I 3 6 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. V. 
the progressiveness of the Creation, proved by geologists, 
he remarked : “ Let man be placed in the early periods of 
the earth ; deprive him of oxen, horses, and all domestic 
animals ” (you know that none are to be found in the 
limestone) ; “ put him to live among the crocodiles and 
mammoths, and he would die.” ’ ” 1 
In a course of Bampton Lectures preached at St. Mary’s, 
Oxford, in 1833, the British Association was attacked as 
mischievous and absurd ! The attack induced Buckland 
to write to Mr. W. Vernon Harcourt:— 
“ In my humble opinion it is highly expedient for the 
interests of the Association and of the University that you 
should take up the subject in a manner which no man can 
do as well as yourself, to set the question at issue before 
the public on its right footing.” 
The attitude which was assumed by many theologians 
towards science, and especially towards geology, was at 
this time exceedingly hostile. Nor did the Professor escape 
attack. “ Buckland is persecuted,” writes Baron Bunsen 
to his wife in April 1S39, “by bigots for having asserted 
that among the fossils there may be a pre-Adamite species. 
‘ How! ’ say they; ‘is that not direct, open infidelity? 
Did not death come into the world by Adam’s sin ? ’ I 
suppose then that the lions known to Adam were originally 
destined to roar throughout eternity ! ” 
It was about this time that Buckland was asked by the 
rector of the parish in which William Smith was born, 
if the geologist was not an ignorant old humbug. On 
another occasion, when he was stating some geological 
1 “ Life and Work of Mary Carpenter,” by J. Estlin Carpenter. 
