22 



friend Dr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt. It will be remembered that 

 the Bishop of Oxford at the climax of his speech turned to Huxley 

 and asked him if he was descended from a monkey on his grand- 

 father's or his grandmother's side. Some of those who were 

 present have said that Huxley was so angry that he was really 

 ineffective, while others maintain that he was perfectly calm, and 

 rebuked the Bishop with dignity and complete success. His 

 reply, as it is remembered by Mr. Harcourt, is precisely the sort 

 of answer we should have expected from Professor Huxley. 



"... if I am asked whether I would choose to be descended 

 from the poor animal of low intelligence and stooping gait, who 

 grins and chatters as we pass, or from a man, endowed with great 

 ability and a splendid position, who should use these gifts " 

 [here, as the point became clear, there was a great outburst of 

 applause, which mostly drowned the end of the sentence] " to 

 discredit and crush humble seekers after truth, I hesitate what 

 answer to make." ^ 



My eminent predecessor was well over fifty when Natural 

 Selection came before the world in 1858, and The Origin of 

 Species in 1859, and it is always exceedingly difficult, generally 

 indeed well-nigh impossible, for a man of that age to mould his 

 ideas afresh. The conspicuous exception was Sir Charles Lyell, 

 who, having published his opinions against the new views, finally 

 came late in life to accept them. Such examples must always be 

 very rare, and certainly Professor Westwood was no exception. 

 He remained for the whole of his life strongly opposed to evolu- 

 tionary teachings ; in fact, he proposed to the last Commission 

 that the University should permanently establish a lectureship 

 for the unceasing refutation of the errors of Darwinism. I well 

 remember being asked by Professor Westwood what I had been 

 reading, and how serious he looked when I told him The Origin of 

 Species. He seemed to think that it was an unsuitable book for 

 one so young, and that the authorities of the University and my 

 College had been guilty of some indiscretion in allowing it to 

 come into my hands. Nevertheless, Westwood's relations with 

 Charles Darwin were of the most pleasant description, and he 

 was always proud of the fact that one of the Royal Medals was 

 conferred on him, on the nomination of the Council of the Royal 



1 Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 1900, vol. i., p. 185. 



