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and seldom physicists. To the mathematician it is all the same whether the 
sun or the earth is in the centre — the calculations would he just the same in 
either case. I believe, qua mathematics, that is so; but if you place 
the earth in the centre, you have no longer to place the sun at so very great 
a distance ; and the physical law which would serve to whirl the earth round 
the sun is a very different law to that which would be required to guide the 
sun round the earth. Of course I speak of this as not being an astronomer 
myself. The story of Newton’s apple I believe is a complete myth. Ten 
years before Newton put out anything about the theory of gravitation — and 
I speak from papers to be found in the Transactions of the Eoyal Society 
which I have already quoted in this Institute * — ten or twelve years before 
Newton wrote his Principia, papers were read upon the theory by both 
Halley and Hook ; and the story of the apple is even quite given up by 
Whewell in his History of the Inductive Sciences. It is in fact nothing more 
than an old nursery tale. As to the story of the steam of the tea-kettle 
being the origin of Watt’s steam-engine, I doubt that very much 
The Chairman. — I always understood that what Watt discovered was 
the use of the safety-valve. He saw the lid of the kettle moved up and down 
by the force of the steam, and found a way of applying it to the steam boiler 
which was then in use. 
Mr. Reddie. — But these are minor points. The other illustration which 
Mr. Garbett gives is as to the antiquity of man being reconcileable with the 
Scriptures ; and here I must again say that I think it was unfortunate that 
he should put forward these opinions, considering that the subject has been 
amply discussed here already. I think the best of the argument rests with 
those who deny that antiquity. If we admit that Adam was not the 
ancestor of the whole human race, we interfere very naturally with the 
Bible 
Mr. Titcomb. — I must vindicate Mr. Garbett on this point. He only said 
that antecedent to Adam there may have been other races, and not that all 
the members of the existing human race have not descended from Adam. 
Mr. Reddie.— That is a new idea. We have had many curious ideas with 
regard to the antiquity of man put forward, and this is another idea. I am 
always glad to hear these conflicting theories put forward, for they are utterly 
irreconcileable with each other ; and while the theorists are fighting with one 
another about them, we need not bring the Scriptures to bear on the subject 
until they agree with one another, which will not happen for a long time to 
come. An instance of extremely fallacious reasoning on quasi facts took 
place with regard to the fossil man of St. Denise, discovered in some debris 
connected with the Auvergne mountain cones- which were supposed to have 
been erupted long before the time of Noah’s flood. But in our Journal of 
* Vide Joum. of Trans, of Viet. Inst vol. i. p. 413 , ct seq. 
