NOTE A. (See p. 304.) PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LECTURE AT SION COLLEGE. In order to complete the history of this controversy, I shall here append the correspondence on the subject, as it appeared in the newspapers at the time. The following paragraph is extracted from the Record of the 25th of November, 1867 :— We have already directed attention to the lectures introduced to Sion College under the auspices of its president, the Rev. W. Rogers. Mr. Reddie (of the Victoria Institute), who was present on the occasion of Professor Huxley's lecture on Thursday evening, writes to us :— "Professor Huxley delivered an extempore discourse upon the divergence between the scientific and clerical mind, taking his text from the forty-first chapter of Genesis, relating to Joseph's promotion to ride in Pharaoh's second chariot.' The clergy were at first given to understand by the Professor that the pyramids stood upon mud, and, if so, that they would be very foolish to believe that the mud was put under the pyramids instead of that the pyramids were built over it; and a good deal more like this was said, 'which nobody can deny.' Of course, as the pyramids could not have floated upon mud, and as they are actually built by the intelligent Egyptians upon solid rock, the argument was not sublime; and perhaps I may say, without offence, that it was even almost superfluous. Many of Professor Huxley's arguments were equally simple; and it was frankly stated at the meeting that, perhaps, even the clergy' would admit nine-tenths of all he said.' But the remaining tenth (which probably not one of them would at least as easily admit) was but vaguely advanced against the Bible chronology, -if, indeed, as Mr. Simcox Lea very pertinently observed, there was anything new advanced at all. Still, the matter cannot honestly be left in this vague condition; and I enclose the copy of a letter I have just addressed to the President of Sion College, in hope of getting some more satisfactory discussion of what was insinuated, rather than argued or proved, at the very poor discussion last evening." The following is a copy of Mr. Reddie's letter to Mr. Rogers : "Bridge House, Hammersmith, W. "Nov. 22, 1867. "Rev. and dear Sir, I beg leave to forward to you, as I promised last evening, for the library of Sion College, the first volume and Nos. 5 and 6 of the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain; which Society was established for the express purpose of investigating fully and fairly, and discussing, such questions as Professor Huxley treated of last evening,-not in an ephemeral, half-andhalf way, as between hosts and guests, but as between men and men who cannot give, and do not ask, where they differ, for any intellectual quarter, on any plea of superiority or prejudice, on one side or the other; and which Society, as you will observe, prints what is said on both sides, so that there may be no waste of time, or mistakes about meaning, or any giving up arguments from Nile mud or anything else, unless they are fairly refuted. 6 "Permit me again to thank you for allowing me to be present, and to speak the few words I did last evening. You would observe that Professor Huxley did not answer my question as to whether he was prepared to adhere to the notion that the Atlantic ooze is simply a deposit,' as he called it ; nor did he tell us the supposed rate of its deposition, though he made that the sole criterion of the implied enormous time required for the chalk formations. I beg now to say, that, as Professor Huxley refused my challenge to set down his arguments in print, and to read them or allow them to be read and discussed, in the Victoria Institute, I shall at once write a reply to his discourse, which I shall be glad to read in Sion College within a week, if you will grant me this permission. But if not, then I shall print my reply, and take the liberty of distributing it among the members of Sion College, and also publish it, in order to go before the only tribunal' to which I last night ventured to summon Professor Huxley-namely, that of the intelligent and reading general public of this country. "I have the honour to be, Rev. and dear Sir, "J. REDDIE, "Hon. Sec. Victoria Institute." "The Rev. President ROGERS, Sion College, City." In the Record of the 26th of November, 1867, the following paragraph appeared : Mr. Reddie informs us, that the Rev. W. Rogers having replied to his letter which appeared in last Monday's Record, to the effect that it is not in his power to offer the use of the hall of Sion College for the purpose of answering Professor Huxley-the meetings there being all arranged by the Court, and a scheme drawn out from which he knows they are not prepared to deviate-he (Mr. R.) has replied as follows: "Victoria Institute, 9, Conduit Street, W. "Nov. 25, 1867. "Rev. and dear Sir,-In answer to your letter of the 23rd (received to-day), the decision in which I regret, I can only say that I have already written my reply to Professor Huxley, and it must be delivered somewhere. It would not, in my opinion, be honest towards the Christian public to allow such things as were spoken by Professor Huxley 'to be done in a corner,' and not answered. "I shall now consult the Council of this Society as to whether my reply may be read and discussed here; and you will observe from this evening's Record that I have made the matter juris publici. "I have the honour to be, Rev. and dear Sir, "J. REDDIE, "Hon. Sec. Victoria Institute." "To the Rev. President ROGERS, Sion College, City." Mr. Reddie adds, that the Council of the Victoria Institute have decided to appropriate a Special Meeting before Christmas for discussing this subject, of which Meeting due notice will be given. A gentleman who was present at Sion College, and took verbatim notes of the learned Professor's remarks, has kindly offered to place his notes at Mr. Reddie's service. NOTE B. (See p. 346.) REMARKS ON THE DISCUSSION, IN REPLY. BEFORE proceeding to notice the few issues arising upon the discussion of my Reply to Professor Huxley, which appear to require some explanation or answer, I beg leave first to be allowed to acknowledge the kind expressions of sympathy by the members of the Institute towards myself, under the sad circumstances which prevented my being present at the meetings in which my paper was read and discussed. I have also to thank the Rev. Dr. Thornton for kindly reading for me so long a paper, and for reading it—as I have been informed and as I expected-so very admirably. As regards the length of the paper itself, I must observe that it was written in answer to a discourse which occupied a very long time in delivery; and being a "reply" to what was spoken elsewhere, it was necessarily lengthened by the statement of my opponent's arguments in addition to my own. I may also point to the fact that a great number of distinct arguments required to be brought under discussion, each one of which might well have formed the subject of a separate paper; but I was in this obliged to follow Professor Huxley, in reply to whom I wrote. I must further premise that it was too much forgotten by some who took part in the discussion, that my paper is only a reply, and that it was not written to advance or establish arguments or propositions of my own, but to refute those advanced and propounded as established scientific doctrine by Professor Huxley. The question raised by Mr. Greig, therefore, as to whether geology is or can ever be a science, was beyond the scope of the controversy. He certainly ventured upon a strong expression when he said, "Geology is not science, it is pure conjecture;" and I am not surprised that Dr. Gladstone and others should demur to it. But, strangely enough, the learned Doctor himself did his best to establish the merely conjectural character of geological chronology-the only deductions of geology then under consideration, by himself rejecting "the hundreds of thousands of years which some of our friends speak about" (p. 362, antè), and à fortiori, therefore, rejecting Professor Huxley's "millions of years ;" and this he would surely not have dared to do, had these "millions" or hundreds of thousands of years" been deductions of science instead of the "merest conjecture." But in what respect, let me ask, are Dr. Gladstone's own views superior in character to those of Professor Huxley? Professor Huxley, at all events, thought each of his arguments cogent, and therefore that, taken altogether, they formed a cogent array of proof in favour of his conclusions. But Dr. Gladstone only advanced a series of arguments founded on controverted points, upon each of which he gave his own not very definite opinions; and then he added, "I do not say that any one of these arguments is conclusive in itself, but I contend that combined they afford a very strong proof," &c. (p. 361, antè); as if several nothings could amount to something, or a series of inconclusive arguments could compose a science, or ever become a very strong proof! 66 It is quite in keeping with this conjectural kind of evidence that Dr. Gladstone believed that Professor Huxley was "to a considerable extent misunderstood" by me, because (the Doctor also believed) a gentleman was present in the Victoria Institute better acquainted with the subject who would be able to show that to be the case! I suppose he referred to Professor Morris, or possibly to Mr. Row, who described one thing which he considered misquoted from Professor Huxley, as "abominable nonsense"! But it seems that neither of these gentlemen heard Professor Huxley's address, or were really any better acquainted with it than Dr. Gladstone. All who did hear the Professor's address testified that I had not misunderstood him. And even Dr. Gladstone, I am glad to find, afterwards qualified this strange argument from authority" by saying that he did not mean to state that I had misunderstood the main scope and purport of Professor Huxley's address, but merely some of its details. What these details might be we are not informed. But the two grand points which formed the scope and purport of Professor Huxley's address were discussed by Dr. Gladstone himself, and on both these points he differed entirely from Professor Huxley! I have already alluded to one of them—the geological chronology of hundreds of thousands and millions of years-which Dr. Gladstone "does not go to the extent of believing." The other was "Professor Huxley's error" (p. 347, antè), that there is an opposition between science and religion, and which he went to Sion College expressly to declare, but which Dr. Gladstone says is only the teaching of "the infidel halls of London." I might say more with reference to Dr. Gladstone's other remarks on this point, but I prefer to refer to our Journal of Transactions, vol. i. pp. 142, 144, where it will be found that what he said has been already answered. I must, however, agree with Dr. Gladstone as to false science being sometimes unfortunately preached from our pulpits. My quotations from the Saturday Review and from Mr. Warington (pp. 305, 306) explain how this comes about; and the foot-note on p. 36 of our first volume illustrates it still better. The gentleman there referred to, who boasted that he had “ taught the same geology for fifty years," is a scientific clergyman. The concluding words of my paper are actually a warning against this, which Dr. Gladstone appears to have overlooked. Professor Morris was very well answered by the Chairman, with reference to the Atlantic soundings; and he afterwards appears to distrust his own statement as to any "soundings" fourteen feet deep in the chalk! I doubt very much myself whether they penetrated the chalk-ooze to the extent of even four inches, in fetching up the specimens for microscopic investigation. On several points Professor Morris believes that I misunderstood Professor Huxley. But, if I did not, that only means that the two Professors are at issue on all such points just as other great geologists are known to be at issue-for 66 instance, Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Charles Lyell-as regards successive creations. Professor Morris is mistaken in supposing that "Professor Huxley alluded to twenty-nine or thirty distinct formations" marked by "distinct organic remains." (p. 356.) I alluded to there having been "once no less than twenty-nine supposed successions of life on this earth," which was a view advanced by M. d'Orbigny, and entertained for some time by many as geological science. Professor Huxley said nothing about it, or of any modifications of it subsequently, but mentioned only "three successions-three revivals." And why he spoke even of these, unless to suggest to his hearers the idea of three special creations, I do not understand; and yet it is notorious he does not believe in any new creations, or in such "revivals" or "successions" of distinct genera and species. He has distinctly said that those" appearances of new genera "may be the simple results of migration." (p. 331.) If, then, as would appear, Professor Morris does believe in "special creations," he is at issue with Professor Huxley; and their diverse opinions cannot both be "science." If the clergy unfortunately preach either view, they will be liable to be arraigned as clearly unscientific" by the adverse party; just as they have been by Dr. Gladstone in this discussion, without his telling us, however, what scientific theories they had propounded from the pulpit to his dissatisfaction. Professor Morris introduces some of the stock arguments of geology bearing upon man's antiquity, which appear to me anything but cogent. For instance :-There are no evidences of man's remains -no fragment of a canoe wrecked among the coral reefs of the Carboniferous period;—and therefore (it is argued) man did not then exist! Now apply this to the Atlantic chalk ooze. Before Columbus crossed the Atlantic (and if other unknown navigators did not precede him) there could, of course, be no coins, copper kettles, or anchor-stocks, or any other specimens of man's handiwork, dropt into the Atlantic and embedded in the ooze. And therefore (with equal want of cogency) it might be argued, that no men existed on the earth before Columbus, if the "evidence" depended upon the Atlantic chalk up to that date! And so there are no evidences of man's remains "among the Saurian bones of the lias." (p. 356.) Therefore (because Saurians lived in water and man on land,) man is proved not to be in existence anywhere, his remains not being found among Saurian bones! Then as regards Professor Morris's argument as to the antiquity of man's remains where they have been found in the valley of the Somme, I must refer to p. 174 of this volume of our Journal of Transactions, and what is there said as to these and the cognate "finds" in Auvergne. But I must hasten on, to notice the remaining adverse criticisms-those of the Rev. Mr. Row. I think I shall most effectually answer him, by submissively accepting the position of one of his boys, whom he, as head master of a grammar-school, had made to write out the whole book the boy had purported to quote from, and quoted inaccurately. (p. 350.) I purported to quote Professor Huxley, not Herodotus, in the passage which I regret called forth Mr. Row's very pungent remarks. I append the complete epitome of Professor Huxley's address, as it was taken down and sent to me by a |