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.