iS6o BISHOP WILBERFORCE'S SPEECH 



197 



knew nothing at first hand ; he used no argument beyond 

 those to be found in his Quarterly article, which appeared 

 a few days later, and is now admitted to have been in- 

 spired by Owen. " He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley 

 savagely ; but," confesses one of his strongest opponents, 

 " all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in 

 such well turned periods, that I who had been inclined to 

 blame the President for allowing a discussion that could 

 serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bot- 

 tom of my heart." * 



The Bishop spoke thus " for full half an hour with 

 inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness." " In a light, 

 scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was 

 nothing in the idea of evolution ; rock-pigeons were what 

 rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antag- 

 onist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it 

 through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed 

 his descent from a monkey ? " f 



This was the fatal mistake of his speech. Huxley in- 

 stantly grasped the tactical advantage which the descent to 

 personalities gave him. He turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, 

 who was sitting beside him, and emphatically striking his 

 hand upon his knee, exclaimed, " The Lord hath dehvered 

 him into mine hands." The bearing of the exclamation 



* Zi/e of Daruiin, I.e. 



\ " Reminiscences of a Grandmother," Macmillan' s Magazine. Octo- 

 ber i8g8. Professor Farrar thinks this version of what the Bishop 

 said is slightly inaccurate. His impression is that the words actually 

 used seemed at the moment flippant and unscientific rather than inso- 

 lent, vulgar, or personal. The Bishop, he writes, " had been talking 

 of the perpetuity of species of Birds ; and then, denying a fortiori the 

 derivation of the species Man from Ape, he rhetorically invoked the 

 aid of feeling, and said, ' If any one were to be willing to trace his 

 descent through an ape as his grandfather, would he be willing to 

 trace his descent similarly on the side of his grandmot/ier ?' His false 

 humour was an attempt to arouse the antipathy about degrading 

 woman to the quadrumana. Your father's reply showed there was 

 vulgarity as well as folly in the Bishop's words ; and the impression 

 distinctly was, that the Bishop's party, as they left the room, felt 

 abashed, and recognised that the Bishop had forgotten to behave like 

 a perfect gentleman." 



