AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 163 



■ At Eschscholtz Bay, on Kotzebue Sound, in latitude 66° 15,' 

 Kotzebue discovered in 1818 a cliff of frozen mud and ice " capped 

 by a few feet of soil bearing moss and grass." * Large numbers of 

 bones of the "mammoth., bison (?), reindeer, moose-deer, musk-ox, 

 and horse, were found " at the base, where tbey had fallen down 

 from the cliff during the summer thaw. Sir Edward Belcher and 

 Mr. G. B. Seeman afterward visited the same spot and corrobo- 

 rated Kotzebue's account. From their report it was evident that 

 the conditions in northern Alaska are very similar to those in 

 northern Siberia, where so many similar remains of extinct and 

 other animals have been found in the frozen soil. The section 

 described at Eschscholtz Bay seems to be simply the edge of the 

 tundra which is so largely represented in the central portions of 

 the Territory. 



AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER 



By Prof. T. H. HUXLEY, F. E. S. 



THE concluding paragraph of the Bishop of Peterborough's 

 reply to the appeal which I addressed to him in the penulti- 

 mate number of this review, leads me to think that he has seen a 

 personal reference where none was intended. I had ventured to 

 suggest that the demand that a man should call himself an infidel, 

 savored very much of the flavor of a " bull " ; and, even had the 

 Right Reverend prelate been as stolid an Englishman as I am, I 

 should have entertained the hope, that the oddity of talking of the 

 cowardice of persons who object to call themselves by a nickname, 

 which must in their eyes be as inappropriate as, in the intention 

 of the users, it is offensive, would have struck him. But, to my 

 surprise, the bishop has not even yet got sight of that absurdity. 

 He thinks, that if I accept Dr. Wace's definition of his much-loved 

 epithet, I am logically bound not only to adopt the titles of infidel 

 and miscreant, but that I shall " even glory in those titles." As I 

 have shown, " infidel " merely means somebody who does not 

 believe what you believe yourself, and therefore Dr. Wace has a 

 perfect right to call, say, my old Egyptian donkey-driver, Nooleh, 

 and myself, infidels, just as Nooleh and I have a right to call him 

 an infidel. The ludicrous aspect of the thing comes in only when 

 either of us demands that the two others should so label them- 

 selves. It is a terrible business to have to explain a mild jest, and 

 I pledge myself not to run the risk of offending in this way again. 

 I see how wrong I was in trusting to the bishop's sense of the 

 ludicrous, and I beg leave unreservedly to withdraw my misplaced 

 confidence. And I take this course the more readily as there is 



* See Prestwich's " Geology," vol. ii, p. 463 el scq. 



