'If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.'
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Huxley says he would rather have an ape as a grandfather than a man who uses influence to mock serious science. He rejects using power to ridicule instead of engaging honestly.
- In plain terms
- He prefers an honest ancestor over a powerful man who mocks science.
- What can you take from it?
- Integrity matters more than power or influence.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What is worse than ignorance?
- How should influence be used in science?
Another view
The comparison relies on historical context about Darwin debates not in the text.
More from Thomas Henry Huxley
I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic.' It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Ch…
Permalink to quote #61 'The Lord hath delivered him into my hands', rose from his seat, gave a thorough defense of Darwin's theories, and at the end concluded: 'I would rather be the…
Permalink to quote #63 When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist or a pantheist, a materialist or an idealist, a Christian or a…
Permalink to quote #60
Related quotes
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.
Francis BaconFrancis Bacon quote #2 Since Lord Brougham assailed Dr Young, the world has seen no such specimen of the insolence of a shallow pretender to a Master in Science as this remarkable pr…
Thomas Henry HuxleyThomas Henry Huxley quote #36 The power of purity-it is a definite power.
Swami VivekanandaSwami Vivekananda quote #149