i860 result of THE MEETING 



203 



could come over again ' ; Mr. Huxley, with the look on his 

 face of the victor who feels the cost of victory, put us aside 

 saying, ' Once in a lifetime is enough, if not too much.' " 



In a letter to me the same writer remarks — 



I gathered from Mr. Huxley's look when I spoke to him at 

 Dr. Daubeny's that he was not quite satisfied to have been 

 forced to take so personal a tone — it a little jarred upon his 

 fine taste. But it was the Bishop who first struck the insolent 

 note of personal attack. 



Again, with reference to the state of feeling at the 

 meeting : — 



I never saw such a display of fierce party spirit, the looks 

 of bitter hatred which the audience bestowed — (I mean the 

 majority) on us who w"ere on your father's side — as we passed 

 through the crowd we felt that we were expected to say " how 

 abominably the Bishop was treated " — or to be considered out- 

 casts and detestable. 



It was very different, however, at Dr. Daubeny's, 

 " where," says the writer of the account in Darwin's Life, 

 " the almost sole topic was the battle of the ' Origin,' and 

 I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in 

 which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed 

 the question, and the frankness with which they offered 

 their congratulations to the winners in the combat." 



The result of this encounter, though a check to the 

 other side, cannot, of course, be represented as an imme- 

 diate 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, al- 

 though, 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 encouragement from his friends, the audience 

 as a whole not joining in it. But as he made his points 



