524 ' ORIGIN ' AND ' TASMANIAN FLORA ' 
evolution ; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always 
been.' 
Then, passing from the perpetuity of species in birds, and 
denying a fortiori the derivation of the species Man from Ape, 
he tried to stir feehng ; shall woman also be set on a level 
with the ape ? * Turning to his antagonist with a smihng 
insolence, he begged to know whether it was through his grand- 
father or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from 
a monkey.' 
This was equally bad taste and bad tactics. It gave his 
opponent an opportunity not only of restating the true position 
of science in the theory of common descent and of showing 
how incompetent the Bishop was to enter upon the discussion, 
but of cUnching the latter argument in a way easily understood 
by his hearers. The gibing descent to personalities was met 
by a thrust that staggered the orator's personal ascendency. 
For concluding his scientific reply, Huxley went on to this 
effect : 
I asserted — and I repeat — that a man has no reason 
to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If 
there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in 
recalling it would rather be a man — a man of restless 
and versatile intellect — who, not content with an equi- 
vocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into 
scientific questions with which he has no real acquaint- 
ance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and 
distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at 
issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious 
prejudice.! 
^ This is from a letter of the late John Richard Green, the historian, 
then an undergraduate, to his frie_-d, afterwards Professor Boyd Dawkins. 
It is fairly certain, however, that the word ' equivocal ' was not used, 
and the sentence, as it stands, gives the impression of being ' much too 
" Green." ' 
Simpler and in many ways more characteristic in turn and balance, is the 
impression recorded in a letter to me bj"- Mr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S., 
late Reader in Chemistry at the University of Oxford. 
' " But if this question is treated, not as a matter for the calm investigation 
of science, and if I am asked whether I would choose to be descended from 
the poor animal of low intelligence and stooping gait who grins and chatters as 
we pass, or from a man, endowed with great ability and a splendid position, who 
should use these gifts " (here, as the point became clear, there was a great 
