Appendix. 297 



causes, it would surely have been impossible for Professor 

 Huxley to come to the strange conclusion that if all living 

 beings were blind and deaf, ' darkness and silence would 

 everywhere reign.' Had he not himself previously ex- 

 plained that light and sound are peculiar motions com- 

 municated to the vibrating particles of an universally 

 diffused ether, which motions, on reaching the eye or 

 ear, produce impressions which, after various modifica- 

 tions, result eventually in seeing or hearing? How these 

 motions are communicated to the ether matters not. 

 Only it is indispensable to note that they are not com- 

 municated by the percipient owner of the eye or ear, so 

 that the fact of there being no percipient present cannot 

 possibly furnish any reason why the motions should not 

 go on all the same. 



" But as long as they did go on there would necessarily 

 be light and sound ; for the motions are themselves light 

 and sound. If, on returning to his study in which, an 

 hour before, he had left a candle burning and a clock 

 ticking, Professor Huxley should perceive from the ap- 

 pearance of candle and clock that they had gone on 

 burning and ticking during his absence, would he doubt 

 that they had likewise gone on producing the motions 

 constituting and termed light and sound, notwithstanding' 

 that no eyes or ears had been present to see or hear? 

 But if he did not doubt this, how could he any more 

 doubt that, although all sentient creatures suddenly be- 

 came eyeless and earless, the sun might go on shining, 

 and the wind roaring, and the sea bellowing as before?" 

 Thornton's "Huxley ism? 



NOTE H. PAGE 287. 



It is important to observe that not a few of those who 

 strenuously maintain a doctrine of Evolution, (though not 

 Mr. Darwin's doctrine,) not a few even of Mr. Darwin's 



X 



