society
Awarded The Royal Medal 1852 (a year before Charles Darwin)
The Copley Medal in 1888
the Darwin Medal in 1894
the Wollaston Medal in 1876
the Linnean Medal in 1890
Keep in mind that the following treatise was stated by a man that said, "I would rather be the offspring of two apes than be a man and afraid to face the truth."
"Up to this moment, Mr. President and gentlemen, I have treated of this question of the differences between the various modifications of the human species as if it were a matter of pure science. But you must have felt, as I have felt that there loomed behind this veil of abstract argumentation the shadow of the ‘irrepressible negro,’ and of that great problem which is being fought out on the other side of the Atlantic. I have no desire, and, indeed, no right, to discuss the vast and difficult question of slavery here; but to set myself free from the suspicion of unreasoning partisanship, I may be permitted to say this much: that I am unable to understand how any man of warm heart can fail to sympathise with the indomitable courage, the warlike skill, the self-denying persistence of the Southerner; while I can as little comprehend how any man of clear head can doubt that the South is playing a losing game, and that the North is justified in any expenditure of blood or of money, which shall eradicate a system hopelessly inconsistent with the moral elevation, the political freedom, or the economical progress of the American people. As a man of science, however, my concern is not with the merits or demerits of slavery, but with the scientific arguments by which both sides have striven to support their cause.
"The fanatical abolitionists do not scruple to affirm that the negro is the equal of the white man–nay, some go so far as to tell us that the Ameri[9]can stock would be the better for the infusion of a little black blood; while the milder sort maintain, at least, the indefinite modifiability of the negro, urge that he is capable of being improved into such equality or something like it, and therefore conclude that the attempt to improve him is a great duty. The two former propositions are so hopelessly absurd as to be unworthy of serious discussion. The third is fairly open to discussion; but anything like good evidence of its truth seems to me to be wanting; while, if it be true, the conclusion drawn from it is not indisputable. But I must freely admit that the aberrations from scientific fact or fair speculation, on the anti-slavery side, are as nothing compared with the preposterous ignorance, exaggeration, and misstatement in which the slave-holding interest indulges. I hold in my hand an address to a scientific body of this country which has recently been published,1 and has, I doubt not, been read by many as an authoritative expression of the results of scientific: and you shall judge for yourselves whether it does or does not merit the stigma of public condemnation, which I think it my duty to take this opportunity of affixing to it.
"‘The skeleton of the negro can never be placed upright. There is always a slight angle in the leg, a greater in the thigh bones, and still more in the body, until in some instances it curves backwards.’
"‘The blood is vastly dissimilar–-the molecular [10] movement within the discs differs in every respect, and, when tried with a solution of potass, the protrusions from the cell-walls take every intermediate form, reverting with great rapidity to the normal condition.’
"‘The hair is very peculiar–three hairs, springing from different orifices, will unite into one.’
"Many among you are histologists, and will appreciate the value and practical applicability of the tests of species described in the two last paragraphs I have cited. A male negro skeleton is before you, and all can see how far it is or is not capable of the erect posture: and yet the author of the address in question can write thus:
"‘The above intelligent remarks, although they contain nothing new, are chiefly valuable from the fact that ladies in the Confederate States seem to be better informed on the subject than many men of science in this country’ !!
"This quotation is from the preface; gems of a purer water are to be found in the body of the address–‘Vrolik has asserted that the pelvis of the male negro bears a great resemblance to that of the lower mammalia.’
"Vrolik was far too truthful a man and too good an anatomist to say anything of the kind. What he really says in speaking of the male negro is:–‘The pelvis also presents many indications of the greater animality of the negroes;’ and further:–‘Had this pelvis been taken from a wild beast, its substance could not have been denser, nor its bones stronger.’
Again, the author of the address affirms that, [11] in the negro, ‘The pia mater contains brown spots, which are never found in the brain of a European.’ This is in the teeth of M. Gubler‘s paper, published in the memoirs of the French Anthropological Society three years ago, and distinctly proving the existence of a similar coloration in Europeans of dark complexion. ‘Not only,’ says this writer, ‘does the brain, enveloped in its membranes, present a bistre tint, but a layer of black matter, altogether comparable to that of the negro, covers the pons varolii, the medulla oblongata, and some other parts of the nervous centres.’ What makes the matter worse is, that M. Gabler‘s paper is mentioned in a note of the address to which I refer, as if it confirmed, instead of diametrically contradicting, the statement in the text.
"Again, we are told–‘The inferior molars sometimes present in the negro race five tubercled; and this anomaly is sporadically found in other races. It has been noticed in the European and the Esquimaux, but it is affirmed by my friend Mr. Carter Blake to be more frequent in the negro, and Australian than any other race.’"
Truly this is a notable discovery. We shall hear next that the scapula and the femur are ‘more frequent in the negro and Australian than any other race!’ In my previous lecture, when speaking of the dentition of man, I demonstrated to you the elementary fact, of which, up to this time, I did not imagine the merest tyro could be ignorant, that the lower molars of man are always typically five tubercled; the hindermost alone, [12] from its imperfect development, occasionally breaking the rule. A normal human lower jaw, with the first and second molar devoid of five tubercles would be a rare and interesting anomaly. But the author of the address is far surpassed by an American writer, whom he quotes apparently with entire approbation:–‘The negro,’ says this wonderful Anthropologist, ‘is incapable of an erect and direct perpendicular posture. The general structure of his limbs, the pelvis, the spine, the way the head is set on the shoulders–in short, the tout ensemble of the anatomical formation–forbids an erect position!’ I need only refer you to the excellent cast of a negro in our museum to enable you to judge of the veraciousness of this statement. Nothing, indeed, can surpass its scandalous absurdity, except the reasoning by which it is supported. ‘With the broad forehead and small cerebellum of the white man it is perfectly obvious that the negro would no longer possess a centre of gravity.’ This brief paragraph contains the most remarkable result of a modification of anatomical structure I have ever heard of. And the faculty for evolving nonsense displayed by its author will prepare you for my first citation, which I forbear to characterise, because the only appropriate phraseology would not be becoming for me to utter or you to hear. ‘Thus, an anatomist, with the negro and ourang-outang before him, after a careful comparison, would deem, perhaps, that nature herself had been puzzled where to place them, and had finally compromised the matter by giving them an exactly equal inclination to the form and alti[13]tude of each other.’ And this is put before the unsuspecting public, without comment or qualification, as the verdict of science touching ‘The Negro‘s Place in Nature!’"
After commenting upon these lectures of Professor Huxley, the editor of the Reader, says :–
"Clearly the high scientific authority of Professor Huxley is against the favourite notion of the partisans of slavery that there are signs about the negro that he has a place of his own in nature inferior to that of the normal man, and against the desired inference that he may fairly have a treatment corresponding to that place, and be excluded from rights and franchises that are agreed upon amongst men. Professor Huxley might have stopped here–for it was not necessary for him to say, as a man of science, what be might consider these rights and franchises to be. He might have vindicated the title of the Negro physiologically to whatever treatment is proper for human beings as such, and yet he might have believed in the necessity and expediency of slavery within that common society of human beings in which he had declared the Negro to be included. But be steps beyond the circle of the physiologist, and speaks strongly and generously his faith as a man. He believes in the doctrine of freedom, or equal personal rights for all men, and he pronounces the system of slavery to be root and branch an abomination–thus making his physiological definition of the ‘Negro‘s place among men equivalent to an earnest plea for Negro emancipation. Nay, as will have been noted, be goes farther, and, in [14] virtue of the strength of his feeling with respect to slavery, avows a state of opinion regarding the American War in which many who share his feeling with respect to slavery will refuse to go along with him."
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