This extract gives a description (or rather, several descriptions) of the famous encounter between T. H. Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at the British Association in 1860. Unfortunately, no full contemporary account of the affair exists, which may indicate that at the time it was not thought so important or so decisive as it later became in the retrospective accounts of the Darwinian party. It is significant that no one seems to be able to remember exactly what it was that Huxley said in his famous retort to the Bishop: ‘he stood before us and spoke those tremendous words - words which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could remember just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath, though it left us in no doubt as to what it was’, as one writer rather lamely puts it. In evaluating the significance of the incident, we must consider three main points: first, the attitudes of the contemporary press, the audience, and Wilberforce himself - did they think Huxley had scored a victory? Secondly, Wilberforce's status as a critic of Darwinism: was he really as ill-informed and unintelligent as his enemies made out, and did he have no right, as a clergyman, to speak on scientific matters? Thirdly, the aggressive nature of Huxley's defence of Darwin: what interest did he have in creating a myth of ‘warfare’ between science and religion?