The Oxford Debate 1 2 1 



rashly made b}- Owen; but, at the time, the position of 

 Owen and the sympathies of the audience took away 

 much of their effect from Huxley's words. Two days 

 later, Wilberforce, in a scene of considerable excitement, 

 made a long, eloquent, and declamatory speech against 

 ev^olution and against Huxley. yTFrom the incomplete 

 reports of the debate that were published, it is difficult 

 to gain a very clear idea of the Bishop's speech ; but it 

 is certain that it was eloquent and facile, and that it 

 appealed strongly to the religious prejudices of the 

 majority of the audien ce. J He ended by a gibe which, 

 under ordinary circumstances, might have pas.sed simply 

 as the rude humour of a popular orator, but which in 

 that electric atmosphere stung Huxley into a retort that 

 has become historical. He asked Huxle_v whether he 

 was related by his grandfather's or grandmother's side 

 to an ape, Huxle}- replied : 



"I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be 

 ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were 

 an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would be 

 a Dian, a man of restless and versatile intellect, who, not con- 

 tent with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, 

 plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real 

 acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and 

 distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue 

 by eloquent digressions, and skilled appeals to religious 

 prejudice." 



/_An eye-witness has told the present writer that Hux- 

 ley's speech produced little effect at the time. In the 

 minds of those of the audience best qtialified to weigh 

 biological arguments, there was little doubt but that he 

 had refuted Owen, and simply dispelled the vaporotis ef- 

 fusions of the Bishop; but the majority of the audience 

 retained the old convictio tis^Y The combat was removed 

 to a wider tribunal. From that time forwards Huxle\% 



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