Wilberforce fired at Huxley, enquiring as to whether “it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey?”
Huxley’s cutting reply: “If then the question is put to me whether I would rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.”