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    Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life
    Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life
    Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life
    Ebook51 pages36 minutes

    Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life

    By Thomas Henry Huxley

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life

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      Book preview

      Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life - Thomas Henry Huxley

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent

      Types of Life, by Thomas H. Huxley

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life

      Author: Thomas H. Huxley

      Release Date: January 6, 2009 [EBook #2936]

      Last Updated: January 22, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY ***

      Produced by Amy E. Zelmer, and David Widger

      GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.

      By Thomas H. Huxley

      1

      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 all others; and if, notwithstanding her steady devotion to her own progress, she can scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it should be remembered that her charity is of the sort that does not impoverish, but blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

      Regard the matter as we will, however, the facts remain. Nearly 40,000 species of animals and plants have been added to the Systema Naturae by paleontologic research. This is a living population equivalent to that

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