On June 30, 1860, a debate was held at Oxford University on Charles Darwin's just-published book, The Origin of Species.
The primary figures in the debate were Samuel Wilberforce, the bishop of Oxford, and Thomas Huxley, a professor at the Royal School of Mines in London.
At the end of Wilberforce's opening statement, he inquired of Huxley that, if we are all descendents of apes, then from which side, his father's or his mother's, was he, Huxley, descended from an ape?
At hearing this remark, Huxley turned to a friend and said, "The Lord hath delivered him into my hands."
Huxley then rose to his feet, and said that he was not ashamed of his ancestry. He would only "be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth"--or saying, in other words, that it was better to be related to an ape than a dullard bishop.
The audience was stunned at Huxley's impertinence. Pandemonian followed, during which at least one lady fainted.
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