i86o CANON FREEMANTLE'S ACCOUNT 201 



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 discussion, he 

 touched on the question of Creation. " You say that develop- 

 ment 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 development 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 ex- 

 postulated with his old comrade of the Beagle for entertaining 

 views which were contradictory to the First Chapter of Genesis. 



Sir John Lubbock declared that many of the arguments by 

 which the permanence of species was supported came to nothing, 

 and instanced some wheat which was said to have come off an 

 Egyptian mummy, and was sent to him to prove that wheat had 

 not changed since the time of the Pharaohs; but which proved 

 to be made of French chocolate. Sir Joseph (then Dr.) Hooker 

 spoke shortly, saying that he had found the hypothesis of Natu- 

 ral Selection so helpful in explaining the phenomena of his own 

 subject of Botany, that he had been constrained to accept it. 

 After a few words from Darwin's old friend, Professor Hens- 

 low, who occupied the chair, the meeting broke up, leaving the 

 impression that those most capable of estimating the arguments 

 of Darwin in detail saw their way to accept his conclusions. 



Note. — Sir John Lubbock also insisted on the embryological 

 evidence for evolution. F. D. 



T. H. Huxley to Francis Darwin (ibid.) 



June 27, l8()I. 

 I should saythat Freemantle's account is substantially correct, 

 but that Green has the substance of my speech more accurately. 

 However, I am certain I did not use the word, " equivocal." 



