SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE. 213 



"With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, deluges, etc.], terrible as they 

 appear at the time, they may not much affect the average rate of change : there 

 may be a cycle, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change ; and if such 

 cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still call the order of Nature uniform, 

 notwithstanding the periods of violence which it involves.* 



The reader who has followed me through this brief chapter of 

 the history of geological philosophy, will probably find the following 

 passage in the paper of the Duke of Argyll to be not a little remarkable : 



Many years ago, when I had the honor of being President of the British As- 

 sociation,t I ventured to point out, in the presence and in the hearing of that 

 most distinguished man [Sir 0. LyellJ that the doctrine of uniformity was not 

 incompatible with great and sudden changes, since cycles of these and other 

 cycles of comparative rest might well be constituent parts of that uniformity 

 which he asserted. Lyell did not object to this extended interpretation of his 

 own doctrine, and, indeed, expressed to me his entire concurrence. 



I should think he did ; for, as I have shown, there was nothing in it 

 that Lyell himself had not said six-and-twenty years before, and en- 

 forced three years before ; and it is almost verbally identical with the 

 view of uniformitarianism taken by Whewell, sixteen years before, in 

 a work with which one would think that any one who undertakes to 

 discuss the philosophy of science should be familiar. 



Thirty years have elapsed since the beginner of 1856 persuaded 

 himself that he enlightened the foremost geologist of his time, and 

 one of the most acute and far-seeing men of science of any time, as to 

 the scope of the doctrines which the veteran philosopher had grown 

 gray in promulgating ; and the Duke of Argyll's acquaintance with 

 the literature of geology has not, even now, become sufficiently pro- 

 found to dissipate that pleasant delusion. 



If the Duke of Argyll's guidance in that branch of physical sci- 

 ence, with which alone he has given evidence of any practical acquaint- 

 ance, is thus unsafe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opinion 

 against the authoritative deliverances of his Grace about matters which 

 lie outside the province of geology. 



And here the duke's paper offers me such a wealth of opportunities 

 that choice becomes embarrassing. I must bear in mind the good old 

 adage " non multa sed multum." Tempting as it would be to follow 

 the duke through his labyrinthine misunderstandings of the ordinary 

 terminology of philosophy, and to comment on the curious unintelli- 

 gibility which hangs about his frequent outpourings of fervid language, 

 limits of space oblige me to restrict myself to those points, the dis- 

 cussion of which may help to enlighten the public in respect of mat- 

 ters of more importance than the competence of my Mentor for the 

 task which he has undertaken. 



I am not sure when the employment of the word Law, in the sense 



* " Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," vol. i, p. 670. New edition, 1847. 

 f At Glasgow in 1856. 



