Talk:Thomas Henry Huxley

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2008 comments

The first and last quote in the Unsourced section are surely the same thing. Can we just remove the first or should they both be kept (but linked in some way)? --nawab 15:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. The issue is dealt with in more detail in the WP article, and refs given for access to the dozen or so reports which survived. These two quotes are reasonably typical. --Macdonald-Ross 07:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

"extremely stupid"

I added a second version of the "extremely stupid" quote, since one of the sources mentioned for it (at http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/Book/Recep.html) had a version not containing the "...of me..." phrase. However most of the online versions of even this text report it as not containing the latter phrase, which I am beginning to suspect is a modern interpolation. Further research on this is warranted for anyone who wishes to pursue it (I shall not, I think).17:01, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Unsourced

These require citations to adequate sources before being placed into the main article.

• A man who was always taking two irons out of the fire and putting three in.
  • Herbert Spencer — quote removed from "Quotes about Huxley" section — I could locate no sources for this prior to removing it, as of 2018·05·03. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 00:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

On Bishop Wilberforce's Death

"Wilberforce's brains have at last come into contact with reality, and the result was fatal."

I have heard or read this quote on occasion, and it should be addressed here. I am not familiar enough with the guidelines to know if this is a quote, a misquote, or should classified as 'Attributed'. This is also from a secondary source, and I took the liberty of changing the tenses to make it a quote. But since the attestation is insecure, I don't see how a small relevant change matters. I can't get access to the primary source, so I don't know how to handle that, either.

Secondary source: Chemers, Michael. Staging stigma: a critical examination of the American freak show. Springer, 2016, p145. "Samuel [Wilberforce] was killed in 1873 by a fall from a horse: Huxley is said to have quipped, rather coldly, that Wilberforce's brains had at last come into contact with reality and the result had been fatal."

Primary source, cited in secondary: A.R. Ashwell and Reginald Carton Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, with Selections from his Diary and Correspondence [1879-1882] vols. I-III).