274 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XIV 



an immediate and complete triumph for evolutionary 

 doctrine. This was precluded by the character and 

 temper of the audience, most of whom were less 

 capable of being convinced by the arguments than 

 shocked by the boldness of the retort, although, 

 being gentlefolk, as Professor Farrar remarks, they 

 were disposed to admit on reflection that the Bishop 

 had erred on the score of taste and good manners. 

 Nevertheless, it was a noticeable feature of the 

 occasion, Sir M. Foster tells me, that when Huxley 

 rose he was received coldly, just a cheer of encourage- 

 ment from his friends, the audience as a whole not 

 joining in it. But as he made his points the applause 

 grew and widened, until, when he sat down, the 

 cheering was not very much less than that given to 

 the Bishop. To that extent he carried an unwilling 

 audience with him by the force of his speech. The 

 debate on the ape question, however, was continued 

 elsewhere during the next two years, and the evidence 

 was completed by the unanswerable demonstrations 

 of Sir W. H. Flower at the Cambridge meeting of 

 the Association in 1862. 



The importance of the Oxford meeting lay in the 

 open resistance that was made to authority, at a 

 moment when even a drawn battle was hardly less 

 effectual than acknowledged victory. Instead of 

 being crushed under ridicule, the new theories 

 secured a hearing, all the wider, indeed, for the 

 startling nature of their defence. 



