THE BISHOP'S SPEECH 523 



to be present, knowing what an unscientific atmosphere they 

 might expect. Hooker, as his letter tells, came at the last 

 moment, faute de mieux ; Huxley, who had meant to leave 

 Oxford that morning, was only ralUed into coming by Eobert 

 Chambers' appeal that he would not desert them. 



In the chair was Henslow, wise and judicious, a man 

 as universally beloved as respected. On his right were the 

 Bishop and Dr. Draper ; near the extreme left Hooker, beside 

 Sir J. Lubbock ; and nearer the centre, Huxley, beside Sir 

 Benjamin Brodie.^ 



For an hour or more ' Dr. Draper droned out his paper '^ ; 

 then discussion began. The first three speakers embarked on 

 theological and other denunciations ; but were shouted down 

 as irrelevant, and Henslow then demanded that the discussion 

 should rest on scientific grounds only. 



When the Bishop's turn came, he rehearsed various 

 arguments from hostile reviews ; but all his science was 

 science at second-hand, its source and bias self-betrayed to 

 those who knew, but applauded by the mass of the audience 

 who had not the knowledge nor perhaps even the temper 

 to discriminate. It was an audience that at the moment, 

 Huxley felt, would hardly hsten as a whole to cold scientific 

 arguments or weigh them. He was astonished to find that the 

 Bishop was so ignorant that he did not know how to manage 

 his own case, and his spirits rose proportionately ; but he 

 saw no chance at first of delivering a telling counterstroke ; 

 they were carried away by the eloquence, the personahty of 

 the speaker. * It was all in such dulcet tones,' says the eye- 

 witness, i.e. Hooker, ' so persuasive a manner, and in such 

 well-turned periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the 

 President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific 

 purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart.' 



He spoke thus * for full half an hour with inimitable spirit, 

 emptiness, and unfairness. ... In a light, scoffing tone, florid 

 and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of 



1 Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783-1862), sergeant-surgeon to William IV. 

 and Queen Victoria, and President of the Royal Society, 1858-61. For physio- 

 logical researches he was elected F.R.S. in 1810, and received the Copley Medal 

 in 1811, at the age of twenty-eight only. 



