in Answer to Mr Conyheare. 67 



has never read, may be equally dogmatical in reference to things 

 he has not studied ? I am censured, at the same time, for pre- 

 suming to differ from Baron Cuvier, and from all the most emi- 

 nent nlmes in geological research. I did not expect that my 

 iigld to judge would have been called in question. When the 

 page of Nature is accessible to me, I value the lesson which 

 it yields ; and, when backed by such authority, I dare to call 

 nonsense by its true name, even when uttered by a Cuvier or a 

 Conybeare. 



My opponent feels himself obliged by the " interests of scien- 

 tific truth,^' to object to my " estimate of the value of the evi- 

 dence derived from the Animal Kingdom, as to the former tem- 

 perature of the northern regions, as altogether insufficient and 

 superficial." Doubtless it was unnecessary, on the part of Mr 

 Conybeare, to have replied to such a paper, if the author had 

 no authority, and his statements no weight ; and still less neces- 

 sary to make the reply as lengthened as the original, if aU he 

 had to destroy was " superficial." It seems, however, that this 

 character attaches to my remarks, because I had been too much 

 under the influence of the inductive philosophy. I had, it would 

 appear, tried the value of the standard^ in the first place, by a 

 number of particulars with which I was acquainted, and which 

 injured its value, when I ought to have assumed the standard as 

 correct, and thereby been enabled to degrade my opposing/ac^5 

 to the rank of trifling exceptions. I was so much occupied, it 

 seems, in the examination of the particulars of the argument, 

 that I became insensible to the value of its cumulative character. 



But my object was to prove that the particulars in this ctmiu- 

 lative argument were of no value, because different species were 

 assumed as identical in distribution, when we only knew that 

 they resembled each other generally in structure. Now, it is 

 tliis general resemblance in structure which has induced Mr 

 Conybeare to conclude that all the analogies invariably lean one 

 ^vay,— all point to the "products of warmer climates as the only 

 beings with which the tenants of our strata hold affinity." Mr 

 Conybeare (as well as many other geologists of reputation who 

 have not attended to the first principles of zoology) does not 

 seem to be aware of the origin of this affinity, the character 

 of wiiich, on this accovnU, it seems necessary to state in this 



k2 



