244 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



lift Father Wasmann out of his saddle. Although 

 the Frankfurter Zeitung was decidedly opposed 

 to my appearance at Berlin, yet it acknowledged 

 that my opponents had not succeeded in over- 

 throwing me, and the counter-arguments suggested 

 as more likely to silence me were unfortunately too 

 late. Another non-Catholic paper, the Deutsche 

 Tageszeitung, went further than any Catholic 

 journal in its criticism of several of my opponents, 

 saying (No. 84, of February 19th) : c The result 

 of the meeting will have been a disappointment to 

 many. If we except Professor Plate, whose pro- 

 found knowledge is united with great facility of 

 expression and an earnest striving after accuracy, 1 

 those who took part in the discussion appeared 

 like pygmies beside Father Wasmann, and the mild 

 ridicule with which he finally answered them 

 would have been bitter satire in the mouth of 

 another reporter. There is no doubt that the 

 audience would have dispersed soon after Professor 

 Plate's address, if the majority of the vast number 

 present had not been anxious to hear Father 

 Wasmann's reply to his antagonists, and had not 

 regarded it as a duty to express, at the close of the 



1 Another Protestant critic, Dr. M. Senff, in the Harzer Kurier of 

 April 27th, 1907, does not share this opinion, but considers Plate's whole 

 line of argument to be prejudiced, and not free from inadmissible inter- 

 polations (cf. p. 251). The description of the speeches quoted above 

 cannot be accepted without modification, for some of them, e.g. those of 

 Professor Dahl and Dr. Juliusburger, surpassed that of Professor Plate 

 in accuracy of matter and of form. The comparison quoted above seems 

 therefore not altogether to the point. 



