Julian Huxley was born in England in 1887. He was a grandson of the prominent biologist T.H. Huxley, a brother of novelist Aldous Huxley, and the oldest son of the writer Leonard Huxley. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, then established the Department of Biology at the Rice Institute in Houston, became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and then in 1925 became a Professor of Zoology at King's College London.
From 1927 to 1929, Huxley worked on the popular documentary, The Science of Life. In 1935, he was appointed secretary to the Zoological Society of London. In 1946, he became the first director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which he also helped found. He was knighted in 1958. In 1961 he co-founded the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.
Huxley delivered a series of three Beatty lectures in October 1956 on the theme, "Science and Possibility" titled "The Possibilities of Life", "The Possibilities of the Mind", and "The Possibilities of Man". Huxley's lectures were enormously popular: over 3000 people attended each lecture, overfilling the 2700 folding chairs placed in McGill's Sir Arthur Currie Gymnasium each evening.
Click on the cover to download a PDF of Julian Huxley's lecture one and lecture two transcript:
Transcript: McGill University Archives.
A letter to Principal James from Sir Huxley outlining his Lecture theme. Image: McGill University Archive.
Top Image: National Portrait Gallery.
