His position definitely changed in regard to Darwinism from 1877 onward. At the Scientific Congress that was then held at Munich I had, at the pressing request of my Munich friends, undertaken the first address (on 18th September) on "Modern Evolution in Relation to the whole of Science." In this address I had substantially advanced the same general views that I afterwards enlarged in my _Monism_, _Riddle of the Universe_, and _Wonders of Life_. In the ultramontane capital of Bavaria, in sight of a great university which emphatically describes itself as Catholic, it was somewhat bold to make such a confession of faith. The deep impression that it had made was indicated by the lively manifestations of assent on the one hand, and displeasure on the other, that were at once made in the Congress itself and in the Press. On the following day I departed for Italy (according to an arrangement made long before). Virchow did not come to Munich until two days afterwards, when he delivered (on 22nd September, in response to entreaties from people of position and influence) his famous antagonistic speech on "The Freedom of Science in the Modern State." The gist of the speech was that this freedom ought to be restricted; that evolution is an unproved hypothesis, and ought not to be taught in the school because it is dangerous to the State: "We must not teach," he said, "that man descends from the ape or any other animal." In 1849, the young Monist, Virchow, had emphatically declared this conviction, "that he would never be induced to deny the thesis of the unity of human nature and its consequences"; now, twenty-eight years afterwards, the prudent Dualistic politician entirely denied it. He had formerly taught that all the bodily and mental processes in the human organism depend on the mechanism of the cell-life; now he declared the soul to be a special immaterial entity. But the crowning feature of this reactionary speech was his compromise with the Church, which he had fought so vigorously twenty years before. The character of Virchow's speech at Munich is best seen in the delight with which it was at once received by the reactionary and clerical papers, and the profound concern of all Liberal journals, either in the political or the religious sense. When Darwin read the English translation of the speech he--generally so gentle in his judgments--wrote: "Virchow's conduct is shameful, and I hope he will some day feel the shame." In 1878, I made a full reply to it in my _Free Science and Free Teaching_, in which I collected the most important press opinions on the matter.[6]