260 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XIV 



a right to treat on scientific matters, intended to 

 " smash Darwin " ; and Huxley, expecting that the 

 promised debate would be merely an appeal to pre- 

 judice in a mixed audience, before which the 

 scientific arguments of the Bishop's opponents would 

 be at the utmost disadvantage, intended to leave Oxford 

 that very morning and join his wife at Hardwicke, 

 near Heading, where she was staying with her sister. 

 But in a letter, quoted below, he tells how, on the 

 Friday afternoon, he chanced to meet Robert 

 Chambers, the reputed author of the Vestiges of 

 Creation, who begged him "not to desert them." 

 Accordingly he postponed his departure ; but seeing 

 his wife next morning, had no occasion to write a 

 letter. 



Several accounts of the scene are already in 

 existence : one in the Life of Darwin (vol. ii. p. 320), 

 another in the 1892 Life, p. 236 sq. ; a third that of 

 Lyell (vol. ii. p. 335), the slight differences between 

 them representing the difference between individual 

 recollections of eye-witnesses. In addition to these 

 I have been fortunate enough to secure further 

 reminiscences from several other eye-witnesses. 



Two papers in Section D, of no great importance 

 in themselves, became historical as affording the 

 opponents of Darwin their opportunity of making an 

 attack upon his theory which should tell with the 

 public. The first was on Thursday, June 28. Dr. 

 Daubeny of Oxford made a communication to the 

 Section, "On the final causes of the sexuality of 



