I 82 HUXLEY 



lation of truth from God," and the "great founda- 

 tion-chapter of the entire Scriptures, New as well as 

 Old." After defending the astounding theory of the 

 creation of something out of nothing, he contended 

 that the fourfold order of the appearance of living 

 things set forth in the Hebrew cosmogony is con- 

 firmed by " natural science." He cited a few anti- 

 quated authorities, the greatest among these being 

 Cuvier. But, as Huxley pointed out — 



Cuvier has been dead more than half a century ; 

 and the palaeontology of our day is related to that of 

 his very much as the geography of the sixteenth 

 century is related to that of the fourteenth. Since 

 1832, when Cuvier died, not only a new world, but 

 new worlds of ancient life, have been discovered, and 

 those who have most faithfully carried on the work 

 of the chief founder of palaeontology have done most 

 to invalidate the essentially negative grounds of his 

 speculative adherence to tradition. If Mr. Glad- 

 stone's latest information on these matters is derived 

 from the famous discourse prefixed to the " Ossemens 

 Fossiles" I can understand the position he has taken 

 up ; if he has ever opened a respectable modern 

 manual of palaeontology or geology, I cannot. For 

 the facts which demolish his whole argument are of 

 the commonest notoriety. 1 



Concerning the controversy, " It was not," Sir 

 Mountstuart Grant-Duff said, " so much a battle as a 

 massacre." Nevertheless, after annihilation, as it 



1 Coll. Essays, iv. p. 144. 



