BISHOP OF OXFORD AND HUXI^EY 119 



appear in due course of time in the new series of the 

 Naturalist. 



The ball was opened by a paper containing diluted 

 Owenism by Dr. CoUingwood, followed by a long un- 

 diluted atheistical rigmarole by a Prof. Draper, a Yankee. 

 After this a hot discussion took place. Huxley was 

 called upon by Henslow to state his views at greater 

 length, and this brought up the Bp. of Oxford, who made 

 of course, a wonderfully good speech if the facts had been 

 correct. Referring to what Huxley had said two days 

 before, about after all its not signifying to him whether 

 he was descended from a Gorilla or not, the Bp. chaffed 

 him and asked whether he had a preference for the 

 descent being on the father's or the mother's side ? 

 This gave Huxley the opportunity of saying that he 

 would sooner claim kindred with an Ape than with a 

 man like the Bp. who made so ill an use of his wonderful 

 speaking powers to try and burke, by a display of 

 authority, a free discussion on what was, or what was 

 not, a matter of truth, and reminded him that on ques- 

 tions of physical science " authority " had always been 

 bowled out by investigation, as witness astronomy and 

 geology. 



He then caught hold of the Bp.'s assertions and 

 showed how contrary they were to facts, and how he 

 knew nothing about what he had been discoursing on. 

 A lot of other people afterwards spoke ; Brodie on the 

 medical view of the thing, which he did very temperately, 

 declaring that at present it was impossible to say what 

 was the truth ; Lubbock, a son of Sir John's, who is a 

 very clever young fellow, who took a decided Darwinian 

 view, and Admiral FitzRoy, the man who commanded 

 the Beagle, and who had better have let it alone. 



The feeling of the audience was much against the Bp., 

 and Simpson, who had been very anti-Darwin, declared 

 that if that was all that could be said in favour of the old 

 idea, he was a convert. Not so Tristram, who waxed 

 exceedingly wrath as the discussion went on, and declared 

 himself more and more anti-Darwinian. The discussion 



