526 * ORIGIN ' AND * TASMANIAN FLORA ' 
were the greatest ; it was all a pie of Herbert Spencer ^ and 
Buckle without the seasoning of either ; however, hearing 
that Soapy Sam was to answer I waited to hear the end. 
The meeting was so large that they had adjourned to the 
Library, which was crammed with between 700 and 1000 
people, for all the world was there to hear Sam Oxon. 
Well, Sam Oxon got up and spouted for half an hour 
with inimitable spirit, ugliness and emptiness and unfairness. 
I saw he was coached up by Owen and knew nothing, and he 
^,aid not a syllable but what was in the Reviews ; he ridi- 
culed you badly and Huxley savagely. Huxley answered 
admirably and turned the tables, but he could not throw his 
voice over so large an assembly, nor command the audience ; 
and he did not allude to Sam's weak points nor put the 
matter in a form or way that carried the audience. The 
battle waxed hot. Lady Brewster fainted, the excitement 
increased as others spoke ; my blood boiled, I felt myself 
a dastard ; now I saw my advantage ; I swore to myself 
that I would smite that Amalekite, Sam, hip and thigh if 
my heart jumped out of my mouth, and I handed my name 
up to the President (Henslow) as ready to throw down the 
gauntlet. 
I must tell you that Henslow as President would have 
none speak but those who had arguments to use, and four 
persons had been burked by the audience and President 
for mere declamation : it moreover became necessary for 
each speaker to mount the platform, and so there I was cocked 
up with Sam at my right elbow, and there and then I smashed 
him amid rounds of applause. I hit him in the wind at the 
first shot in ten words taken from his own ugly mouth ; 
and then proceeded to demonstrate in as few more : (1) that 
he could never have read your book, and (2) that he was 
absolutely ignorant of the rudiments of Bot. Science. I 
said a few more on the subject of my own experience and 
conversion, and wound up with a very few observations on 
the relative positions of the old and new hypotheses, and 
1 Herbert Spencer (1821-1903) the philosopher, had set forth his scheme 
of evolutionary philosophy based on scientific data, independently of Darwin, 
whose Origin of Species was, so to say, a crucial test of the doctrine of evolution. 
Spencer was a life-long friend of Hooker and his scientific friends, and though he 
avoided the regular scientific societies, was one of the nine members of the 
informal circle of the x Club. 
