CHARLES DARWIN 61 



elation (cf. p. 219) in a report of 1855 on possible 

 Government measures to improve the position of 

 science. ' Promotions in the Church/ the Committee 

 remark, ' have been occasionally made avowedly on 

 the ground of literary merit ; but if such claims be 

 admissible, it would seem that scientific acquirements 

 should not be overlooked in an age in which scepticism 

 has been nourished by mistaken views of physical 

 phenomena. ' 



CHARLES DARWIN 



But the second of the two battles between science 

 and orthodoxy which were fought in part at Associa- 

 tion meetings, helped largely to send clergymen and 

 men of science off on different tracks in the pursuit 

 of knowledge. In 1859 appeared Charles Darwin's 

 Origin of Species, and it is unnecessary here to 

 give details of the outburst of enthusiasm on the one 

 hand and execration on the other, with which it was 

 received. Darwin's own health had by this time 

 precluded him from entering any public arena in 

 support of his opinions, but among his devoted 

 champions many, and notably Hooker and Huxley, 

 were more or less regular attendants at the meetings 

 of the British Association. So were, or had been, 

 many of his opponents Sedgwick, for example, 

 and Whewell, and Owen, and one most intimately 

 connected with our body John Phillips. The book, 

 in fact, divided science against itself ; but that was 

 a division which might be expected to be gradually 

 closed in the course of calm discussion and considera- 

 tion : more vociferous was the popular criticism, 

 supported by religious opinion, which centred upon 

 the theory which presented itself to the popular mind 



