It is also of these two fundamental doctrines that, at the meeting of the British Association in 1894, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford spoke as follows:—­

“Another lasting and unquestioned effect has resulted from Darwin’s work.  He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the immutability of species...”

“Few now are found to doubt that animals separated by differences far exceeding those that distinguished what we know as species have yet descended from common ancestors.”

Undoubtedly, every one conversant with the state of biological science is aware that general opinion has long had good reason for making the volte face thus indicated.  It is also mere justice to Darwin to say that this “lasting and unquestioned” revolution is, in a very real sense, his work.  And yet it is also true that, if all the conceptions promulgated in the “Origin of Species” which are peculiarly Darwinian were swept away, the theory of the evolution of animals and plants would not be in the slightest degree shaken.

[The strain of this single effort was considerable] “I am frightfully tired,” [he wrote on August 11,] “but the game was worth the candle.”

[Letters to Sir J.D.  Hooker and to Professor Lewis Campbell contain his own account of the affair.  The reference in the latter to the priests is in reply to Professor Campbell’s story of one of Jowett’s last sayings.  They had been talking of the collective power of the priesthood to resist the introduction of new ideas; a long pause ensued, and the old man seemed to have slipped off into a doze, when he suddenly broke the silence by saying,] “The priests will always be too many for you.”

The Spa, Tunbridge Wells, August 12, 1894.

My dear Hooker,

I wish, as everybody wished, you had been with us on Wednesday evening at Oxford when we settled accounts for 1860, and got a receipt in full from the Chancellor of the University, President of the Association, and representative of ecclesiastical conservatism and orthodoxy.

I was officially asked to second the vote of thanks for the address, and got a copy of it the night before—­luckily—­for it was a kittle business...

It was very queer to sit there and hear the doctrines you and I were damned for advocating thirty-four years ago at Oxford, enunciated as matters of course—­disputed by no reasonable man!—­in the Sheldonian Theatre by the Chancellor...

Of course there is not much left of me, and it will take a fortnight’s quiet at Eastbourne (whither we return on Tuesday next) to get right.  But it was a pleasant last flare-up in the socket!

With our love to you both.

Ever yours affectionately,

T.H.  Huxley.

Hodeslea, August 18, 1894.

My dear Campbell,

I am setting you a good example.  You and I are really too old friends to go on wasting ink in honorary prefixes.