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hands in all we do, and regulating our judgments in all that is 

 required for the purposes of every-day life. He went on to state 

 how without the sciences, and those arts and manufactures which 

 depend upon them for their success, we should have to fall back 

 upon the condition of those uncivilised races of men, who have no 

 knowledge of anything beyond what is wanted to supply the bare 

 necessaries of life. For all this, however, it was observed that 

 sometimes a particular science, geology perhaps, gets a hard name 

 given to it ; and geologists are sometimes charged with propounding 

 theories for which no sufficient evidence can be adduced, and with 

 overthrowing many of our old ideas and long cherished beliefs. 

 The first of these charges was met by a statement of the guarantees 

 we have for the truth of any new theory before we are called upon 

 to receive it. It was shewn in what way new discoveries were 

 ordinarily made, and how, especially when brought forward as 

 subversive of old views, they were subjected to the most unsparing 

 criticisms on all sides, so that any error or false reasoning was sure 

 to be detected. He alluded to Darwin's theory of the development 

 of species, adding that, if those outside the world of science knew, 

 not merely the multitude of reviews that have been written, and 

 criticisms passed on that theory, but the volumes of original 

 research that have been undertaken, and the immense number of 

 single observations and facts that have been brought forward, all 

 with the view of proving or disproving his assertions, they would 

 feel satisfied that no theory could stand such a searchmg ordeal as 

 that to which Darwin's has been put, and is still being put, without 

 having its truth or falsehood laid bare in the end. With respect 

 to the shock given by science in its advances to some of our old 

 beliefs, it was stated that this could hardly be otherwise. If 

 science is to advance at all, it must necessarily be continually 

 carrying us onward from one stand point to another, leaving in the 

 rear those who are not disposed to advance with it. Such persons 

 cannot but expect every now and then to be startled by the 

 announcement of some new discovery that shakes to the foundations 

 aU their old notions as regards the established order of things. 

 And the shock will be much increased at times by the circumstance 

 of their being always in the forward ranks of science a few far-seeing 



