Why did Thomas Henry Huxley support Charles Darwin’s evolutionary naturalism?

Thomas Henry Huxley supported Charles Darwin’s evolutionary naturalism primarily as a strategic tool to establish an independent scientific elite, free from the influence of traditional religious and social authorities.1

Although Huxley initially had reservations regarding natural selection, he recognized that Darwin’s nonmiraculous, naturalistic approach provided a powerful framework for his campaign to secularize knowledge. By framing the debate over creation and evolution in stark, binary terms, Huxley used Darwin’s Origin of Species to challenge the established order and assert that nature was a subject open to all, rather than the exclusive domain of the clergy.1

Furthermore, Huxley championed these ideas to promote a democratic vision of science. He actively challenged supernatural creation by teaching that humans shared a common ancestry with animals, a concept he used to empower the public by suggesting that scientific truth was accessible to everyone. Unlike Darwin, who often avoided the controversial topic of human origins, Huxley made it his specialty, famously engaging in public debates to bring human evolution to the forefront of intellectual discourse.1