The Antiquity of Man ( published in early February 1863, just before Huxley's Man's place in nature ) drew these comments from Darwin to Huxley:

For Huxley, the reconciliation of these cleansed perceptions with humanity reflects the age old debate between active and contemplative life, known as the way of Martha and the way of Mary.

Zaehner expanded on these criticisms in his book Mysticism Sacred and Profane ( 1957 ), which also acts as a theistic riposte to what he sees as the monism of Huxley ’ s The Perennial Philosophy.

Aldous Huxley described these self transforming amorphous shapes as like animated stained glass illuminated from light coming through the eyelids.

Initiated by Thomas Henry Huxley, the group consisted of such important scientists as Joseph Dalton Hooker, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall, along with another five scientists and mathematicians ; these scientists were all avid supporters of Darwin ’ s theory of evolution as common descent, a theory which, during the latter-half of the 19th century, received a great deal of criticism among more conservative groups of scientists.

Towards the end of his life Huxley himself must have recognised how unpopular these views became after the end of World War II.

The elder of these was David Bruce Huxley ( 1915 – 1992 ), whose daughter Angela married George Pember Darwin, son of the physicist Charles Galton Darwin.

It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley.

One of the most important members of this group is a type of voltage-gated sodium channel that underlies action potentials — these are sometimes called Hodgkin-Huxley sodium channels because they were initially characterized by Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley in their Nobel Prize-winning studies of the physiology of the action potential.

Among these were Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Nancy Cunard, and George Moore.

There is evidence from letters that Charles Darwin was aware that Wickham had these tortoises, as he sent a letter to Huxley in 1860 informing him that he should speak with Wickham in Paris about the last of the tortoises from the 1835 expedition because he had them.

Essentially, Huxley defines these " antipodes " of the mind as mental states that one may reach when one's brain is disabled ( from a biological point of view ) and can then be conscious of certain " regions of the mind " that one would otherwise never be able to pay attention to, due to the lack of biological / utilitarian usefulness.

Huxley states that while these states of mind are biologically useless, they are nonetheless spiritually significant, and furthermore, are the singular ' regions ' of the mind from which all religions are derived.

Today, Huxley says people can reach these states of mind without harm to their bodies with the aid of certain drugs.

In response to what Huxley took as a jibe from Wilberforce as to whether it was on Huxley's grandfather's or grandmother's side that he was descended from an ape, Huxley made a reply which he later recalled as being that " asked would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and 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 ".

Huxley was tailoring his lectures to bring Darwinism to this wider constituency, saying that " Brought face to face chimpanzees or apes these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a certain shock ...

:" Painfully absent from these pages are Huxley ’ s mordant wit and insights into human nature.

Huxley next begins a comparison of the adult anatomy of apes with man, asking " Is man so different from any of these apes that he must form an order by himself?

The publication of Huxley physiography presented a new form of geography that analysed and classified cause and effect at the micro-level and then applied these to the macro-scale ( due to the view that the micro was part of the macro and thus an understanding of all the micro-scales was need to understand the macro level ).

During these years, the house was visited by Thomas Henry Huxley, who helped Charles Darwin bring evolution to the public's attention.

He would not follow Huxley in discarding these ideas, and Descent had presented such inheritance as a significant factor in human evolution.

Beginning in the mid-1850s, the network began to form around Huxley and Hooker, and these six men began helping one another, both as friends and professionals.

Several scientific clubs, such as the Philosophical Club and the Red Lion Club, were formed in the late 19th century, but these organisations lacked the scientific professionalism that serious scientists, including those members of the X Club such as Hooker and Huxley, sought.

Aldous Huxley had transformative lessons with Alexander, and continued doing so with other teachers after moving to the USA.

Lyell was also a friend of Darwin's closest colleagues, Hooker and Huxley, but unlike them he struggled to square his religious beliefs with evolution.

That ability would seem to be at odds with early epiphenomenalism, which according to Huxley is the broad claim that consciousness is “ completely without any power … as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery ”.

From 1866 to 1867, Haeckel made an extended journey to the Canary Islands with Hermann Fol and during this period, met with Charles Darwin, in 1866 at Down House in Kent, Thomas Huxley and Charles Lyell.

He shared the prize with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin.

The British anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley made Latreille's definition popular, and together with Richard Owen expanded Reptilia to include the various fossil " antediluvian monsters ", including dinosaurs and the mammal-like ( synapsid ) Dicynodon he helped describe.

Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences, and described discussions he might have with his favorite poets and writers Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Wolfe.

In the early 1950s, when Huxley wrote his book, mescaline was still regarded as a research chemical rather than a drug and was listed in the Parke-Davis catalogue with no controls.

Photographs show Huxley standing, alternately arms on hips and out stretched with a grin on his face.

Reflecting on the experience afterwards, Huxley finds himself in agreement with philosopher C. D.

" That mysterious artist was truly gifted with the vision that perceives the Dharma-Body as the hedge at the bottom of the garden ", reflected Huxley. Temporarily leaving the chronological flow, he mentions that four or five hours into the experience he was taken to the World ’ s Biggest Drug Store ( WBDS ) where he was presented with books on art.

Nonetheless, Huxley maintains that even quietistic contemplation has an ethical value, because it is concerned with negative virtues and acts to channel the transcendent into the world.

The book finishes with Huxley ’ s final reflections on the meaning of his experience.

These included a symposium published in The Saturday Review magazine with the unlikely title of, Mescalin – An Answer to Cigarettes, including contributions from Huxley ; J. S.

For Huxley ’ s biographer and friend, the author Sybille Bedford, the book combined sincerity with simplicity, passion with detachment.

It turned out, for certain temperaments, a seductive book .” For biographer David King Dunaway, The Doors of Perception, along with The Art of Seeing, can be seen as the closest Huxley ever came to autobiographical writing.

" For Steven J. Novak, The Doors Of Perception ( and Heaven and Hell ) redefined taking mescaline ( and LSD, although Huxley had not taken it until after he had written both books ) as a mystical experience with possible psychotherapeutic benefits, where physicians had previously thought of the drug in terms of mimicking a psychotic episode, known as psychotomimetic.

Zaehner concludes that Huxley ’ s apprehensions under mescaline are affected by his deep familiarity with Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism.

Owen's review of the Origin in the April 1860 Edinburgh Review bitterly attacked Huxley, Hooker and Darwin, but also signalled acceptance of a kind of evolution as a teleological plan in a continuous " ordained becoming ", with new species appearing by natural birth.

Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the previous day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers, the author of Vestiges, he changed his mind and decided to join the debate.