John Derbyshire’s What happened to Aldous Huxley gives some interesting Huxley history:
All of Huxley’s biographers begin by pointing out that his bloodlines were distinguished, but somewhat oddly mixed. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley, the great Victorian biologist, best remembered for his victory against Archbishop Wilberforce in the 1860 debate about evolution. Known as “Darwin’s bulldog,” T. H. Huxley advocated scientism — that is, the belief that there is no area of human experience or understanding into which science will not eventually advance, or which the scientific method will be unable to explain. He seems to have coined the word “agnostic,” and used it to describe his own position on the mysteries of mind, spirit, and creation.
Fascinating! “Darwin’s bulldog” coined “agnostic”.
Aldous’s mother was a granddaughter of the great evangelical headmaster Dr. Thomas Arnold, the “Doctor” in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, originator of the “muscular Christianity” style of boarding-school education for boys, and father of the poet Matthew Arnold (who was, therefore, Aldous Huxley’s great-uncle). Dr. Arnold was an intensely religious man, who, when headmaster of Rugby, was reported to break down and weep openly in front of the whole school at the story of Christ’s Passion.
I originally found the notion of “muscular Christianity” perplexing — do you associate muscularity with Christianity? — but a little history cleared things up. The first modern fitness craze came about with the rise of sedentary office jobs in the Victorian era. A misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution and “survival of the fittest” fueled the fire, and soon Protestant leaders worried about not being fit and manly enough to withstand an influx of Catholic immigrants.
Yes, silly, but now you know why we have YMCAs — Yound Men’s Christian Associations — full of weights and swimming pools.