Geological Contemporaniety and Persistent Types of Life | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Amy E. Zelmer. This etext is based on^M
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/GeoC.html^M

GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES
OF LIFE.*
by Thomas H. Huxley

[footnote] *The Anniversary Address to the Geological Society for
1862.
MERCHANTS occasionally go through a wholesome, though
troublesome and not always satisfactory, process which they term
"taking stock." After all the excitement of speculation, the pleasure of
gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up his mind to face facts
and to learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid and reliable
possessions.
The man of science does well sometimes to imitate this procedure; and,
forgetting for the time the importance of his own small winnings, to
re-examine the common stock in trade, so that he may make sure how
far the stock of bullion in the cellar--on the faith of whose existence so
much paper has been circulating--is really the solid gold of truth.
The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to be an
occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kind--for an inquiry, in
fact, into the nature and value of the present results of paleontological
investigation; and the more so, as all those who have paid close
attention to the late multitudinous discussions in which paleontology is
implicated, must have felt the urgent necessity of some such scrutiny.
First in order, as the most definite and unquestionable of all the results
of paleontology, must be mentioned the immense extension and
impulse given to botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy, by the
investigation of fossil remains. Indeed, the mass of biological facts has
been so greatly increased, and the range of biological speculation has
been so vastly widened, by the researches of the geologist and
paleontologist, that it is to be feared there are naturalists in existence
who look upon geology as Brindley regarded rivers. "Rivers," said the
great engineer, "were made to feed canals"; and geology, some seem to
think, was solely created to advance comparative anatomy.
Were such a thought justifiable, it could hardly expect to be received
with favour by this assembly. But it is not justifiable. Your favourite
science has her own great aims independent of