"An unreflecting and implicit faith is as fruitful of error as too 
bold a spirit of curiosity can be." 
INTRODUCTION. 
♦ 
The following Essay having been written some months ago 
for the Victorian Royal Society, and handed to its President 
for perusal before its submission to the Council of the Society, 
that gentleman expressed his hope that it would be read on 
a stated day of meeting of the Society, and " be dealt with 
in manner conducive to the interests of science, and at the 
same time satisfactory to its author," — who had protested 
against the pooh-poohing of such subjects as the physical cause 
of the recession of the sea, and apparent rise of the land, on the 
coasts of Australasia, by a member of the Council of the 
Society, who had asserted that "such changes were common, 
and easily understood," without any attempt on his part to 
explain them. With this protest before them the Council 
of the Society rejected the paper. 
But if learned societies decline to discuss unaccepted 
opinions, based on researches in nature, either because they 
are opposed to those held and taught by some of their 
members, or else fear that they may compromise themselves 
as a body, by seeming for a time to endorse views which are 
not put forth by an acknowledged scientific authority, but 
can only be tested by such a searching inquiry as it is in 
their power to institute, it becomes evident that they are 
falling away from the end proposed in their institution, and, 
instead of aiding, render themselves real impediments to the 
advance of science. The writer, desiring that his opinions 
