THE AGE OP THE EARTH AS AN ABODE FITTED FOR LIFE.' 



By tbe Kiglit Hou. Lord Kelvin, G. C. Y. O. 



1. The age of the earth as an abode fitted for life is certaiuly a sub- 

 ject wliich hirgely interests mankind in general. For geology it is of 

 vital and fundamental importance — as important as the date of the 

 battle of Hastings is for English historj'^ — yet it was very little thought 

 of by geologists of thirty or forty years ago ; how little is illustrated by 

 a statement,^ which I will now read, given originally from the presi- 

 dential chair of the Geological Society by Professor Huxley in 1869, 

 when for a second time, after a seven years' interval, he was president 

 of the society. 



"I do not suppose that at the present day any geologist would be 

 found * * * to deny that the rapidity of the rotation of the earth 

 may be diminishing, that the sun may be waxing dim, or that the earth 

 itself may be cooling. Most of us, I suspect, are Gallios, 'who care for 

 none of these things,' being of opinion that, true or fictitious, they have 

 made no practical difference to the earth, during tlie period of which a 

 record is preserved in stratified deposits." 



2. I believe the explanation of how it was possible for Professor 

 Huxley to say that he and other geologists did not care for things on 

 which the age of life on the earth essentially de[)ends is because he 

 did not know that there was valid foundation for any estimates worth 

 considering as to absolute magnitudes. If science did not allow us to 

 give any estimate whatever as to whether 10 million or 10 billion years 

 is the age of this earth as an abode fitted for life, then I think Professor 

 Huxley would have been perfectly right in saying that geologists should 

 not trouble themselves about it, and biologists should go on in their 

 own way, not inquiring into things utterly beyond the power of human 

 understanding and scientific investigation. This would have left geol- 

 ogy much in the same position as that in which English history would 

 be if it were impossible to ascertain whether the battle of Hastings 

 took place 800 years ago, or 800 thousand years ago, or 800 million 



'The 1897 annual address of the Victoria Institute, with additions written at 

 different times from June to December, 1897. Printed in Victoria Institute Trans- 

 actions. 



^In the printed quotations the italics are mine in every case, not so the capitals 

 in the (luotatiou from Page's Text-Book. 



SM 97—22 337 



