THE INTERPRETER IO7 



lute sorrow, as false and grievously mischievous." 

 But he hoped to meet Darwin "in heaven." 

 Whewell's opposition took the form of refusing the 

 Origin of Species a place in the library of Trinity 

 College ; Lyell at first, and Carpenter, with others, 

 throughout, accepted with reservations ; while the 

 tone of the more intellectual organs was reflected in 

 the Athencsum, for long years an anti-Darwinian 

 journal. Touching on the theological issues in- 

 volved, it committed Darwin " to the tender mercies 

 of the Divinity Hall, the College, the Lecture-room, 

 and the Museum." 



On both sides of the Atlantic the drum ecclesiastic 

 was beaten in pulpits where, needless to say, 

 vituperative rhetoric did duty for argument ; preachers 

 in cathedrals and little Bethels were at one in con- 

 demnation of a " brutal philosophy " whose success 

 meant the denial of Scripture and the dethronement 

 of God ; while Episcopacy voiced itself through the 

 Bishop of Oxford's philippic in the Quarterly Review, 

 which, albeit inspired by Owen, exhibited " pre- 

 posterous incapacity " in dealing with elementary 

 biology. 



There was only one man qualified to take up the 

 gauntlet. Huxley's prominence as the most capable 

 interpreter and best-equipped defender of the 

 Darwinian theory dates from the British Association 



