198 PIONEERS OF E VOL UTIOtf PART 



friend of mine implored me not to publish, as it would 

 certainly ruin all my prospects. 



The sparse annotations to the whole series of 

 reprinted matter show that the like permanence 

 attends all his writings. And yet, true workman, 

 with ideal ever lying ahead, as he was, he remarked 

 to the present writer that never did a book come hot 

 from the press, but he wished that he could suppress 

 it and rewrite it. 



Before dealing with the momentous issues raised 

 in Mans Place in Nature, we must return to 1860. 

 For that was the ' Sturm und Drang ' period. Then, 

 at Oxford, 'home of lost causes,' as Matthew 

 Arnold apostrophises her in the Preface to his 

 Essays in Criticism, was fought, on Saturday, 3Oth 

 June, a memorable duel between biologist and 

 bishop ; perhaps in its issues, more memorable than 

 the historic discussion on the traditional doctrine 

 of special creation between Cuvier and Geoffrey 

 Saint -Hilaire in the French Academy in 1830. 



Both Huxley and Wilberforce were doughty 

 champions. The scene of combat, the Museum 

 Library, was crammed to suffocation. Fainting 

 women were carried out. There had been 'words' 

 between Owen and Huxley on the previous Thurs- 

 day. Owen contended that there were certain funda- 

 mental differences between the brains of man and 

 apes. Huxley met this with ' direct and unqualified 

 contradiction,' and pledged himself to 'justify that 

 unusual procedure elsewhere.' No wonder that the 

 atmosphere was electric. The bishop was up to 

 time. Declamation usurped the vacant place of 

 argument in his speech, and the declamation became 



