SUPPLEMENT TO THE INTRODUCTION. 
xCcl 
much good, brought some inevitable evils in its train. Men became committed to opinions: 
and at length hardly any broad question could be discussed without coming into collision 
with some published book—English or Foreign; or without running counter (it might be) 
to the supposed interests of some scientific body. Hence, by inevitable necessity, the dis- 
cussions of the Geological Society, while they improved in variety and accuracy of knowledge, 
became less joyous, less liberal, and less truth-loving in their spirit. To prevent the risk 
of mischief, the Council seem now resolved to wage war upon all discussions and can- 
vassing of opinions, on points which they themselves wish to regard as settled. Such a 
resolution, if carried out, might abate one evil: but it would introduce another far more 
deadly. For true physical progress is hardly ever made without previous discussion; and 
often is but the gradual and legitimate triumph of one, over many conflicting opinions. 
I cannot be accused of a very precocious spirit of controversy. Perhaps I deserve 
blame for a fault of a directly opposite spirit. When at length, in 1852, I vindicated, 
in a Paper read before the Geological Society, my classification and nomenclature of the 
older Paleozoic rocks, more formally than I had ever done before, my statements were 
received with downright mockery; and, in the discussion that followed, offensive doggerel 
took the place of solid argument. In due time, however, the Paper, after going 
through every previous formality, was printed and published in the Quarterly Journal 
of the Geological Society. What then followed? The Council, at its next meeting, 
resolved (I believe unanimously) that the number of the Journal should be withdrawn 
from circulation, till the offending Paper had been struck out of it! This was a useless 
as well as an ignorant and bitter insult. Too many copies of the Paper had been sold 
to admit of its suppression by any decree of the Council. They had a full right to put 
their previous veto against the printing of the Paper, but they had not done so. And 
what was the Paper that provoked this unprecedented insult? If I called it “a clear and 
temperate vindication of my own labours and the justness of my nomenclature;” and were 
I to add “that so long as the Geologists of Europe employ a geographical nomenclature 
I have the right of a real priority in thought and research and the claims of a sound 
philosophy in my inductions, and am entitled to erect the Cambrian rocks (as I have done in 
the offending Paper) into an independent series equal in value to the Silurian ;”—I might, in 
using such words, be accused of egregious self-praise; but they are not my own words—they 
are the very words which express the unprejudiced opinion of one of the greatest of living 
Geologists: but he was not a member of the Council, nor is-he a native of this country. 
When again, in the autumn of 1852, I brought before the Society, along with my 
friend M*Coy, a short and plain statement of facts respecting a group to which we applied 
the old name of May Hill Sandstone—shewing its distinction from the lower group (Caradoc 
with which it had been confounded—the Paper was opposed by all who took part in the 
discussion ; but they all allowed the importance of the Paper if our statements were correct. 
We only were responsible for the facts; and the Paper (from the critical nature of its subject 
ought to have been printed without any unnecessary delay. But it came in collision with 
m2 
