318 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the controversy began was the sworn lover of freedom. Hence 

 it came about that Geology, the science which deals not in warm 

 life and lovely colours, but in mud and stones and bones and old 

 refuse, obtained a predominance and a publicity which it could 

 not otherwise easily have secured. Persons of candid mind would 

 naturally wish to hear both sides of an exciting question. Persons 

 of pre-occupied mind would still sometimes wish to see for them- 

 selves what nonsense the geologists were writing. Of course it 

 was foolish of them, for if a man has made up what he calls his 

 mind he ought never to hear the other side. But anyhow, through 

 wisdom or through folly, by degrees the light of truth was enabled 

 to penetrate some of the darkest corners of prejudice, and the 

 process still continues. 



For truth to win any lasting and valuable victory, it is essen- 

 tial that contradictory opinions should be brought face to face. 

 Facts so opposed that they cannot be true together should be 

 confronted one with another, and the antagonism of each to each 

 made manifest and expressly declared. Now, the men of science, 

 with rare exceptions, make no claim from the scientific point of 

 view to know what goes on in Heaven or in Hades; but, as 

 I understand the matter, they are modestly certain that our globe 

 has lasted for hundreds of thousands of years ; that within the 

 human period the whole of its surface has never been submerged 

 at once ; that no human being ever lived to the age of nine 

 hundred years; that the human species began quite otherwise 

 than with an abruptly created pair; that no woman was ever 

 formed of a rib taken from the side of a man ; that no serpent 

 ever spoke with human voice to tempt a woman, or for any other 

 purpose ; that no warrior, however noble or sacred his cause, ever 

 stayed for a single instant the cosmical motion of earth, or moon, 

 or sun ; that the rainbow has exhibited the colours of the solar 

 spectrum to living eyes capable of perceiving them in absolute 

 independence of any terrestrial inundation, past or future ; and 

 that the diversity of human languages, due to causes still in 

 operation, has been the result of gradual divergence, not of any 

 sudden supernatural intervention. But again, as I understand 

 the matter, a large body of our pastors and masters, of men who 

 have a prescriptive right and a splendid vantage-ground for 

 teaching morality and religion, deny in these respects what the 



