ii.] THE PEBBLES IN THE STREET. G3 



Snowdonia was upheaved by any means or at any rate 

 which we do not witness now ; and therefore we are 

 bound to allow, not only that there was a past " age of 

 ice," but that that age was one of altogether enormous 

 duration. 



But meanwhile some of you, I presume, will be ready 

 to cry Stop ! It may be our own weakness ; but you 

 are really going on too fast and too far for our small 

 imaginations. Have you not played with us, as well 

 as argued with us, till you have inveigled us step by 

 step into a conclusion which we cannot and will not 

 believe ? That all this land should have been sunk 

 beneath an icy sea ? That Britain should have been 

 as Greenland is now ? We can't believe it, and we 

 won't. 



If you say so, like stout common-sense Britons, 

 who have a wholesome dread of being taken in with 

 fine words and wild speculations, I assure you I shall 

 not laugh at you even in private. On the contrary, I 

 shall say what I am sure every scientific man will 

 say So much the better. That is the sort of audience 

 which we want, if we are teaching natural science. 

 We do not want haste, enthusiasm, gobe-moucherie, 

 as the French call it, which is agape to snap up any 

 new and vast fancy, just because it is new and vast. 

 We want our readers to be slow, suspicious, conserva- 

 tive, ready to " gib," as we say of a horse, and refuse 

 the collar up a steep place, saying I must stop and 

 think. I don't like the look of the path ahead of me. 

 It seems an ugly place to get up. I don't know this 

 road, and I shall not hurry over it. I must go back 

 a few steps, and make sure. I must see whether it is 

 the right road ; whether there are not other roads, a 



