204 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xiv 



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 acknowl- 

 edged victory. Instead of being crushed under ridicule, 

 the new theories secured a hearing, all the wider, indeed, 

 for the startling nature of their defence. 



