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XXXVII. Beplij to Mr. R. C. Taylor's Remarks on the 'Hy- 

 pothesis o/Mr. Robberds on the former Level of the German 

 Ocean. By J. W. Robberds, Esq. Jun.* 

 TN originating the inquiry respecting tlie Eastern Valleys of 

 -*- Norfolk, my avowed object was, not to contend for victory, 

 but to elicit truth. As this end can only be attained by fair 

 and liberal discussion, it is highly satisfactory to nie that m}' 

 observations have called forth the remarks of Mr. R.C.Taylor. 

 Willingly and with pleasure I acknowledge the candour by 

 which the comments of my " fellow-traveller" have been di- 

 rected ; nor do I believe that he intentionally withdrew from 

 the guidance of the same just and honourable feeling, when at 

 the conclusion of his strictures he condemned me for attempt- 

 ing to deduce general principles from " assumptions founded 

 on the limited co7isiderations of local operations." This charge 

 can only have arisen from a misconception of my line of ai'gu- 

 ment ; for, not only did I in my introductory statement point 

 out, as one of the laws of investigation which I prescribed to 

 myself^ that local circumstances could only be of importance 

 as far as they belonged to a chain of connected evidence, and 

 that they must be " included in a wider survey of correlative 

 cases," in order to " establish a leading general principle in 

 some branch of physical science," — but at the close of my book 

 I again distinctly asserted, that " no general principle can be 

 established by a solitary isolated fact;" and that I should, 

 therefore, according to the second law of investigation which 

 I had laid down, proceed hereafter to compare and connect 

 the changes in the Eastern Valleys of Norfolk with numerous 

 observations made on the shores of every ocean. These pas- 

 sages must have been overlooked by Mr. Taylor, or I am sure 

 that he would have refrained from preferring against me an 

 accusation, which I had shown so much anxiety to avert. My 

 observations were undoubtedly confined to a particular di- 

 strict ; but my inference was equally restricted within the same 

 limits. The general principle I left to be deduced from a ge- 

 neral survey of corresponding cases ; and I must still consi- 

 der this to be the safest, the most satisfactory, and the most 

 conclusive train of reasoning : — first, to select some local fact; 

 to examine it in all its bearings, and submit it to the severe 

 scrutiny of modern science; and then to ascertain how it is 

 adapted to that universal frame of which it is an essential and 

 integral part. 



Such is the course of inquiry which I had marked out, and 

 in which the short treatise that I published last year is only 



* Comniunicated by the Author. 



the 



