regarded by the schools as quite on a par with those of LITTLE 

 Dante neither was taken seriously. JOURNEYS 



Darwin proved his hypothesis. 



Doubtless, very many school-men would have accepted 

 the theory, but to admit that man was not created out- 

 right, complete, and in his present form or superior 

 to it seemed to involve a contradiction of the Mosaic 

 account of creation, and the breaking up of Christianity. 

 And these things done, many thought, would entail 

 moral chaos ; destruction of private interests and moral 

 confusion being one and the same thing to those whose 

 interests are involved. 



And so for conscience sake, Darwin was bitterly as- 

 sailed and opposed. 



Opportunity, which knocks many times at each man's 

 door, rapped at Huxley's hard in 1860. It was at Ox- 

 ford, at the meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science " A big society with a 

 slightly ironical name," once said Huxley. 

 The audience was large and fashionable, delegates be- 

 ing present from all parts of the British Empire. 

 " The Origin of Species " had been published the year 

 before, and tongues were wagging. Darwin was not 

 present, but Huxley, who was known to be a personal 

 friend of Darwin, was in his seat. The intent of the 

 chairman was to keep Darwin and his pestiferous book 

 out of all the discussions Darwin was a good man to 

 smother with silence. 



But Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, in the 

 course of a speech on another subject, began to run 



67 



