1887 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 15 



"Christianity is essentially miraculous, and falls to 

 the ground if miracles be impossible." He was 

 uncompromisingly opposed to any accommodation 

 with advancing knowledge, or with the high standard 

 of veracity, enforced by the nature of their pursuits, 

 in which Huxley found the only difference between 

 scientific men and any other class of the community. 



But it was not merely this misrepresentation of 

 science on its speculative side which Huxley deplored ; 

 he was roused to indignation by an attack on its 

 morality. The preacher reiterated the charge brought 

 forward in the "Great Lesson," that Dr. Murray's 

 theory of coral reefs had been actually suppressed 

 for two years, and that by the advice of those who 

 accepted it, for fear of upsetting the infallibility of 

 the great master. 



Hereupon he turned in downright earnest upon 

 the originator of the assertion, who, he considered, 

 had no more than the amateur's knowledge of the 

 subject. A plain statement of the facts was refuta- 

 tion enough. The new theories, he pointed out, had 

 been widely discussed ; they had been adopted by 

 some geologists, although Darwin himself had not 

 been converted, and after careful and prolonged re- 

 examination of the question. Professor Dana, the 

 greatest living authority on coral reefs, had rejected 

 them. As Professor Judd said, " If this be a 

 ' conspiracy of silence,' where, alas ! can the geological 

 speculator seek for fame 1 " Any warning not to 

 publish in haste was but advice to a still unknown 



