Thomas Henry Huxley cytaty

strona 5

„Podstawą moralności jest (…) zaprzestanie udawania, że wierzy się w rzeczy, na które nie ma dowodów, i zaniechanie powtarzania nierozsądnych twierdzeń o istnieniu rzeczy poza możliwościami ludzkiego poznania.”

„Poznane jest skończone, nieznane jest nieskończone; intelektualnie stoimy na wysepce pośród bezgranicznego, nie wyjaśnionego oceanu. Zadaniem kolejnych pokoleń jest osuszanie następnych kawałków lądu.”

„Powinniśmy ufać świadkowi we wszystkich tych sprawach, w których nie są zaangażowane jego własne interesy, jego emocje, jego uprzedzenia ani jego uczucia do bliskich osób. Jednak gdy taka sytuacja zachodzi, należy wymagać potwierdzających dowodów, o ciężarze gatunkowym tym większym, im mniej prawdopodobne są fakty, których dotyczy zeznanie.”

„Wiedza to nic innego jak unaukowiony i usystematyzowany zdrowy rozsądek.”

„Jest to zwykły los nowych prawd, że powstają jako herezje, a kończą się jako przesądy.”

„Najsmutniejszą chwilą w nauce jest śmierć pięknej hipotezy, zamordowanej przez obrzydliwe fakty.”

“Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected had he been a more sober and cautious thinker…”

“Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

“It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act.”

“If the brutes have consciousness and no souls, then it is clear that, in them, consciousness is a direct function of material changes; while, if they possess immaterial subjects of consciousness, or souls, then, as consciousness is brought into existence only as the consequence of molecular motion of the brain, it follows that it is an indirect product of material changes. The soul stands related to the body as the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness answers to the sound which the bell gives out when it is struck.”

“The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.”

“From the point of view of the moralist the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight—whereby the strongest, the swiftest and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given.”