Guessing at Half and Multiplying ~by Two 345 



which he has glanced over without comprehending 

 its import, but from which lie has contrived to 

 glean some statement calculated to edify his audi 

 ence and scatter the hosts of Midian. In point of 

 fact, the identification of bathybius with sulphate 

 of lime was set down by Sir Wy ville Thomson only 

 as a suspicion, to which Huxley, like a true man of 

 science, at once accorded all possible weight, while 

 leaving the question open for further discussion. 

 Only a mountebank, dealing with an audience upon 

 whose ignorance of the subject he might safely 

 rely, could pretend to suppose that the fate of the 

 doctrine of evolution was in any way involved in 

 the question as to the organic nature of bathybius. 

 The amazing strategy was all Mr. Cook s own, 

 and the haughty trumpeting appears to have been 

 chiefly done with his own very brazen instrument. 

 I said a moment ago that Mr. Cook s system of 

 quotation is peculiar. The following instance is 

 so good that it will bear citing at some length. 

 According to Mr. Cook, Professor Huxley says, in 

 his article on Biology in the ninth edition of the 

 &quot; Encyclopaedia Britannica : &quot; &quot; Throughout al 

 most the whole series of living beings, we find 

 agamogenesis, or not-sexual generation&quot; After 

 a pause, Mr. Cook proceeded in a lower voice : 

 &quot;When the topic of the origin of the life of our 



