Human beings are conveniently placed at the top of the animal kingdom. We claim that our superior intellect sets us apart from our co-habitants on Earth and proclaim ourselves transcendent, perhaps even beyond the grasp of Mother Nature herself. Should this traditional view, which human society has perpetuated be left unchallenged in our minds? Are we as unique as we claim to be? In the words of Huxley himself, “is Man so different from any of these Apes that he must form an order by himself?”
In “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature”, Huxley is considered the first to explicitly explain the “Origin of Man” via “Natural Selection”. Published only four years after “On The Origin of Species” Darwin’s ideas were gaining traction but had not yet taken its roots in people’s minds. There were still many sceptics and academic opponents of his “Theory of Natural Selection”. It was an admirable and ambitious move by Huxley to publish a book on a topic of such controversial nature, to explain modern Man’s origin. Darwin’s attempt to address the same issue, the “Descent of Man”, only came eight years after Huxley’s.
It is extremely impressive that in a mere three chapters, Huxley covered a very broad and technical subject matter
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Huxley starts off by mentioning the limits of obtainable knowledge on Man-like Apes in their time. The subject matter was covered in a lot of local folklore and hear-say, making it difficult to find accurate and reliable evidence save from the recounts from various academics on their expeditions. Distilling facts from anecdotal evidence was not the only challenge that was faced. Many of such expeditions had local guides at the helm. There were some difficulties when communicating with these locals due to the language barriers and the different communities in the region also had different ways of naming the