Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894, in the village of Godalming, Surrey, England. The third son of Leonard Huxley, a writer, editor, and teacher, and Julia Arnold, also a teacher, the young Aldous grew up in a family of well-connected, well-known writers, scientists, and educators.
At Aldous' birth, the Huxley family and their relatives already commanded literary and philosophical attention in Victorian England. Huxley's grandfather, biologist T. H. Huxley, gained recognition in the nineteenth century as the writer who introduced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to a wide public and coined the word "agnostic." The elder Huxley's writing contributed to the growing debate on science and religion, a theme that would capture the imagination of his grandson, Aldous.
Huxley's mother was a niece of poet and essayist Matthew Arnold, who expressed the moral struggles of the modern age and the retreat of a religion-based culture. Matthew's father, Thomas Arnold, head of Rugby School, had presided with earnest devotion over the theory and practice of education in his time. Thus Aldous grew up in an atmosphere in which thought on science, religion, and education informed and even dominated family life.
