i860 the oxford MEETING OF i860 



19s 



It was the merest chance, as I have already said, that 

 Huxley attended the meeting of the section that morning. 

 Dr. Draper of New York was to read a paper on the " In- 

 tellectual Development of Europe considered with refer- 

 ence to the views of Mr. Darwin." " I can still hear," writes 

 one who was present, " the American accents of Dr. Draper's 

 opening address when he asked ' Air we a fortuitous con- 

 course of atoms ? ' " However, it was not to hear him, but 

 the eloquence of the Bishop, that the members of the Asso- 

 ciation crowded in such numbers into the Lecture Room 

 of the Museum, that this, the appointed meeting-place of 

 the section, had to be abandoned for the long west room, 

 since cut in two by a partition for the purposes of the 

 library. It was not term time, nor were the general public 

 admitted ; nevertheless the room was crowded to suffocation 

 long before the protagonists appeared on the scene, 700 

 persons or more managing to find places. The very win- 

 dows by which the room was lighted down the length of 

 its west side were packed with ladies, whose white handker- 

 chiefs, waving and fluttering in the air at the end of the 

 Bishop's speech, were an unforgettable factor in the accla- 

 mation of the crowd. 



On the east side between the two doors was the plat- 

 form. Professor Henslow, the President of the section, took 

 his seat in the centre ; upon his right was the Bishop, and 

 beyond him again Dr. Draper; on his extreme left was Mr. 

 Dingle, a clergyman from Lanchester, near Durham, with 

 Sir J. Hooker and Sir J. Lubbock in front of him, and 

 nearer the centre. Professor Beale of King's College, Lon- 

 doUj and Huxley. 



The clergy, who shouted lustily for the Bishop, were 

 massed in the middle of the room; behind them in the 

 north-west corner a knot of undergraduates (one of these 

 was T. H. Green, who listened but took no part in the 

 cheering) had gathered together beside Professor Brodie, 

 ready to lift their voices, poor minority though they were, 

 for the opposite party. Close to them stood one of the 

 few men among the audience already in Holy orders, who 

 joined in — and indeed led — the cheers for the Darwinians. 



