SKETCH OF ALEXANDER W INC HELL. 841 



was soon found to "believe that there had been men earlier than 

 the period of Adam, and even that all the human race are not de- 

 scended from Adam. His effort in this was to reconcile science 

 and Scripture, and he was now treated by a Methodist Episcopal 

 bishop in Tennessee just as, two centuries before, La Peyrere had 

 been treated for a similar offense by a Roman Catholic vicar- 

 general in Belgium. The publication of a series of articles on 

 the subject, contributed by the professor to a Northern religious 

 newspaper at its own request, brought matters to a climax, for, 

 the articles having fallen under the notice of the leading South- 

 western organ of the denomination controlling the Vanderbilt 

 University, the result was a most bitter denunciation of Prof. 

 Winchell and of his views. Shortly afterward the professor was 

 told by Bishop McTyeire that ' our people believe that such views 

 are contrary to the plan of redemption,' and was requested by the 

 bishop to quietly resign his chair. To this the professor made the 

 fitting reply : ' If the Board of Trustees have the manliness to dis- 

 miss me for cause, and declare the cause, I prefer that they should 

 do it ; no power on earth could persuade me to decline.' ' We do 

 not propose,' said the bishop, with gratuitous suggestiveness, ' to 

 treat you as the Inquisition treated Galileo.' ' But what you 

 propose is the same thing,' rejoined Dr. Winchell. ' It is ecclesi- 

 astical proscription for an opinion which must be settled by scien- 

 tific evidence.' Twenty-four hours later Dr. Winchell was in- 

 formed that his chair had been abolished, and its duties, with its 

 salary, added to those of a colleague ; the public were given to 

 understand that the reasons were purely economic; the banished 

 scholar was heaped with official compliments, evidently in hope 

 that he would keep silence. Such was not Dr. Winchell's view. 

 In a frank letter to the leading journal of the university town, 

 he stated the whole matter. The intolerance-hating press of the 

 country, religious and secular, did not hold its peace. In vain 

 the authorities of the university waited for the storm to blow 

 over. It was evident, at last, that a defense must be made, and a 

 local organ of the sect, which, under the editorship of a fellow- 

 professor, had always treated Dr. Winchell's views with the 

 luminous inaccuracy which usually characterizes a professor's 

 ideas of a rival's teachings, assumed the task. In the articles 

 which followed, the usual scientific hypotheses as to the creation 

 were declared to be c absurd,' ' vague and unintelligible,' ' prepos- 

 terous and gratuitous.'" While in Nashville Prof. Winchell 

 constructed some pieces of microscopic apparatus and a small 

 working steam-engine of one fifth horse-power, and completed a 

 survey of the sanitary geology of that city. 



In June, 1879, Prof. Winchell was unanimously recalled by 

 the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan a body that 



