# Professor Huxley — The Origin of Species character guide

> Professor Huxley in The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Professor Huxley

**First appearance:** 0004-i-variation-under-domestication

## Snapshot

The anatomist Darwin enlists to show that supposedly separate animal groups are bridged by extinct forms, his fiercest ally in the coming battle.

## Who they are

Huxley appears as the expert witness who reads fossils the way Darwin needs them read: as connecting links rather than tidy categories. His work on cetaceans and on the strange Archaeopteryx, half bird and half reptile, demonstrates that the boundaries between great groups were once far less distinct. This matters enormously to the early argument, because it converts the absence of transitional forms from an objection into evidence that the record is simply incomplete.

## In the story

### [An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species, Previously to the Publication of the First Edition of This Work](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/chapters/an-historical-sketch-of-the-progress-of-opinion-on-the-origin-of-species-previously-to-the-publication-of-the-first-edition-of-this-work)

Gave a lecture in 1859 on persistent types, arguing against separate creation and for gradual modification.

### [Illustrations of the Action of Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/chapters/illustrations-of-the-action-of-natural-selection-or-the-survival-of-the-fittest)

Relevant as a defender of Darwin's theory, though not directly quoted in excerpts.

### [On the Intercrossing of Individuals](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/chapters/on-the-intercrossing-of-individuals)

Consulted as an authority on hermaphrodite animals and the impossibility of self-fertilization in enclosed organs.

### [On the Affinities of Extinct Species to Each Other, and to Living Forms](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/chapters/on-the-affinities-of-extinct-species-to-each-other-and-to-living-forms)

Noted for considering Zeuglodon and Squalodon as cetaceans connecting to aquatic carnivora, and for bridging birds and reptiles.

### [Morphology](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/chapters/morphology)

Quoted for the insight that skull and vertebrae, jaws and legs, etc., are metamorphosed from a common simpler element, not one from the other.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_origin_of_species_se/characters/huxley
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