252 ORIGIN OF SPECIES. [ch. xiii. 



me to pieces when I have sat down, as to his belief in being 

 descended from an ape. Is it on his grandfather's or his 

 grandmother's side that the ape ancestry comes in ? ' And 

 then taking a graver tone, he asserted in a solemn perora- 

 tion that Darwin's views were contrary to the revelations of 

 God in the Scriptures. Professor Huxley was unwilling to 

 respond : but he was called for and spoke with his usual in- 

 cisiveness and with some scorn. ; I am here only in the 

 interest of science,' he said, ' and I have not heard anything 

 which can prejudice the case of my august client.' Then 

 after showing how little competent the Bishop was to enter 

 upon the discussion, he touched on the question of Crea- 

 tion. ' You say that development drives out the Creator. 

 But you assert that God made you ; and yet you know that 

 you yourself were originally a little piece of matter no 

 bigger than the end of this gold pencil-case.' Lastly as to 

 the descent from a monkey, he said : ' I should feel it no 

 shame to have risen from such an origin. But I should 

 feel it a shame to have sprung from one who prostituted the 

 gifts of culture and of eloquence to the service of prejudice 

 and of falsehood.' 



" Many others spoke. Mr. Gresley, an old Oxford don, 

 pointed out that in human nature at least orderly develop- 

 ment was not the necessary rule ; Homer was the greatest 

 of poets, but he lived 3000 years ago, and has not produced 

 his like. 



" Admiral Fitz-Roy was present, and said that he had 

 often expostulated with his old comrade of the Beagle for 

 entertaining views which were contradictory to the First 

 Chapter of Genesis. 



" Sir John Lubbock declared that many of the arguments 

 by which the permanence of species was supported came to 

 nothing, and instanced some wheat which was said to have 

 come ofi an Egyptian mummy and was sent to him to prove 

 that wheat had not changed since the time of the Pharaohs ; 

 but which proved to be made of French chocolate.* Sir 

 Joseph (then Dr.) Hooker spoke shortly, saying that he had 

 found the hypothesis of Natural Selection so helpful in ex- 

 plaining the phenomena of his own subject of Botany, that 

 he had been constrained to accept it. After a few words 

 from Darwin's old friend Professor Henslow who occupied 



* Sir John Lubbock also insisted on the embryolo^ical evidence for evo- 

 lution. F. D. 



