Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan Page B

cordial thanks, my dear old friend. I wish to God there were more automata in the world like you.” 26
    “If I am to be remembered at all,” Huxley confided late in life,“I would rather it should be as ‘a man who did his best to help the people’ than by any other title.” 27 What he is actually best remembered for is delivering the punch line in the decisive debate that gained acceptance for Darwin’s ideas.
    ——
     
    The Huxley/Wilberforce debate is the grand climactic scene in the 1930s Hollywood movie version that might be imagined of Darwin’s life:
    A
small item on the front page of The
Daily Oxonian:
“Annual Meeting of British Association for the Advancement of Science to Be Held Tomorrow.” The dateline reads June
29, 1
860. Front page begins to spin like a roulette wheel
.
    Dissolve to reveal that we are following the highly imaginative, although slightly shady Robert Chambers (played by Joseph Cotten) as he makes his way down an Oxford street. He is jostled by another man and just as he turns in annoyance, he realizes that it is none other than the pugnacious Thomas Henry Huxley (Spencer Tracy), whose conviction with regard to the truth of his friend Darwin’s controversial theory is so fierce it will one day earn him the nickname “Darwin’s Bulldog.”
    Rascal that he is, Chambers can’t resist asking Huxley if he’ll he attending Drapers reading at the British Association meeting. The title is to be “The Intellectual Development of Europe with Reference to the Views of Mr. Darwin.” Huxley claims he’s too busy
.
    Knowingly, Chambers allows that “ ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce is sure to be there.”
    Huxley, growing more defensive, insists that it would be a waste of time
.
    Chambers says slyly, “Deserting the cause, Huxley?”
    Piqued, Huxley makes his excuses and walks off
.
    The following day. The doors to the great hall are thrown open. The place is packed but only one voice is heard. We pan in for a tight close-up of the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce (George Arliss). Fingers in lapels, he turns pointedly to Huxley (who is of course there, despite his protestations of scheduling conflicts) and with arch courtesy begs to know “whether it is through your grandfather or your grandmother that you claim your descent from a
monkey?” Grasping the smarmy nuance of
“grandmother,”
the crowd utters low “ooh’s” and turns its attention to Huxley
.
    Still seated, Huxley turns to the man next to him and, almost winking, murmurs, “The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands.” Rising and looking Wilberforce squarely in the eye, he says: “I would rather be the offspring of two apes than be a man and afraid to face the truth.”
    The crowd has never seen a bishop insulted to his face before. Stunned reaction. Ladies faint. Men shake their fists. Chambers in the crowd, positively gleeful. But wait. There’s someone else standing up. Why, it’s Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (Ronald Reagan), back in England after his term as Governor of New Zealand. “I was arguing with Charles Darwin and his crazy ideas thirty years ago on the
Beagle.”
And then, brandishing his Bible: “This and this alone is the source of all truth.” More clamor
.
    Now it’s Hookers turn (Henry Fonda). Sincerely, “I knew this theory fifteen years ago. I was then entirely opposed to it; I argued against it again and again; but since then I have devoted myself unremittingly to natural history; in its pursuit I have traveled around the world. Facts in this science which before were inexplicable to me became one by one explained by this theory, and conviction has been thus gradually forced upon an unwilling convert.”
    The camera pulls out of the great hall. Dissolve to a close-up of a finch perched on the branch of a tree. A bearded man (Ronald Colman), kindly, dressed in rural gentleman’s hat and cape, but with a muffler despite the June weather, is staring lovingly up at the bird. He hardly seems