154 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY IV 



sequent meeting of the Association, being impor- 

 tuned about the subject, I ventured to express 

 somewhat emphatically, the wish that the thing 

 was at the bottom of the sea. 



What is meant by my being caught by a 

 generalisation about the physical basis of life I 

 do not know ; still less can I understand the as- 

 sertion that Bathybius was accepted because of its 

 supposed harmony with Darwin's speculations. 

 That which interested me in the matter was the 

 apparent analogy of Bathybius with other well- 

 known forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia 

 of the Myxomycetes and the Rhizopods. Specu- 

 lative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the 

 matter ; and if Bathybius were brought up alive 

 from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow, the 

 fact would not have the slightest bearing, that I 

 can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or 

 upon any of the disputed problems of biology. It 

 would merel} 7 be one elementary organism the 

 more added to the thousands already known. 



Up to this moment I was not aware of the 

 universal favour with which Bathybius was re- 

 ceived. 1 Those simulators of an " ignorant mob " 

 who, according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed 



1 I find, moreover, that I specially warned my readers against 

 hasty judgment. After stating the facts of observation, I add, 

 " 1 have, hitherto, said nothing about their meaning, as, in an 

 inquiry so difficult and fraught with interest as this, it seems to 

 me to be in the highest degree important to keep the quest Join 

 of fact and the questions of interpretation well apart" (p. 210). 



