PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE WAR-PATH. 6 5 



malia lived, and fed, and were destroyed. This gravel stretches 

 up the valley of the Thames, till it reaches elevations eight hun- 

 dred and fifty feet above the level of the sea.* It contains peb- 

 bles, washed, rolled, and translated all the way from the rocks of 

 the Ardennes. This alone records a depression of the land great 

 enough to swamp, not only the greater part of Europe, but the 

 greater part of the habitations of man all over the globe. Prof. 

 Prestwich expressly connects these gravels with great changes 

 in physical geography, and with the destruction of the older or 

 " Pliocene mammalia." 



It is impossible in these pages to treat this subject in detail. I 

 have dealt with it at all and of necessity in the merest outline 

 only because the confident assertions of a man so eminent as Prof. 

 Huxley are apt to intimidate young inquirers, and to keep up in 

 their minds the fatal preconceptions of spurious authority. But 

 they should remember that though Prof. Huxley is a distinguished 

 expert in biology in all its branches, including paleontology, he 

 enjoys no similar authority in dynamical or stratigraphical geol- 

 ogy. Ne sntor ultra crepidam. Still less can he, or indeed any 

 other man, be allowed to browbeat our reason in coming to those 

 conclusions which men of even ordinary understanding are per- 

 fectly competent to draw from facts which others have ascer- 

 tained. 



There are many miscellaneous things in Prof. Huxley's article 

 on which I have no space to comment. It reminds me of a witty 

 description once given of a favorite but somewhat barbaric Scotch 

 dish the boiled head of a sheep " There's a lot of fine confused 

 feeding upon't." A few of these miscellaneous morsels may be 

 tasted in the mean time. Prof. Huxley makes a very lofty claim 

 for Science. It belongs to her, he tells us, to deal with the prob- 

 lem "of the origin of the present state of the heavens and the 

 earth," and also that of " the origin of man among living things." 

 "The present state" are limiting words which make the claim 

 somewhat ambiguous. " The present state " of the earth certainly 

 belongs to history, and much of it to very recent history indeed ; 

 and so with regard to the origin of man, if it be equally limited to 

 his "present state." The present state of the members of the 

 Royal Society would be an inquiry not necessarily leading us 

 very far into the past. But if the " origin of their species among 

 living beings" be intended, then science has hitherto offered no 

 suggestion, except that they are all descendants from " some arbo- 

 real creature with pointed ears." Science has a good deal to do 

 yet if the task assigned to her by Prof. Huxley is ever to be com- 

 pleted. Another boast goes very near to the assertion that to sci- 



* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, May, 1890, p. 140. 

 vol. xxxix. 7 



