The story was told in colorful: Sidgwick 1898.

Even though there are many versions: For example, the Press reported on July 7: “[The Bishop] asked the professor [Huxley] whether he would prefer a monkey for his grandfather or his grandmother.” Huxley himself had written to his friend Dr. Frederick Dryster on September 9, 1860: “except indeed the question raised as to my personal predilections in the matter of ancestry . . . If then, said I, the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means and influence and yet who employs those faculties for mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.” The letter is in The Huxley Papers, 15, 117 (London: Imperial College); it is cited in Foskett 1953.

Historian of science James Moore: Moore 1979, p. 60.

“I do not suppose that”: Huxley 1909 [1869], p. 335–36.

“We find that we may”: Tait 1869.