The first of these episodes was to have the widest consequences on thought at large.  Huxley early had an opportunity of commending the book to the public.  The reviewer of the Times, knowing nothing about the subject, was advised to entrust the work to him, adding only the opening paragraphs himself.  But it was his retort to the Bishop of Oxford six months later which publicly proclaimed how boldly the challenge of authority was to be taken up.  The story is well known; how the Bishop came down on the last day of the Association meeting to “smash Darwin.”  Crowds gathered to hear the great orator, who was also reputed to carry scientific weight as having taken a high mathematical degree.  He knew nothing directly of the subject, but apparently had been coached up, somewhat inadequately, by Owen, his guest at Cuddesdon, who did not put in an appearance at the meeting that day, but whose hand was also apparent in the Bishop’s Quarterly article that was published a few days later.

After several merely rhetorical speakers had been cut short by the chairman, Henslow, who ruled that scientific discussion alone was in order, the Bishop rose in response to calls from the audience, and “spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness, and unfairness,” wrote Hooker.

He ridiculed Darwin badly and Huxley savagely; but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I, who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart....  In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been.  Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey.

Here the Bishop left the vantage ground of any pretence to scientific discussion, and descended to tasteless personalities.  Here was the opportunity for an equally personal retort, which would show an audience, for the most part neither of a mind nor of a mood to follow closely argued reasonings, that personalities were not argument, and that ridicule is a two-edged weapon.  As he spoke these words Huxley turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting next him, and whispered:  “The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands.”

The Bishop sat down; but Huxley, though directly attacked, did not rise until the meeting called for him.  Then he “slowly and deliberately arose; a slight, tall figure, stern and pale, very quiet and very grave.”  He began with a general statement in defence of Darwin’s theory.  “I am here only in the interests of science, and I have not heard anything which can prejudice the case of my august client.”  Darwin’s theory was an explanation of phenomena in Natural History, as the undulatory theory was of