6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion, it does not much matter how he gets there. For in this "just " 

 account of the Creation I have shown that M. Reville supports his 

 accusation of scientific error by three particulars {N. C. p. C89) : that 

 in the first he contradicts the judgment of schohars on the sense of the 

 original ; in the second he both misquotes (by inadvertence) the terms 

 of the text, and overlooks the distinction made so palpable (if not 

 earlier) half a century ago, by the work of Dr. Buckland, * between 

 bara and asa / while the third proceeds on the assumption that there 

 could be no light to produce vegetation, except light derived from a 

 visible sun. These three charges constitute the head and front of M. 

 Reville's indictment against the cosmogony ; and the fatal flaws in 

 them, without any notice or defense, are now all taken under the 

 mantle of our science proctor, who returns to the charge at the close 

 of his article (p. 459), and again dismisses with comprehensive honor 

 as "wise and moderate" what he had ushered in as reverent and just. 

 So much for the sweeping, undiscriminating character of an advocacy 

 which, in a scientific writer, we might perhaps have expected to be 

 carefully limited and defined. 



I take next the exaggeration which appears to me to mark un- 

 happily Professor Huxley's method. Under this head I include all 

 needless multiplication of points of controversy, whether in the form 

 of overstating differences, or understating agreements, with an ad- 

 versary. 



As I have lived for more than half a century in an atmosphere of 

 contention, my stock of controversial fire has perhaps become ab- 

 normally low ; while Professor Huxley, who has been inhabiting 

 the Elysian regions of science, the eclita doctrind sapientdm templa 

 sercna,\ may be enjoying all the freshness of an unjaded appetite. 

 Certainly one of the lessons life has taught me is, that where there is 

 known to be a common object, the pursuit of truth, there should also 

 be a studious desire to interpret the adversary in the best sense his 

 words will fairly bear ; to avoid whatever widens the breach ; and to 

 make the most of whatever tends to narrow it. These I hold to be 

 part of the laws of knightly tournament. 



I do not, therefore, fully understand why Professor Huxley makes 

 it a matter of objection to me that, in rebuking a writer who had 

 treated evolution wholesale as a novelty in the world, I cited a few 

 old instances of moraland historical evolution only, and did not ex- 

 tend my front by examining Indian sages and the founders of Greek 

 philosophy (P. /iS'. 31. p. 454). Xor why, when I have spoken of physical 

 evolution as of a thing to me most acceptable, but not yet in its rigor 

 (to my knowledge) proved (N. C. p. 705), we have only the rather 

 niggardly acknowledgment that I have made " the most oblique ad- 



* " Bridgewater Treatise," vol. i. pp. 19-28. Chap. i. : "Consistency of Geological 

 Discoveries with Sacred History." 



f Lucr. ii. 8. (Serene heights raised by the learning of the wise.) 



