It was very different, however, at Dr. Daubeny's, "where," says the writer of the account in "Darwin's Life," "the almost sole topic was the battle of the 'Origin,' and I was much struck with the fair and unprejudiced way in which the black coats and white cravats of Oxford discussed the question, and the frankness with which they offered their congratulations to the winners in the combat."
The result of this encounter, though a check to the other side, cannot, of course, be represented as an immediate and complete triumph for evolutionary doctrine. This was precluded by the character and temper of the audience, most of whom were less capable of being convinced by the arguments than shocked by the boldness of the retort, although, being gentlefolk, as Professor Farrar remarks, they were disposed to admit on reflection that the Bishop had erred on the score of taste and good manners. Nevertheless, it was a noticeable feature of the occasion, Sir M. Foster tells me, that when Huxley rose he was received coldly, just a cheer of encouragement from his friends, the audience as a whole not joining in it. But as he made his points the applause grew and widened, until, when he sat down, the cheering was not very much less than that given to the Bishop. To that extent he carried an unwilling audience with him by the force of his speech. The debate on the ape question, however, was continued elsewhere during the next two years, and the evidence was completed by the unanswerable demonstrations of Sir W.H. Flower at the Cambridge meeting of the Association in 1862.
The importance of the Oxford meeting lay in the open resistance that was made to authority, at a moment when even a drawn battle was hardly less effectual than acknowledged victory. Instead of being crushed under ridicule, the new theories secured a hearing, all the wider, indeed, for the startling nature of their defence.]
CHAPTER 1.15.
1860-1863.
[In the autumn he set to work to make good his promise of demonstrating the existence in the simian brain of the structures alleged to be exclusively human. The result was seen in his papers "On the Zoological Relations of Man with the Lower Animals" ("Natural History Review" 1861 pages 67-68); "On the Brain of Ateles Paniscus," which appeared in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society" for 1861, and on "Nyctipithecus" in 1862, while similar work was undertaken by his friends Rolleston and Flower. But the brain was only one point among many, as, for example, the hand and the foot in man and the apes; and he already had in mind the discussion of the whole question comprehensively. On January 6 he writes to Sir J. Hooker:—]
Some of these days I shall look up the ape question again and go over the rest of the organisation in the same way. But in order to get a thorough grip of the question I must examine into a good many points for myself. The results, when they do come out, will, I foresee, astonish the natives.
[Full of interest in this theme, he made it the subject of his popular lectures in the spring of 1861.
Thus from February to May he lectured weekly to working men on "The Relation of Man to the rest of the Animal Kingdom," and on March 22 writes to his wife:—]
My working men stick by me wonderfully, the house being fuller than ever last night. By next Friday evening they will all be convinced that they are monkeys…Said lecture, let me inform you, was very good. Lyell came and was rather astonished at the magnitude and attentiveness of the audience.