HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY. 1825-1895.


Autograph Letter Signed ("T.H.Huxley"), to Howard Williams, defending vivisection, 6 pp recto and verso, 8vo, London. March 23,1876, fold creases, browning at edges. Docketed by the recipient ("In reply to a letter from me asking Prof Huxley upon what satisfactory grounds Evolutionists, who teach the near relationship of the non-human races to us, defend Vivisection"). With mailing envelope.WITH: Portrait Woodburytype photograph, 120 mm in height, in oval paper mat. [London]: Lock and Whitfield, [1880].Huxley explains that he is "convinced of the absolute necessity of experimentation on living animals as the condition of the progress of medicine." Huxley received his medical degree from University College, London, but he devoted his career to science, and was an ardent supporter of Darwin's theories. His correspondent, Williams (1837-1931), was a Cambridge graduate who had become a vegetarian in 1872 and was a prominent anti-vivisectionist. Seven years after he received Huxley's response to his inquiry, Williams published The Ethics of Diet: A Cantena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practise of Flesh-Eating. His work is considered a seminal publication on the ethics of vegitarianism.