294 Mr. Toulmin Smith, on the Formation 



On page 254, by citing the first three lines only of a para- 

 graph, I am made to appear to refer to a wholly different and 

 exactly opposite class of facts to that to which I do refer, and 

 my reference to which (p. 5) is left altogether unnoticed. I show 

 that shells are, in flints, found where they could not possibly 

 be found in sponges. Mr. BowerbanFs observations only fur- 

 ther show that, in recent sponges, they are actually found in a 

 wholly different place and manner to what they are found in 

 flints. On the same page, by reversing the use of italics, my 

 meaning is reversed. Mr. Bowerbank having alleged, in sup- 

 port of his theory, that one of the orifices of Echinites is always 

 found in one position, I show, from reference to individual facts, 

 the erroneousness of this generalization, and therefore of the spe- 

 cial inference to sustain which it was made ; nor can a smile at 

 the essential dogmas of inductive science lessen the force of those 

 observed facts. 



I nowhere deny or dispute, as throughout Mr. Bowerbank^s 

 paper I am represented as doing, the well-known fact — known to 

 every merest tyro in natural history — that corals and sponges 

 usually attach themselves to and grow upon rocks, stones, shells, 

 and other hard bodies. Such familiar facts it was unnecessary 

 to mention, either for the purpose of my argument or to prevent 

 my being misunderstood. The question is not, to what sponges 

 attach themselves, of which only all the cases cited by Mr. 

 Bowerbank are instances — but (as I have shown, p. 5), what 

 attach themselves to sponges. The cases instanced are moreover 

 cases of attachment, not of envelopment. In the cases of wood, 

 &c. it is really a question of penetration, not only of envelop- 

 ment. So that in each and every case Mr. Bowerbank has 

 missed the true point, and been arguing only with a chimsera of 

 his own creation. The important distinction between enveloping 

 and attaching to is throughout lost sight of. 



I nowhere suggest, as represented on page 258, the necessity 

 of thermal heat for the formation of flints, nor make the slightest 

 allusion to it. 



From smiling at the dogmas of inductive science my meaning 

 is again misrepresented at page 259 ; my point in the passage 

 cited being simply that, as I could show " some facts of external 

 forms" inconsistent with the sponge theory, the generalization 

 presented by that theory could not possibly be true, no universal 

 law admitting of exceptions. 



On page 260 I am alleged to " distinctly recognise the theory 

 of the gelatinous condition of flint," while the three lines just 

 before quoted from my paper most explicitly affirm the reverse ; 

 which view — the impossibility of the gelatinous nature of the fluid 

 — is throughout and in many places affirmed and endeavoui-ed to 



