or of conscience, or of both, is so great, that, by way of an objection to Mr. Darwin’s views, he can ask, ’Is it credible that all favourable varieties of turnips are tending to become men’; who is so ignorant of palaeontology that he can talk of the ‘flowers and fruits’ of the plants of the carboniferous epoch; of comparative anatomy, that he can gravely affirm the poison apparatus of venomous snakes to be ’entirely separate from the ordinary laws of animal life, and peculiar to themselves’; of the rudiments of physiology, that he can ask, ’what advantage of life could alter the shape of the corpuscles into which the blood can be evaporated?’ Nor does the reviewer fail to flavour this outpouring of incapacity with a little stimulation of the odium theologicum.  Some inkling of the history of the conflicts between astronomy, geology, and theology leads him to keep a retreat open by the proviso that he cannot ’consent to test the truth of Natural Science by the Word of Revelation,’ but for all that he devotes pages to the exposition of his conviction that Mr. Darwin’s theory ’contradicts the revealed relation of the creation to its Creator,’ and is ‘inconsistent with the fulness of His glory.’”

In a footnote to this passage, Huxley wrote that he was not aware when writing these lines that the authorship of the article had been avowed publicly.  He adds, however: 

“Confession unaccompanied by penitence, however, affords no ground for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce, is so striking an exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one’s indignation against the presumption of his critic.”

As a matter of fact Wilberforce was a man of no particular information in letters or in philosophy, and his knowledge of science was of the vaguest:  a little natural history picked up from Gosse, the naturalist of the seashore, in the course of a few days’ casual acquaintance at the seaside, and some pieces of anatomical facts with which he was provided, it is supposed, by Owen, for the purposes of the review.  But he bore a great name, and misused a great position; he was a man of facile intelligence, smooth, crafty, and popular, and in this case he was convinced that he was doing the best possible for the great interests of religion by authoritatively denouncing a man whose character he was incapable of realising, and on whose work he was incompetent to pronounce an opinion.  Against an enemy of this kind, Huxley was implacable and relentless.  He was constitutionally incapable of tolerating pretentious ignorance, and he had realised from the first that there could be no question of giving and taking quarter from persons who were more concerned to suppress doctrines they conceived to be dangerous than to examine into their truth.  On the other hand, much as Huxley disliked Owen’s devious ways, and although in after life there occurred many and severe differences of opinion between Huxley and Owen, Huxley had a sincere respect for much of Owen’s anatomical and palaeontological work, and when, in 1894, Owen’s Life was published, one of the most interesting parts of it was a long, fair, and appreciative review by Huxley of Owen’s contributions to knowledge.