828 
And now it might well be supposed I have said enough, and 
that it is time to put the question, Have I answered Professor 
Huxley, or not ? Well, I think I may claim to have shown 
that his 1,100 feet of chalk may have taken much less time to 
deposit 5 ' than even the mud of the Nile ! His million of 
years for the chalk may have been less than half a single cen- 
tury ; and there is not any reason to suppose that when the 
nummulites lived in the ocean they were less prolific than the 
foraminifera. But he had one other argument still to complete 
his sorites. His arguments in detail may have broken down. 
But there were the arguments when all put together, and 
from all the strata heaped up and cumulating upon one 
another. — Let us now then look at this ; namely 
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE SUPERIMPOSED STRATA AND 
THEIR FOSSIL REMAINS. 
There was first the time required for the deposit of the mud. 
Before that, there was the time required for the formation of 
the nummulitic limestone ; and before that, the time for each 
of the long series of geological formations which preceded the 
chalk ; then the more than a million years required for the 
chalk alone. And even if we find, that we may reduce the 
period for the chalk to half a century, and so the time for each 
of the other formations in detail, with greater ease than the 
time required to lay down the superincumbent mud ; still we 
are also required to observe, how these strata all come in suc- 
cession, after and upon one another, and now we must count 
up the times required for all that. Not only so, but the 
learned Professor wound up his discourse in the following 
words, enunciating what must have been generally regarded 
as the most startling of the scientific doctrines which he put 
forth in Sion College,— I mean startling merely because 
enunciated by Professor Huxley,— for even it was “nothing 
really new 55 : — 
“ There is positive proof (he said) of three successions, of three revivals of 
the living inhabitants of this world. Do we not see then the unknown pre- 
vious duration of this earth ? ” 
Afterwards he concluded his discourse as follows : 
“ These views, of which I as the Minister of Science am the exponent 
to-night, are held by men who are as Christian in motive and practice 
as you. These doctrines are held by men who think deeply and who have 
children to come after them, whom they desire to instruct wisely. They are 
held by the best of men ; they are held out of no wantonness or irreverence or 
eccentricity. They are held by men who seek to discover to themselves and 
