322 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



father's or grandmother's side to an ape.'* Huxley replied to 

 the scientific argument of his opponent with force and elo- 

 quence, and to the personal allusion with a self-restraint, that 

 gave dignity to his crushing rejoinder." 



Many versions of Mr. Huxley's speech were current : the 

 following report of his conclusion is from a letter addressed 

 by the late John Richard Green, then an undergraduate, to 

 a fellow-student, now Professor Boyd Dawkins. " I asserted, 

 and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of 

 having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor 

 whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be a man, a 

 man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with 

 an equivocal f success in his own sphere of activity, plunges 

 into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaint- 

 ance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and dis- 

 tract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue 

 by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals to religious 

 prejudice." % 



The letter above quoted continues : 



" The excitement was now at its height ; a lady fainted and 

 had to be carried out, and it was some time before the dis- 

 cussion was resumed. Some voices called for Hooker, and 

 his name having been handed up, the President invited him to 

 give his view of the theory from the Botanical side. This he 

 did, demonstrating that the Bishop, by his own showing, had 

 never grasped the principles of the ' Origin,' and that he was 

 absolutely ignorant of the elements of botanical science. The 

 Bishop made no reply, and the meeting broke up. 



" There was a crowded conversazione in the evening at the 



* Lyell's ' Letters,' vol. ii. p. 335. % Mr. Favvcett wrote (' Mac- 



f Professor Victor Cams, who millan's Magazine,' i860) : 



has a distinct recollection of the "The retort was so justly deserved 



scene, does not remember the word and so inimitable in its manner , 



equivocal. He believes, too, that that no one who was present can 



Lyeli's version of the ape sentence ever forget the impression that it 



is slightly incorrect. made." 



