APPENDIX. 



On Darwin's theory of Coral Islands. 



THE psychological origin of this theory of Darwin casts 

 a strong light on the scientific quality of his own mind. 



If we examine the essay in which he presents his theory, 

 we find, that he invokes, to explain Coral Islands, the 

 subsidence of the ivhole oceanic area in which they are 

 found. And if we ask, what are his grounds for making 

 this assumption, objecting to acquiesce in his astonishing 

 demand, he tells us, that "as whole regions are now 

 "rising, for instance, in Scandinavia and South America, 

 " and as no reason can be assigned why subsidences should 

 " not have occurred in some parts of the earth on as great 

 " a scale both in extent and amount as those of elevation, 

 "objections" (to the amount of the subsidence) "strike 

 "me as of little force." That is to say, that because he 

 believes, on evidence so scanty as to be positively ridicu- 

 lous*, in slow continuous rising in one place, he invents 

 subsidence, on a far more colossal scale, in another, to 

 account for Coral Islands. But then, subsidence was one 



a The Scandinavian elevation of Lyell has turned out doubtful 

 in the extreme, not to say fictitious : while the S. American elevation 

 was based on a handful of misinterpreted earthquake phenomena on 

 the coast. From a little dubious almost imperceptible alteration on 

 the shore, Darwin leaped joyfully to the conclusion that the uhole 

 continent was in process of being permanently elevated ! 



