OWEN AND HUXLEY 123 



called species from that which was generally held 20 

 years ago," and he admits that species may have had 

 their origin in second causes : after which I think there 

 is nothing worth squabbling about. 



About the Gorilla, Owen, I do not think, gained any 

 glory ; he asserted the old old story, about the Hippo- 

 campus minor, etc., as if it had never been questioned ; 

 but it mightily comforted his hearers to know that there 

 was all that difference between their brains and a 

 Gorilla's. So also about his faith in Du Chaillu, I cannot 

 help thinking that he does not believe in him, and only 

 keeps on because he has never yet confessed himself 

 wrong about anything.* 



The meeting at Cambridge in 1862 witnessed the last 

 determined resistance of the anti-Darwinians and their 

 ultimate defeat. 



It was a good meeting, all the better for not being too 

 crowded. There was a grand kick-up again between 

 Owen and Huxley, the former struggling against facts 

 with a devotion worthy of a better cause. The latter 

 now takes it easy and laughs over it all, but Flower and 

 Rolleston are too savage. No doubt it is very irritating 

 when Owen will not take the slightest notice of all they 

 have done and proved, and Owen does it all in such a 

 happy manner, that he carries almost conviction from 

 those who know how utterly wrong as to facts he is. 



I had meant to have had an "Ibis" dinner, but the last 

 was the only evening we could have it, and then a lot of 

 others wanted to dine together, so it ended in establishing 

 a new " Club for Promoting Common Honesty " and we 

 had a feed at the " Lion " under the presidency of Huxley, 

 with Kingsley as vice. Ibises are to be ex-offieio members ! 

 We had some very good speechifying from both chairmen 

 and others. This club, I believe, was founded with one 

 rule only, and that was that any one drinking Sclater's 

 health was to be expelled (this was Sclater's stipulation 



* Letter to Edward Newton, September 25, 1861. 



