270 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XIV 



tion, was that a steep had been born shortly before in a 

 flock in the North of England, having an addition of one 

 to the vertebrae of the spine. The Bishop was declaring 

 with rhetorical exaggeration that there was hardly any 

 evidence on Darwin's side. " What have they to bring 

 forward ? " he exclaimed. " Some rumoured statement 

 about a long-legged sheep." But he passed on to banter : 

 " I should like to ask Professor Huxley, who is sitting by 

 me, and is about to tear me to pieces when I have sat 

 down, as to his belief in being descended from an ape. Is 

 it on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side that the 

 ape ancestry comes in ? " And then taking a graver tone, 

 he asserted, in a solemn peroration, that Darwin's views 

 were contrary to the revelation of God in the Scriptures. 

 Professor Huxley was unwilling to respond : but he was 

 called for, and spoke with his usual incisiveness and with 

 some scorn : " I am here only in the interests of science," he 

 said, " and I have not heard anything which can prejudice 

 the case of my august client." Then after showing how 

 little competent the Bishop was to enter upon the dis- 

 cussion, he touched on the question of Creation. " You 

 say that development drives out the Creator ; but you 

 assert that God made you : and yet you know that you 

 yourself were originally a little piece of matter, no bigger 

 than the end of this gold pencil-case." Lastly as to the 

 descent from a monkey, he said : " I should feel it no 

 shame to have risen from such an origin ; but I should feel 

 it a shame to have sprung from one who prostituted the 

 gifts of culture and eloquence to the service of prejudice 

 and of falsehood." 



Many others spoke. Mr. Gresley, an old Oxford don, 

 pointed out that in human nature at least orderly develop- 

 ment was not the necessary rule : Homer was the greatest 

 of poets, but he lived 3000 years ago, and has not produced 

 his like. 



Admiral FitzRoy was present, and said he had often 

 expostulated with his old comrade of the Beagle for enter- 



