18671882] FLORA OF JAPAN 7 



of .r+y has been raised on the selfsame facts, you boo-boo. Letter 383 

 Take another dose of Huxley's penultimate G. S. Address, 1 

 and send George back to college. 



To J. D. Hooker. Let t e r 384 



Feb. 3rd [1868]. 



I am now reading Miquel on Flora of Japan? and like 

 it : it is rather a relief to me (though, of course, not new 

 to you) to find so very much in common with Asia. I 

 wonder if A. Murray's 3 notion can be correct, that a [profound] 

 arm of the sea penetrated the west coast of N. America, 

 and prevented the Asiatico-Japan element colonising that 

 side of the continent so much as the eastern side ; or will 

 climate suffice ? I shall to the day of my death keep up 

 my full interest in Geograph. Distribution, but I doubt whether 

 I shall ever have strength to come in any fuller detail than in 

 the Origin to this grand subject. In fact, I do not suppose 

 any man could master so comprehensive a subject as it 

 now has become, if all kingdoms of nature are included. I 

 have read Murray's book, and am disappointed though, 

 as you said, here and there clever thoughts occur. How 



1 Huxley's Anniversary Address to the Geological Soc., 1869 (Collected 



Essays, VIII., p. 305). This is a criticism of Lord Kelvin's paper "On 



Geological Time" (Trans. Geolog. Soc. Glasgow, III.). At p. 336 Mr. 



Huxley deals with Lord Kelvin's " third line of argument, based on the 



temperature of the interior of the earth." This was no doubt the point 



most disturbing to Mr. Darwin, since it led Lord Kelvin to ask (as 



quoted by Huxley), " Are modern geologists prepared to say that all 



life was killed off the earth 50,000, 100,000, or 200,000 years ago ? " Mr. 



Huxley, after criticising Lord Kelvin's data and conclusion, gives his 



conviction that the case against Geology has broken down. With regard 



to evolution, Huxley (p. 328) ingeniously points out a case of circular 



reasoning. " But it may be said that it is biology, and not geology, 



which asks for so much time that the succession of life demands vast 



intervals ; but this appears to me to be reasoning in a circle. Biology 



takes her time from geology. The only reason we have for believing 



in the slow rate of the change in living forms is the fact that they persist 



through a series of deposits which, geology informs us, have taken a long 



while to make. If the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will 



have to do is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change accordingly." 



3 Miquel, " Flore du Japon " : Archives Neerlandaises ii., 1867. 



3 Geographical Distribution of Mammals, by Andrew Murray, 1866. 



See Chapter V., p. 47. See Letter 379. 



