Moreover, judging from the vivacity of the duke’s reply that some of the shafts of the first article must have struck nearer home than the pulpit of St. Paul’s, he was induced to read “The Reign of Law,” the second chapter of which, dealing with the nature of “Law,” he now criticised sharply as] “a sort of ‘summa’ of pseudo-scientific philosophy,” [with its confusions of law and necessity, law and force,] “law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause.” [(Cf. his treatment of the subject 24 years before, volume 1.)

He wound up with some banter upon the Duke’s picture of a scientific Reign of Terror, whereby, it seemed, all men of science were compelled to accept the Darwinian faith, and against which Huxley himself was preparing to rebel, as if:—­]

Forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of “revolt,” which some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise before I dare express my real opinions concerning questions about which we older men had to fight in the teeth of fierce public opposition and obloquy—­of something which might almost justify even the grandiloquent epithet of a Reign of Terror—­before our excellent successors had left school.

[Here for a while the debate ceased.  But in the September number of the “Nineteenth Century” the Duke of Argyll returned to the fray with an article called “A Great Lesson,” in which he attempted to offer evidence in support of his assertions concerning the scientific reign of terror.  The two chief pieces of evidence adduced were Bathybius and Dr. (now Sir J.) Murray’s theory of coral reefs.  The former was instanced as a blunder due to the desire of finding support for the Darwinian theory in the existence of this widespread primordial life; the latter as a case in which a new theory had been systematically burked, for fear of damaging the infallibility of Darwin, who had propounded a different theory of coral reefs!

Huxley’s reply to this was contained in the latter half of an article which appeared in the “Nineteenth Century” for November 1887, under the title of “Science and the Bishops” (reprinted both in “Controverted Questions” and in the “Collected Essays” 5 126, as “An Episcopal Trilogy").  Preaching at Manchester this autumn, during the meeting of the British Association, the Bishops of Carlisle, Bedford, and Manchester had spoken of science not only with knowledge, but in the spirit of equity and generosity.] “These sermons,” [he exclaims,] “are what the Germans call Epochemachend!”

How often was it my fate [he continues], a quarter of a century ago, to see the whole artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine of evolution and its supporters!  Any one unaccustomed to the amenities of ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to be permitted to live.

[After thus welcoming these episcopal advances, he once more repudiated the a priori argument against the efficacy of prayer, the theme of one of the three sermons, and then proceeded to discuss another sermon of a dignitary of the Church, which had been sent to him by an unknown correspondent, for] “there seems to be an impression abroad—­I do not desire to give any countenance to it—­that I am fond of reading sermons.”