Why I Call Huxley 'The Great Freethinker'

I've recently been reading some of the work of T. H. Huxley, on and off; I have a taste for freethought in my reading, but Huxley is easily the gold standard. He's not above making sharp comments about opponents, particularly in private correspondence. One thinks of his biting (but still rather witty) letter to Darwin about Samuel Butler. But it never overcame his underlying rational civility, a sort of courtesy born in the Court of Reason, based on his firm convictions that we should follow clear reasoning wherever it goes, sitting down before Truth to learn from her rather than presuming to dictate to her, and that bad reasoning for correct conclusions is still bad reasoning, no matter how right the conclusions. It could be said of him, as he said of Darwin, that he "had a clear rapid intelligence, a great memory, a vivid imagination, and what made his greatness was the strict subordination of all these to his love of truth." It's a rare breed much more important to civilization than the jabbering and ranting kind; a model worthy of being held up as an example to people on all sides. And that's even taking his flaws into account.