The Great Debate the Great Debate

Learning more... The Great Debate The Great Debate

On 30 June 1860 the Oxford The myth University Museum of Natural An account of the debate written thirty History hosted a clash of ideologies years after it happened has Wilberforce that has become known as the taunting Huxley by asking him whether ‘Huxley-Wilberforce Debate’, or ‘it was through his grandfather or his simply the ‘Great Debate’. grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey?’ Huxley supposedly Thomas Henry Huxley whispered to Sir Benjamin Brodie: (1825-1895), nicknamed ‘The Lord hath delivered him unto my ‘Darwin’s bulldog’, was hand’ before replying, witheringly: ‘If championing Charles then the question is put to me whether Darwin’s revolutionary I would rather have a miserable ape for concept of evolution a grandfather or a man highly endowed by natural selection, by nature and possessed of great means Charles Darwin published less than a of influence and yet employs these year before. Meanwhile, faculties and that influence for the Samuel ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce (1805- mere purpose of introducing ridicule 1873), Bishop of Oxford, threw all the into a grave scientific discussion, I force of his theological training into unhesitatingly affirm my preference for upholding the idea of the ape.’ But eye-witness biblical creation. Both accounts delivered sides claimed victory and soon after the event tell the debate continues to a somewhat different this very day. But what story. really took place? The protagonists The true story of what Huxley was a brilliant happened turns out to be young biologist, more complicated than Thomas Huxley Samuel welcomed into the the well-known myth... Wilberforce scientific establishment What is ‘Learning more’? first through his studies of invertebrate palaeontology and later of apes and ‘Learning more’ presents a series of humans. As one of Darwin’s closest articles about the Museum and its associates he was among the few to collections. It is designed for older know of the ideas in On the Origin students, teachers, researchers, of Species ahead of its publication. and anyone who wants to find out Reading it for the first time, he more about particular aspects of the declared: ‘How extremely stupid not to Museum’s work and its history. have thought of that.’ ‘Learning more’ articles are free, and available to all for educational, non- Wilberforce was Bishop of Oxford, profit purposes. Unless otherwise a position representing the pinnacle stated, the Museum retains copyright of a highly successful career in the of all material used in this leaflet. Church. Renowned as an eloquent and

© Oxford University Museum of Natural History Page 1 Learning more... The Great Debate influential speaker, primarily on clerical Hydropathic Clinic in Petersham, topics, Wilberforce also had a first Surrey. Wilberforce was an Honorary class degree in mathematics and was a Vice President of the meeting: he Fellow of the Royal Society. was already an implacable foe of evolutionary ideas and had been tutored Before the confrontation of the Great in his arguments by Richard Owen, the Debate took place he had written a great anatomist and palaeontologist. review of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, in which he emphasised that On Thursday 28 June Professor Charles his rejection of the theory was ‘solely on Daubeny read a paper ‘On the final scientific grounds’, and that he had no causes of the sexuality in plants, with sympathy with those whose objections particular reference to Mr Darwin’s were on the grounds that it contradicted work...’. Owen countered with the what was ‘taught by Revelation’. exaggerated claim that the brain of a gorilla was more different from that of The scene is set a human than from The occasion for the debate was that of the lowest the annual meeting of the British primate. Huxley, Association for the Advancement of known for using the Science, an organisation established similarity of ape and in 1831 with the far-sighted aim human brains as of encouraging public debate and evidence of evolution, understanding of scientific matters. considered this a Each year it held a public conference in blatant challenge by a different city, attended largely by the Owen. He stood and well-to-do, but without the exclusivity Thomas Huxley contradicted Owen of London’s premier scientific academy, flatly, but politely. By Friday evening, the Royal Society. exhausted by all the argument, Huxley intended to go home. But another The meeting of 1860 marked the evolutionist, Robert Chambers, begged public inauguration of Oxford’s new him to stay on. ‘cathedral of science’, the University Museum, and took place before even Saturday’s meeting the collections had been fully installed On the Saturday morning the great or the architectural and good of British science assembled decorations - together with a crowd of Oxford completed. students, clerics and local ladies and gentlemen - in the library reading room Darwin’s On the on the first floor of the Museum. The Origin of Species by Rev. John Stevens Henslow, Darwin’s Means of Natural Cambridge botany professor and Selection had been lifelong friend, took the chair. published only seven months earlier. The main billing for Saturday’s session ‘Cathedral of science’ Darwin himself was was Dr John W. Draper of New York absent. Always in uncertain health, University, who read a long and he was taking a cure at Dr Lane’s boring paper titled ‘On the Intellectual

Development of Europe, considered no! Let the learned Professor speak for with reference to the views of Mr. himself” and the like.’ Darwin and others, that the progression of organisms is determined by law’. July’s issue of a popular journal, The After he had finished, Henslow called Athenaeum, stated: ‘The Bishop of on others to respond and there was Oxford came out strongly against a some noisy reception from the students. theory which holds it possible that man After this, Henslow allowed the floor may be descended from an ape. But only to those with arguments and not others – conspicuous among these, ‘for mere declamation’. Prof. Huxley – have expressed their willingness to accept, for themselves, as Wilberforce then accepted an invitation well as for their friends and enemies, all to speak. He employed the same actual truths [...]’ Both accounts imply arguments that were set out in his that the ape-grandfather metaphor had anonymous review of The Origin, which originally been coined by Huxley rather was to appear in The Quarterly Review than Wilberforce. the following month. His rhetoric - now strictly logical, now witheringly Wilberforce sat down to tumultuous dismissive, always flamboyant - carried applause and Huxley rose to reply. the audience along; the majority was By his own account, in a letter to his with him in any friend Henry Dyster sent more than two case. Ladies in the window waved their months later, Huxley told the audience white handkerchiefs, students in the that he ‘had listened with great rear cheered and jeered, while the attention to the Lord Bishop’s speech clerics smugly applauded. At the end of but had been unable to discover either this all-out attack, Wilberforce added a new fact or a new argument in it – the one rhetorical flourish that has gone except indeed the question raised as to down in history. But what was it? Samuel Wilberforce my personal predilections in the matter of ancestry [...] That it would not have Insults traded occurred to me to bring forward such a Three days after the debate took place, topic as that for discussion myself, but John Richard Green wrote about it to that I was quite ready to meet the Right Sir William Boyd Dawkins. His letter Revd. Prelate even on that ground. If records: ‘Up rose Wilberforce and then, said I, the question is put to me proceeded to act as the Smasher. The would I rather have a miserable ape...’ white chokers [clergymen] who were and so on. present cheered lustily [...] as Samuel rattled on: “He had been told that Green’s account concurs: ‘Huxley – Professor Huxley had said that he didn’t young, cool, quiet, sarcastic, scientific see that it mattered much to a man in fact and in treatment [...] gave his whether his grandfather were an ape or Lordship such a smashing: “I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for a grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling, it would rather be a man, a man of

© Oxford University Museum of Natural History Page 3 Learning more... The Great Debate restless and versatile intellect, who, Hooker did not not content with [...] success in his own mention the ape- sphere of activity, plunges into scientific grandfather exchange questions with which he had no real which was the point acquaintance, only to obscure them by where Huxley had his an aimless rhetoric, and distract the success. One detects attention of his hearers from the real a certain rivalry as point at issue by eloquent digressions to which disciple and skilled appeals to religious Darwin should love prejudice.”’ best. Hooker prided himself that he had Hooker’s contribution ‘been congratulated and thanked by Darwin’s friend the botanist Joseph the blackest coats and whitest stocks Hooker did not think the exchange in Oxford.’ But the Bishop certainly worth mentioning when he wrote to tell judged Huxley his prime opponent, not Darwin what had passed. ‘Well, Sam Hooker. Oxon got up and spouted for half an hour with inimitable spirit, ugliness and Who won? emptiness and unfairness [...] Huxley All sides claimed to have won the answered admirably and turned the day. Wilberforce wrote (to Sir Charles tables, but he could not throw his voice Anderson, 3 July 1860): ‘On Saturday over so large an assembly nor command Professor Henslow [...] called on me the audience [...] The battle waxed hot. by name to address the Section on Lady Brewster fainted, the excitement Darwin’s theory. So I could not escape increased as others spoke; my blood and had quite a long fight with Huxley. boiled...’ I think I thoroughly beat him.’ Huxley observed that he himself was ‘the most After hearing three popular man in Oxford for a full four more speakers, & twenty hours afterwards’. He left the Hooker was meeting with new respect for the power sufficiently incensed of oratory and later perfected the art to stand up himself. ‘I and used it well on Darwin’s behalf. swore to myself that I would smite that The encounter was sparsely reported Amalekite, Sam, hip at the time, hence the confusion about and thigh [...] and who said what, but almost a century Joseph Hooker I handed my name later colourful accounts began to up to the President as ready to throw circulate, giving the occasion a greater down the gauntlet. ... [T]hen I smashed significance than it may have merited him amid rounds of applause. [...] I on scientific or cultural grounds alone. proceeded to demonstrate: (1) that he Nonetheless, the ‘Great Debate’ was a could never had read your book, and dramatic moment that occurred right at (2) that he was absolutely ignorant of the beginning of the Museum’s history the rudiments of Bot. Science... Sam and accordingly is commemorated both was shut up – had not one word to say on a plaque outside the room where the in reply, and the meeting was dissolved debate took place and on a stone plinth forthwith.’ on the lawn outside.