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Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley Books

Film director

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“As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a system of ethics, however exalted; nor only scientific knowledge, however extensive; nor just a practical social morality, however admirable or efficient. I mean an organized system of ideas and emotions which relate man to his destiny, beyond and above the practical affairs of every day, transcending the present and the existing systems of law and social structure. The prerequisite today is that any such religion shall appeal potentially to all mankind; and that its intellectual and rational sides shall not be incompatible with scientific knowledge but on the contrary based on it.”

IdeasReasonScienceReligionEmotionKnowledgeMankindEthicsHumanismTheologyRationalInclusionBeliefsGodsScience And ReligionSupernaturalTranscendenceNew Religion
Author:Julian Huxley
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“But if God and immortality be repudiated, what is left? That is the question usually thrown at the atheist's head. The orthodox believer likes to think that nothing is left. That, however, is because he has only been accustomed to think in terms of his orthodoxy. In point of fact, a great deal is left. That is immediately obvious from the fact that many men and women have led active, or self-sacrificing, or noble, or devoted lives without any belief in God or immortality. Buddhism in its uncorrupted form has no such belief; nor did the great nineteenth-century agnostics; nor do the orthodox Russian Communists; nor did the Stoics. Of course, the unbelievers have often been guilty of selfish or wicked actions; but so have the believers. And in any case that is not the fundamental point. The point: is that without these beliefs men and women may yet possess the mainspring of full and purposive living, and just as strong a sense that existence can be worth while as is possible to the most devout believers.”

GodPurposeBeliefBuddhismAtheistNobleDevotionMeaningImmortalityMeaning Of LifePurpose Of LifeSuperstitionAgnosticsCommunistsStoics
Book:Man in the Modern World
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“By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust.”

PeopleMenWritingMindFirstsLongHas BeensBookDifferentAbleActionMovingIndividualBlackInfluenceTearsSpeechPagesTraditionMarkIndividualityBonesDustLong AgoPersistDifferent PlaceDifferent Times
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“The implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a World Organization. . .Political unification in some sort of World Government will be required. . .Even though. . . any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”

WorldYearsMindMayGovernmentCarePoliticalNationsIssuesImpossiblePolicyOrganizationRadicalStakesSovereigntyImplicationsTransfersEugenicsUnthinkableWorld GovernmentUnificationThinkable
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“There are thus two tasks for the Mass Media division of Unesco, the one general, the other special. The special one is to enlist the press and the radio and the cinema to the fullest extent in the service of formal and adult education, of science and learning, of art and culture. The general one is to see that these agencies are used both to contribute to mutual comprehension between different nations and cultures, and also to promote the growth of a common outlook shared by all nations and cultures.”

ArtTwoDifferentUsedCultureNationsGrowthCommonSpecialMediaMassAdultsTasksPressesRadioCinemaAgencyMutualDivisionFormalOutlookComprehensionMass MediaUnescoAdult EducationArt And CultureSpecial One
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“The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore... they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.”

ShouldChildrenLongLastsEasyNaturalAccessChecksReliefTreatmentHospitalsUnemploymentLowestSelectionNatural SelectionRemovalReproducingEasy Access
Book:Man in the Modern World
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“As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends to compensatingly increase and the dictator... will do well to encourage that freedom in conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, movies, and radio. It will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.”

WellsHelpingPoliticalFateInfluenceEconomicSubjectsIncreaseRadioDictatorDiminishDaydreamingReconcileDopeServitudeEconomic FreedomConjunctions
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“This earth is one of the rare spots in the cosmos where mind has flowered. Man is a product of nearly three billion years of evolution, in whose person the evolutionary process has at last become conscious of itself and its possibilities. Whether he likes it or not, he is responsible for the whole further evolution of our planet.”

MenYearsMindPersonsWholeEarthLastsThreeProcessPossibilityPlanetsProductsEvolutionConsciousResponsibleBillionsLikesSpotsCosmosOur Planet
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“It is essential for evolution to become the central core of any educational system, because it is evolution, in the broad sense, that links inorganic nature with life, and the stars with the earth, and matter with mind, and animals with man. Human history is a continuation of biological evolution in a different form.”

MenMindHumansDifferentMatterEarthFormStarsAnimalEvolutionEssentialsEducationalCoreBroadsLinksHuman HistoryEducational SystemContinuationBiological Evolution
Author:Julian Huxley
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“We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration.”

PeopleHumansFactsSpiritualSpiritRealizingChallengesHuman BeingsRacePossibilityAreasCapacityFortunateHuman RaceExplorationEfficiencyFractions
Book:New Bottles for New Wine: Essays
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“Some day no one will have to work more than two days a week... The human being can consume so much and no more. When we reach the point when the world produces all the goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will, we must curtail our production of goods and turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our new leisure.”

WorldNeedsHumansTwoProblemTurnsHuman BeingsAttentionWeekProduceProductionsGoodsLeisureTwo Days
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“God is one among several hypotheses to account for the phenomena of human destiny, and it is now proving to be an inadequate hypothesis. To a great many people, including myself, this realization is a great relief, both intellectually and morally. It frees us to explore the real phenomena for which the God hypothesis seeks to account, to define them more accurately, and to work for a more satisfying set of concepts.”

PeopleHumansRealGodReligiousDestinyProveConceptsAccountsIncludingRealizationGreat MenReliefSatisfyingHypothesisInadequate
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“We are used to discounting the river-gods and dryads of the Greeks as poetical fancies, and even the chief figures in the classical Pantheon-Venus, Minerva, Mars, and the rest-as allegories. But, forgetting that they once carried as much sanctity as our saints and divinities, we refrain from applying the same reasoning to our own objects of worship.”

GodUsedReligiousForgetFiguresObjectsWorshipRiversSaintChiefsGreekFancyReasoningDivinityMarsRefrainSanctityVenusAllegoryPantheonMinerva
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“The scientific doctrine of progress is destined to replace not only the myth of progress, but all other myths of human earthly destiny. It will inevitably become one of the cornerstones of man's theology, or whatever may be the future substitute for theology, and the most important external support for human ethics.”

MenHumansMayImportantScienceDestinySupportProgressEvolutionEthicsMythTheologyDoctrineSubstitutesDestinedCornerstones
Book:New Bottles for New Wine: Essays
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“The proof given by Wright, that non-adaptive differentiation will occur in small populations owing to "drift," or the chance fixation of some new mutation or recombination, is one of the most important results of mathematical analysis applied to the facts of neo-mendelism. It gives accident as well as adaptation a place in evolution, and at one stroke explains many facts which puzzled earlier selectionists, notably the much greater degree of divergence shown by island than mainland forms, by forms in isolated lakes than in continuous river-systems.”

GivingWellsImportantFactsFormScienceGivenChanceResultsGreaterEvolutionDegreesRiversMathematicsPopulationAccidentsProofMathematicalAnalysisIslandsLakesIsolatedStrokesAdaptationOwingPuzzledMutationDifferentiationFixationAdaptiveDivergenceMathematical Analysis
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“...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious.”

HumansRealInspirationUniverseBeliefProcessNaturalReligiousResponsibilityMoralProgressAtheismDivineAuthorityAbsolutesUnityCreatorImprovementRationalRevelationsBarriersIntroducingRulersSplitsCommandmentsValidityGraspingFormidableCertitudeDivine InspirationIrreparable
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“By death the moon was gathered in Long ago, ah long ago; Yet still the silver corpse must spin And with another's light must glow. Her frozen mountains must forget Their primal hot volcanic breath, Doomed to revolve for ages yet, Void amphitheatres of death. And all about the cosmic sky, The black that lies beyond our blue, Dead stars innumerable lie, And stars of red and angry hue Not dead but doomed to die.”

LongStillsLightAgeScienceDeathLyingDiesStarsBlackForgetSkyMoonMountainRedHotBreathsBlueAngrySilverCosmicVoidLong AgoDoomedFrozenCorpsesPrimalHue
Author:Julian Huxley
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“The popular and scientific views of "race" no longer coincide. The word "race," as applied scientifically to human groupings, has lost any sharpness of meaning. To-day it is hardly definable in scientific terms, except as an abstract concept which may, under certain conditions, very different from those now prevalent, have been realized approximately in the past and might, under certain other but equally different conditions, be realized in the distant future.”

HumansMayHas BeensDifferentMightPastCertainLostTermViewsRaceConditionsConceptsAbstractSharpness
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