416 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



pacity. The extensive diffusion of the work in question 

 forbids its being treated with silence and contempt, but 

 it is a positive and great misfortune, when the task of 

 answering such works is taken up by zealous but in- 

 competent men. This happened to a great extent in 

 the memorable instance of Gibbon's History, and he 

 gained an easy and pernicious victory over several 

 inferior scholars and feeble reasoners who hurried into 

 the fray. It is true, as you have remarked, that both 

 in England and Scotland the Church is adorned by men 

 competent to deal with the scientific questions at issue, 

 but he must be a bad churchman, whether in England 

 or Scotland, who is not thankful for the appearance in 

 the field of such a lay auxiliary as yourself. I have no 

 right further to occupy your time with my own ac- 

 knowledgments for pleasure and instruction received. 



' P.S. A fortnight since, after finishing your volume, 

 I left it in the hands of an old and valued friend, who, 

 now in his 83rd year, at the close of a life of public 

 service and activity, is much addicted to such studies as 

 prepare him for another. He had read with pleasure a 

 well-meant but somewhat superficial work of Dr Wise- 

 man's, and I thought I was supplying him with some- 

 thing better. The following is an extract I have just 

 received from him : " I wish I were knowing in geo- 

 logy, but unknowing as I am, it is not often I meet 

 with books so intensely interesting as I have found 

 Hugh Miller. It is a pleasure reading him, and scarcely 

 a less pleasure to think and reflect upon what he has 

 written. His work has caused me to reflect more than 

 almost any work I have ever read. It warms one's 

 heart to find such a true believer. It astonishes me 

 how a man of his antecedents can have taught himself 



