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CHAPTER XX. 



THE DIFFICULTY WITH WHICH THE " ORIGIN " WAS 



UNDERSTOOD (continued) — views on spontaneous 



GENERATION. 



The history of opinion on evolution and natural 

 selection, in the years which followed the publication 

 of the " Origin/' can be traced in the titles of the 

 papers and subjects of discussion at successive 

 meetings of the British Association. In the Presi- 

 dential Address delivered by Professor Newton to 

 the Biological Section of the Manchester meeting in 

 1887, there is a most interesting account of the 

 struggles which took place: — 



" The ever-memorable meeting ... at Oxford in the summer 

 of 1860 saw the first open conflict between the professors of 

 the new faith and the adherents of the old one. Far be it 

 from me to blame those among the latter who honestly stuck 

 to the creed in which they had educated themselves ; but my 

 admiration is for the few dauntless men who, without flinch- 

 ing from the unpopularity of their cause, flung themselves in 

 the way of obloquy, and impetuously assaulted the ancient 

 citadel in which the sanctity of ' species ' was enshrined 

 and worshipped as a palladium. However strongly I myself 

 sympathised with them, I cannot fairly state that the conflict 

 on this occasion was otherwise than a drawn battle ; and thus 

 matters stood when in the following year the Association met 

 in this city [Manchester]. That, as I have already said, was a 

 time of 'slack water.' But though the ancient beliefs were 



