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for his constant demands for the illimitable periods of time 
which constitute the whole of his geological chronology. 
I have already called attention to his utter silence as to 
the well-known differences there are, and ever have been, as 
regards the chronology of Genesis. I must also notice his 
tone throughout, as if there were absolute certainty in every 
professedly scientific conclusion he chose to urge against the 
Bible. The omission to state fully his opponents' case, was as 
nothing to the still more one-sided manner in which he advo- 
cated the views of the mere 'party whom he truly represents. 
Those ominous warnings to the clergy, to remember that the 
Bible chronology must yield to the certainty of scientific 
opposition, followed by his but ill- sustained appeal to the 
Nile-mud and some of the sedimentary rocks, are not without 
a parallel, which as a scientific man he ought himself to have 
kept in mind, and perhaps, with the perfect candour he pro- 
fessed, to have brought to the remembrance of his audience. 
Surely Professor Huxley has not already forgotten the same 
kind of ominous warnings, in Dr. Temple's and Mr. Goodwin's 
contributions to the Essays and Reviews. True the Mosaic 
cosmogony of “ the Hebrew Descartes " was not then said to 
be in danger from mud and chalk, or the latest scientific con- 
victions of Professor Huxley. But the danger was declared to 
be quite as imminent ; the warning, quite as peremptory, was 
boldly put in print ; and it was the hot-fused granite of 
Laplace that was then to pour destruction upon the earth 
and waters as created in Genesis ! And how has the old- 
fashioned world passed through that fiery ordeal, and with- 
stood “the jostling" with which it was threatened “from 
sturdy growths of thought " ? Most bravely, as you know ! 
Where is now the “ scientific doctrine " of the Essays and 
Revieius? — the doctrine that regarded this earth as “once 
fluid with intense heat, spinning on its own axis and revolv- 
ing round the sun " ? Was ever any doctrine regarded as 
more absolutely “ certain " ? Some of the well-meaning clergy 
actually believed it to be scientific truth ! For in the Replies 
to Essays and Reviews , one writer, who is both clergyman and 
astronomer, considered it even “ important to observe that the 
earth was once in a fluid state !" And yet, in 1864, Sir 
Charles Lyell, as President of the British Association at Bath, 
described this important doctrine as merely a “ theory " that 
was “ altogether delusive ! " And so, too, it will probably be 
with Mr. Huxley's mud and chalk theories, and the millions of 
years he demands of our faith, for his uncreated, bottomless 
deposits. As yet he has not even attempted any proof so 
imposing as that which Laplace put forward, as mathematical 
