268 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but a similar disturbance is set up elsewhere. In Antrim, at the 

 middle of the tertiary epoch, there was a great center of physical 

 disturbance. We all know that at the present time the earth's crust, 

 at any rate, is quiet in Antrim, while the great centers of local dis- 

 turbance are in Sicily, in Southern Italy, in the Andes and elsewhere. 

 My experience of the British Association does not extend quite over 

 a geological epoch, but it does go back rather longer than I care to 

 think about; and when I first knew the British Association, the locus 

 of disturbance in it was the geological section. All sorts of terrible 

 things about the antiquity of the earth, and I know not what else, were 

 being said there, which gave rise to terrible apprehensions. The whole 

 world, it was thought, was coming to an end, just as I have no doubt 

 that, if there were any human inhabitants of Antrim in the middle of 

 the tertiary epoch, when those great lava streams burst out, they would 

 not have had the smallest question that the whole universe was going 

 to pieces. Well, the universe has not gone to pieces. Antrim is, 

 geologically speaking, a very quiet place now, as well cultivated a place 

 as one need see, and yielding abundance of excellent produce; and so, 

 if we turn to the geological section, nothing can be milder than the 

 proceedings of that admirable body. All the difficulties that they 

 .seemed to have encountered at first have died away, and statements 

 that were the horrible paradoxes of that generation are now the com- 

 monplaces of school boys. At present the locus of disturbance is to 

 be found in the biological section, and more particularly in the an- 

 thropological department of that section. History repeats itself, and 

 precisely the same apprehensions which were expressed by the abo- 

 rigines of the geological section, in long far back time, are at present 

 expressed by those who attend our deliberations. The world is coming 

 to an end, the basis of morality is being shaken, and I don't know what 

 is not to happen if certain conclusions which appear probable are to be 

 verified. Well, now, whoever may be here thirty years hence — I cer- 

 tainly shall not be — but, depend upon it, whoever may be speaking at 

 the meeting of this department of the British Association thirty years 

 hence will find, exactly as the members of the geological section have 

 found, on looking back thirty years, that the very paradoxes and 

 horrible conclusions, things that are now thought to be going to shake 

 the foundations of the world, will by that time have become parts of 

 every-day knowledge and will be taught in our schools as accepted 

 truth, and nobody will be one whit the worse. 



The considerations which I think it desirable to put before you, 

 in order to show the foundations of this conviction at which I have 

 very confidently arrived, are of two kinds. The first is a reason based 

 entirely upon philosophical considerations, namely, this — that the 

 region of pure physical science, and the region of those questions which 



